Inflation Calculator

How to use the inflation calculator

Enter the amount you want to convert and the from year it belongs to. Set the to year you want to compare against, and an average annual inflation rate for the period. The large readout shows the equivalent value — what that money would be worth in the later year — and the cells below break out the total dollar increase and the overall percentage change.

Try different rates to bracket your estimate: long-run US inflation has averaged roughly 3% a year, but individual stretches run much hotter or cooler. You can also run the years in reverse to see what a future amount was worth in the past. Use the export buttons to download the summary as CSV or Excel, print it to PDF, or copy a link that reopens the calculator with your exact numbers.

How it works and what the number means

Inflation compounds, just like interest. The calculator grows your amount by the average annual rate, once for each year between the two dates: adjusted = amount × (1 + rate)^years. Because the rate applies on top of the previous year’s already-inflated total, prices rise faster the longer the span — a few percent a year adds up to a large gap over decades.

This uses a single average rate rather than the actual year-by-year history, so it’s an approximation, not an official index figure. Real purchasing power also depends on which goods and services you buy, since they don’t all rise at the same pace. Treat the result as an educational way to compare values across time rather than an exact, authoritative conversion.