Lumpsum vs STP
The classic dilemma: deploy a lump sum all at once, or spread it over a few months via an STP to "average out". Here's the honest answer side by side — including the interest your un-deployed cash earns while it waits, which most calculators quietly ignore.
Educational tool — not investment advice. Figures are estimates based on your inputs, not predictions. Details
Drag this negative to test "what if the market falls while I'm staggering in?" — the one case where STP usually wins.
Final corpus on the same ₹ pool:
—
—
Intuition says staggering is safer and therefore better. The maths usually disagrees. Because markets rise more often than they fall, money put in earlier spends more time growing — so investing a lump sum all at once has historically beaten staggering the majority of the time. The default scenario above shows this: lumpsum edges ahead.
An STP earns its keep when the market falls during the months you're deploying. Then averaging in means buying more units at lower prices, and you come out ahead. Drag the "market return during the stagger" slider negative and watch STP overtake. So the real choice isn't "which is better" — it's "do I expect a rough patch right after I invest, and how much regret would a sharp drop cause me?"
While your money waits to be deployed in an STP, it isn't idle — it sits in a liquid or debt fund earning a few percent. We include that interest, which slightly narrows lumpsum's lead. It's a small detail, but ignoring it overstates the case for investing everything at once.
These are smoothed projections on your assumptions, not forecasts. Markets don't move in straight lines, and neither figure is guaranteed. Educational only, not advice.
Questions
On average, investing the lump sum all at once has historically won, because money invested earlier is exposed to market growth for longer. Staggering (STP) tends to produce a slightly lower return but reduces the risk of investing right before a fall. The right choice depends on your view of the near-term market and your tolerance for regret.
To reduce sequence risk and regret. If the market drops sharply just after you invest a large sum, a lumpsum hurts badly; an STP would have averaged in at lower prices. It trades some expected return for downside protection during the deployment window.
Yes — it normally sits in a liquid or debt fund earning a few percent until each tranche is deployed. This calculator includes that interest, which most lumpsum-vs-STP tools leave out.
It's assumption-driven: you set the expected returns, including the market return during the staggering window so you can stress-test a dip. It is not a live-data backtest, and the figures are estimates, not advice.