NPV & IRR Calculator
Project appraisal with net present value, IRR and payback.
Enter the investment, your cost of capital and the expected cash flows. We will discount them, solve for IRR and find the payback point.
NPV answers the question directly
A positive net present value means the project earns more than your cost of capital, so it adds value. That is the decision rule. IRR is useful context, not a substitute.
Why IRR can mislead
Where cash flows change sign more than once, IRR can have several mathematically valid answers. It also implicitly assumes reinvestment at the IRR itself, which is rarely true for a high-return project. Where NPV and IRR disagree on ranking, follow NPV.
How IRR is solved here
There is no closed-form solution, so the rate is found by bisection on the NPV function. That converges reliably for any cash flow pattern with a single sign change, unlike faster methods that can diverge.
Payback is a liquidity test
It ignores everything after break-even and ignores the time value of money entirely. Use it to check exposure, never to rank projects.