Seven tools.
Zero cost. Zero bias.
Every calculator, decoder, and tracker on this site is free, independent, and built for one purpose: helping Canadians understand exactly what their XEQT investments are doing and what they could be doing better.
Why we built these tools
Most Canadian investors have no idea what their bank is actually charging them, how their contribution room works, or what a disciplined XEQT strategy looks like over time. The financial industry benefits enormously from that opacity. We don't.
Every tool on this page is designed to make something invisible visible: fee drag that compounds into six figures, RRSP room that sits unused for years, or the simple reality of what $500 a month in XEQT has actually returned since inception. None of these tools give financial advice. All of them give you the information you need to have a much better conversation with yourself, your partner, or your financial planner.
Use them in sequence or jump to whichever one matches where you are right now. If you are new, start with the Investor Quiz to orient yourself, then run the Fee Audit to understand what your current setup is costing you. If you are already invested in XEQT, the Growth Calculator and NOA Decoder are the two highest-value tools for optimising your position and account strategy.
XEQT Growth Calculator
Model any contribution schedule. See the compound curve.The XEQT Growth Calculator answers the single most important question in long-term investing: if I contribute a set amount regularly, what does it actually compound to? The tool lets you set your starting balance, monthly contribution, expected annual return, and time horizon, then renders a live SVG chart showing the growth curve alongside the total amount you contributed.
What makes this tool useful is not just the final number. It is the shape of the curve. Compound growth is not linear, and most people have never seen their own numbers rendered visually. The gap between what you put in and what comes out is the compounding effect, and seeing it as an area chart is more persuasive than any written explanation.
The output also shows you the cost of fees side by side: your result at XEQT's 0.20% MER versus a hypothetical 2.10% bank mutual fund MER using the same inputs. The fee drag over 20 or 30 years is typically the most striking number on the page.
- 1 Enter your current XEQT balance — or start from zero if you are not yet invested.
- 2 Set your monthly contribution — this is the amount you plan to invest each month, consistently.
- 3 Choose a return assumption — the tool defaults to 7% annually, roughly in line with XEQT's historical average after fees.
- 4 Set your time horizon — how many years you plan to hold.
- 5 Read the chart and the fee comparison — the projected portfolio value is shown alongside what you would have if you were paying 2.10% MER instead.
Best for: Anyone starting out or reviewing their contribution plan. Particularly useful for couples deciding on a shared monthly investment amount.
Open Projection ToolPortfolio Fee Audit
Enter what you own. See what fees are costing you in dollars.The Portfolio Fee Audit is the most confrontational tool on this site. You enter your current holdings, whether they are bank mutual funds, ETFs, or a mix, along with their respective MERs. The tool calculates the exact dollar amount those fees will cost you over 10, 20, and 30 years, then shows what the same portfolio would be worth at XEQT's 0.20% MER.
The gap is almost always shocking. A $100,000 portfolio in a 2.10% MER mutual fund costs approximately $127,000 more in fees over 25 years than the same amount in XEQT. That is not a rounding error. That is a house deposit, a car, or several years of retirement income that quietly disappears into management fees without the investor ever seeing a line item for it.
The audit does not tell you to sell anything. It shows you a number. What you do with that number is up to you. Many users find it useful to share the output with their advisor or use it as the starting point for a conversation about account consolidation.
- 1 Enter each holding by name — you can add as many positions as you have.
- 2 Enter the MER for each holding — you can find this on your fund's fact sheet or by searching the fund name plus "MER" on the fund company's website.
- 3 Set your expected annual return — the tool uses this to project both scenarios forward.
- 4 Review the 10, 20, and 30-year fee drag — shown in dollars, not percentages.
- 5 See the XEQT comparison — the tool shows the difference in final portfolio value if you had held XEQT instead.
Best for: Anyone currently in bank mutual funds, balanced funds, or any actively managed product. The output is most powerful when you already have a significant balance, but it works at any amount.
Open Fee Reveal Tool
Historical Returns
Calculator
Pick any date since August 2019. See what actually happened.
Most investment calculators use projected returns. This one uses real ones. The Historical Returns Calculator lets you pick any date since XEQT's inception in August 2019, enter an investment amount, and see exactly what it would be worth today based on actual price history. No assumptions, no projections, no adjustments.
This tool is particularly useful for two audiences: people who are worried about buying at the wrong time, and people who want to understand what staying invested through a drawdown actually looks like in dollar terms. The COVID crash of March 2020, for example, saw XEQT drop roughly 30% in five weeks. An investor who bought in January 2020 and held through that drop would still be substantially ahead today.
