Inflation Calculator

How it works

Fixed rate: price level = (1 + i)^t · buying power = amount ÷ (1 + i)^t · amount needed = amount × (1 + i)^t · CPI: value = amount × CPI(to year) ÷ CPI(from year) · average rate = (end ÷ start)^(1 ÷ years) − 1

Inflation compounds like interest in reverse: each year’s price rise builds on the last. With a fixed rate, i is the average yearly inflation rate and t the number of years, and the calculator shows what an amount will buy later and how much you would need then to buy the same things. The US CPI option uses the official Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (annual averages, 1913–2025) instead of an assumed rate: dividing the index in one year by the index in another gives the change in prices between them, so $1 in 1970 (CPI 38.8) equals about $8.30 in 2025 (CPI 321.943). The two-prices option works backwards: from a price then and a price now it finds the steady yearly rate that connects them. Under More options you can add the return your savings earn to see whether they keep up with inflation.

Worked example

At 3% inflation, $1,000 today buys only about $744.09 worth of goods in 10 years, and you would need $1,343.92 then to buy what $1,000 buys now: prices rise 34.4%. With US CPI data, $1,000 in 2000 (CPI 172.2) is worth $1,000 × 321.943 ÷ 172.2 = $1,869.59 in 2025 dollars, an average of 2.53% a year. A price that went from $100 to $134.39 over 10 years rose about 3.0% a year on average.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Consumer Price Index

Frequently asked questions