What a Crypto SIP calculator should show you

Why "what will I earn" is the wrong question to start with

Most SIP calculators open by asking for your expected annual return. You are the one supplying that number, and you do not know it. Type in 12 percent and the calculator hands back a precise-looking figure built on your guess, because nobody can tell you what crypto does next.

The four numbers below need no guess from you. They come from your own contribution, a published fee, and the tax code. Virtual Digital Asset is the Income Tax Act's name for crypto, and those rules are statute. They hold whether the market rises, falls, or sits flat that month.

That leaves a calculator with a narrower job. It accounts for what leaves your pocket on the way in, using numbers you already have. The cadence and cost-averaging mechanics sit outside that, in how a crypto SIP works.

The four numbers a correct calculator tracks

Your contribution

This is the amount you send in, on whatever cadence you picked. Weekly SIPs start at ₹500. Monthly SIPs start at ₹2,000. That ₹2,000 floor is the per-index minimum for a Crypto Index.

Any calculator starting below those floors is modelling a SIP you cannot open. Your contribution doubles as your cost of acquisition later, meaning what you paid to get in. Setting up the cadence is a separate job, covered in how to set up a recurring crypto investment.

How many units it bought

Each contribution buys units at that day's price. Those units are what you hold between now and the day you sell, so the unit count belongs on screen next to the rupee total.

Today's contribution can only be priced at today's unit price. Tomorrow's price is unknowable, so any screen projecting a unit count months out has filled in a number nobody has.

A fee on every transaction

Buying into a Crypto Index, selling out of it, and each rebalance all carry the same charge: 0.35 percent of the amount moved. That is the transaction fee. On a ₹2,000 monthly SIP installment, it comes to ₹7. No annual management fee sits on top of it.

Skip that line and the contribution figure on screen overstates what goes to work. Twelve monthly installments of ₹2,000 put ₹24,000 in motion. Of that, ₹84 goes to the transaction fee, before any tax is calculated.

Tax, on the day you sell

Most calculators skip this number entirely. Your own sale of the index is the taxable event.

Selling triggers 1 percent TDS on the transaction value, which is tax held back at the point of sale under Section 194S. It leaves before the proceeds reach you, and before you file anything.

At filing, the gain itself is taxed at a flat 30 percent under Section 115BBH. A 4 percent health and education cess applies on top of that tax, so the effective rate on your gain is 31.2 percent. The gain is your sale amount minus your cost of acquisition, the amount you contributed. Fees paid along the way sit outside that subtraction and generally cannot reduce the taxable gain. Any tool that folds them into the deduction overstates what you keep.

Run the math yourself on one real cadence

Take a ₹2,000 monthly SIP into a Crypto Index for a year. Contribution: ₹24,000. Fee at 0.35 percent per installment: ₹7 a month, ₹84 for the year. Both numbers hold whatever the market does, because the terms fix them in advance.

The tax number needs one input you will not have until the day you sell: the sale amount itself. Put any figure in and the arithmetic runs to the rupee.

Say your units come to ₹30,000 on the day you sell. Your gain is ₹30,000 minus the ₹24,000 you contributed, so ₹6,000. Thirty percent of that gain is ₹1,800. The 4 percent cess adds ₹72. Your liability on the sale is ₹1,872.

Part of it has already gone. One percent of the ₹30,000 sale value, so ₹300, was withheld as Section 194S TDS before the money reached you. It counts against your bill when you file, which leaves ₹1,572 still to pay.

Swap ₹30,000 for whatever your own screen shows and every figure moves with it. If the sale comes back a loss, that loss cannot be set off against any other income, and it cannot be carried into next year.

No return figure enters that arithmetic anywhere. You run it on the day you sell, with the sale number in front of you. The same tax mechanics set against a mutual fund SIP's treatment sit in does a crypto SIP save tax like a mutual fund SIP.

What a calculator hides when it skips straight to a return

Put one question to the calculators that show only a projected return: what happens to that number if the return is zero. Few can answer it, because the fee and the tax were never separate lines. They were baked into one optimistic curve.

A four-number calculator answers it without trouble, because none of those numbers depend on the market cooperating. Gains of any size meet the same 30 percent flat tax, with the cess on top of it. Whether the market moves or not, the transaction fee still applies.

You can price a SIP before you open one, then price it again on the day you sell. What it earns on the way is the one number no calculator knows.

Frequently asked questions

Does a crypto SIP calculator show tax automatically?

Most do not. Tax under Section 115BBH only applies on the day you sell. A calculator built around a running projection has nothing to show until you enter a sale date.

What rate should a calculator apply to my gain?

A flat 30 percent under Section 115BBH, plus a 4 percent health and education cess, which works out to 31.2 percent of the gain. The rate is the same whether you held the index for a month or for five years.

Is the transaction fee charged every month or only at sale?

It applies to every purchase, sale, and rebalance, so a monthly SIP pays it on each installment.

Can I deduct the transaction fee from my crypto gains at tax time?

Generally no. Under Section 115BBH, only the cost of acquisition is deductible, meaning what you paid to acquire the asset. Fees paid on the way in are typically not part of that figure. More detail sits in how TDS on crypto works in India.

Does a losing SIP still owe TDS?

TDS under Section 194S is withheld on the transaction amount at the time of sale. It applies whether that sale is a gain or a loss. The loss itself cannot be set off against other income.

Why should a calculator leave out a projected return?

Because a projection depends on a market forecast nobody can make. Contribution, units, fee and tax are fixed by your own inputs and by statute.

Crypto investments are subject to market risk. Not financial advice.