The tool also models monthly contributions starting from your chosen date, showing what a consistent dollar-cost averaging approach would have returned versus a single lump sum. For many Canadians, this comparison is the single most reassuring piece of data available about long-term passive investing.
- 1 Select your hypothetical purchase date — any month from August 2019 to the present.
- 2 Enter your investment amount — the tool defaults to $10,000 but any amount works.
- 3 Choose lump sum or monthly contributions — the monthly DCA option shows what regular investing would have returned.
- 4 Read the actual return — shown as both a dollar value and a percentage, based on real XEQT price data.
- 5 Compare the scenarios — see how timing affected the outcome and whether staying invested mattered.
Best for: Investors anxious about market timing, or anyone who wants to see the real-world impact of staying invested through volatility.
Open Actual Data Tool
CRA Notice of Assessment
Decoder
Three numbers from your NOA. A full account room overview.
Every spring, millions of Canadians receive their Notice of Assessment from the CRA and have no idea what to do with it. The NOA Decoder is an educational tool that takes three numbers from your return, total income, RRSP deduction limit, and available TFSA room, and shows you what those numbers mean in plain language for your XEQT account strategy.
The tool is not financial advice. It is financial context. It shows you approximately how much RRSP room you have, what your estimated marginal tax bracket means for the value of an RRSP contribution, and whether your TFSA or RRSP deserves attention first at your income level. It also flags the FHSA for eligible first-time buyers, which remains one of the most underused accounts in Canada.
All calculations are estimates based on 2024 federal and provincial tax bracket data. The tool covers all 13 provinces and territories and uses your selected province to look up the appropriate combined marginal rate. It is not a substitute for a tax professional, but it is a strong starting point for anyone who has never connected their tax return to their investment account strategy.
- 1 Find Line 15000 on your NOA — this is your total income before deductions.
- 2 Find Line 26500 — this is your RRSP deduction limit, your cumulative available RRSP room.
- 3 Log into CRA My Account to find your TFSA room — it does not appear on the NOA itself.
- 4 Select your province and enter the three numbers — the tool handles the rest.
- 5 Review the account overview — showing estimated RRSP tax impact and which accounts have available room.
Best for: Anyone who has received their NOA and wants to understand how their income and account room connect to their XEQT investment strategy.
Open Tax Education Tool
What Type of XEQT Investor
Are You?
Five questions. A personalised reading list and starting point.
XEQT is a single ticker but its investors are not a single type. A 26-year-old opening their first TFSA needs different information than a 52-year-old trying to decide whether XEQT still makes sense inside their RRSP. The Investor Quiz identifies which type of XEQT investor you are in five questions and gives you a personalised reading path from the guide library.
The four investor types are: the Beginner, who is still building their foundational understanding and needs clarity on the basics before anything else; the Optimiser, who is already invested and focused on account strategy, tax efficiency, and contribution sequencing; the Challenger, who is actively questioning whether XEQT is the right choice for them and wants to stress-test the case for passive investing; and the Retiree, who is approaching or in drawdown and needs to think about withdrawal sequencing, RRIF conversion, and risk management.
Each result includes a curated reading list drawn from the JustBuyXEQT guide library, ordered by priority for that investor type. The quiz takes about two minutes and is a useful starting point for anyone who has landed on this site and is not sure where to begin.
- 1 Answer five questions about your investing situation — questions cover age range, account status, timeline, and primary concern.
- 2 Get your investor type — one of four profiles, each with a short description.
- 3 Review your personalised reading path — a prioritised list of guides from the library matched to your situation.
- 4 Follow the path — each guide in the reading list links directly to the full article.
- 5 Retake any time — your situation changes, and the quiz takes two minutes.
Best for: First-time visitors who are unsure where to start, and any returning reader whose situation has changed significantly since their last visit.
Open Orientation Quiz
XEQT Investor Sentiment
Index
Weekly pulse data from actual Canadian XEQT investors.
The XEQT Investor Sentiment Index is the only proprietary data product on this site and the only one of its kind in Canada. Every week, readers vote on what they are actually doing with their XEQT positions: buying more, holding steady, watching closely, or reducing their position. The results are aggregated, displayed in real time, and accumulated into a 26-week rolling chart.
What makes this data different from other sentiment surveys is the audience. Unlike professional investor surveys or fund manager polls, this index specifically tracks passive retail investors, people who hold XEQT in their TFSAs, RRSPs, and non-registered accounts and are broadly following a buy-and-hold strategy. Their behaviour during volatile periods is a fundamentally different signal from institutional sentiment data.
