How much SIP does it take to reach ₹1 crore?
The answer depends on three things: how many years you have, the return you expect, and whether your contribution stays flat or grows each year. The calculator below works out the monthly SIP for any combination, and the grid further down shows the common scenarios at a glance.
Required monthly SIP at a glance
For the target you entered above and the step-up rate selected. Change either input to recalculate the grid.
| Years | 10% return | 12% return | 14% return |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | ₹48,818 | ₹43,471 | ₹38,600 |
| 15 | ₹24,128 | ₹20,017 | ₹16,508 |
| 20 | ₹13,169 | ₹10,109 | ₹7,686 |
| 25 | ₹7,537 | ₹5,323 | ₹3,710 |
Default grid shown is for ₹1 crore at 0% step-up.
What ₹1 crore is actually worth in 25 years
A nominal corpus and a real corpus are very different things. At 6% average inflation, ₹1 crore reached 25 years from now has the purchasing power of roughly ₹23 lakh in today’s money. That doesn’t invalidate the goal, but it does mean the actual target you should plan against, in today’s rupees, is often higher than ₹1 crore.
For a 25-year horizon, a more honest version of the crorepati goal is something like “build a corpus with the future purchasing power of ₹50-70 lakh today”. The headline number changes; the SIP needed changes with it.
Why step-up changes the answer so much
A flat SIP is a contract with your present salary; a step-up SIP is a contract with your future salary. At 12% return, the same time horizon, and the same target:
- 15 years, ₹1 crore, no step-up: roughly ₹20,000 a month.
- 15 years, ₹1 crore, 10% annual step-up: roughly ₹11,500 starting amount.
The cash you part with in year one is almost half. By the end of year 15, the monthly contribution is higher than the flat plan would have been, but by then your income has typically grown too.
Is this realistic?
₹15,000-25,000 a month is a meaningful but not unreachable commitment for many salaried earners over a 15-20 year horizon. The arithmetic is almost never the binding constraint. The binding constraint is staying invested through downturns — a 20-year SIP only delivers if it actually runs for 20 years.
The most common failure mode for crorepati plans isn’t a return assumption that turned out 2 percentage points too low. It’s a paused SIP in year 4 that never restarted.
FAQs
How much SIP do I need to reach ₹1 crore in 10 years? ▾
At a 12% expected annual return and no step-up, you need roughly ₹43,500 per month for 10 years to reach ₹1 crore. At 14% the requirement drops to about ₹38,800, and at 10% it climbs to about ₹48,800. A 10-year horizon makes the goal heavily dependent on contribution size, not time.
How much SIP do I need to reach ₹1 crore in 20 years? ▾
At 12% annual return, a flat SIP of about ₹10,100 per month reaches ₹1 crore in 20 years. With a 10% annual step-up starting from a smaller amount, the requirement is meaningfully lower. The 20-year horizon is where compounding does most of the work.
Can I reach ₹1 crore with a ₹5,000 monthly SIP? ▾
Yes, but it needs time. A flat ₹5,000 SIP at 12% return takes around 27 years to reach ₹1 crore. With a 10% annual step-up the same starting amount reaches it in roughly 21 years. Time and step-up matter more than the starting figure for small SIPs.
What return rate is realistic to assume? ▾
Long-term equity mutual fund CAGR has historically been in the 10-14% range. 12% is a common working assumption. It is worth running the calculation at 10% as well: the difference between 10% and 12% over 20 years changes the required SIP by roughly a third.
Does step-up SIP really change the answer? ▾
Significantly. Holding the final corpus and time horizon constant, a 10% annual step-up roughly halves the starting SIP needed compared with a flat plan. Step-up tracks the way real income grows, which is why it is easier to sustain than a single large monthly commitment.
Is ₹1 crore actually enough to be wealthy in 25 years? ▾
Inflation is the catch. ₹1 crore in 25 years, at 6% inflation, has the purchasing power of about ₹23 lakh today. The "crorepati" label is a milestone, not a finish line. If your real goal is to fund retirement or a major life event, the target in today's rupees should be revised upward and re-projected.