The tracker also shows week-over-week changes in the buying percentage, which tends to be the most meaningful single metric. A sharp drop in buying conviction during a market downturn, followed by a recovery, is visible in the chart. This is not financial advice and past sentiment does not predict returns. But for a long-term investor who wants to understand what other long-term investors are doing, it is a useful and unique data point.
- 1 Visit the sentiment tracker page — the current week's results are displayed immediately.
- 2 Cast your vote — one vote per device per week. Select buying, holding, watching, or reducing.
- 3 Review the live breakdown — shown as percentages with a bar chart for each category.
- 4 Scroll down for the 26-week chart — showing how sentiment has trended over time.
- 5 Check back weekly — the data resets each Monday and the historical chart grows over time.
Best for: Investors who want to understand what other Canadian XEQT holders are doing, particularly during periods of market volatility when conviction tends to be tested.
Open Proprietary DataXEQT Model Portfolio
$500 per month since inception. Actual historical returns.The XEQT Model Portfolio answers a question that most investors never get a clean answer to: what does a real, disciplined, boring investment strategy actually look like over time? The model contributes $500 on the first of every month into XEQT, starting from its inception in August 2019, with no market timing, no panic selling, no rebalancing, and distributions not reinvested to keep the data conservative and verifiable.
The portfolio held through the COVID crash of March 2020, where XEQT dropped approximately 30% in five weeks. It held through the 2022 rate hike bear market, where XEQT fell roughly 18% over the year. In both cases, the model investor did nothing. The chart shows exactly what that discipline produced: a portfolio worth substantially more than the total amount contributed, with the gap widening every year as compounding accelerates.
The model uses actual XEQT price data from the iShares product page, applied to monthly purchases at the approximate average price for each month. It is not backtested with hindsight-adjusted assumptions. It is as close to a real investor's actual experience as a model can be. The annual breakdown shows each year's end balance and return, including the two down years, which is where the most useful information lives.
- 1 View the main portfolio chart — showing portfolio value versus total contributed from August 2019 to today.
- 2 Look for the event markers — the COVID crash and 2022 rate hike bear market are marked on the chart.
- 3 Scroll to the annual breakdown — showing end-of-year portfolio value and return for each year since inception.
- 4 Review the portfolio rules — understanding the constraints makes the model more credible, not less.
- 5 Use it as a benchmark — if you have been investing in XEQT for some period, compare your actual result to the model.
Best for: Anyone who needs to see proof that a simple, consistent strategy survives bear markets and compounds meaningfully over time. Particularly useful for investors tempted to time the market during volatility.
Open Historical ModelXEQT Retirement
Calculator
How much do you need? When will you get there?
The Retirement Calculator answers the question every XEQT investor eventually asks: how much do I actually need, and am I on track to get there? Enter your current savings, monthly contribution, target retirement income, and age. The tool projects your portfolio to retirement, applies the 4% sustainable withdrawal rate to determine your required nest egg, and compares what you will have against what you need.
The calculator also factors in approximate CPP and OAS offsets, which significantly reduce the portfolio size required. A Canadian targeting $60,000 per year in retirement income who qualifies for full CPP and OAS needs roughly $43,000 per year from their portfolio, not $60,000. That is the difference between a $1.07M target and a $1.5M target.
The output includes a 5-year interval timeline showing your projected portfolio balance at each checkpoint between now and retirement, and a retirement income breakdown separating portfolio withdrawals from government benefit estimates. All figures are estimates. CPP in particular varies enormously based on your contribution history.
- 1Enter your current total invested savings — combined TFSA, RRSP, and any other invested accounts.
- 2Set your monthly contribution — what you plan to invest each month going forward.
- 3Enter your target annual retirement income — in today's dollars, what you want to spend each year.
- 4Set your ages and return assumption — current age, retirement age, and expected annual return.
- 5Review the timeline and income breakdown — see your gap or surplus, and estimated retirement income sources.
Best for: Anyone actively planning retirement, or anyone curious whether their current savings rate is pointing them in the right direction.
Open Retirement CalculatorRRSP Refund
Reinvestment Calculator
Contribute to RRSP. Invest the refund in TFSA. See the loop.
The RRSP refund loop is one of the most powerful tax strategies available to Canadian investors, and one of the least visualised. You contribute to your RRSP. The government sends you a tax refund based on your marginal rate. You invest that refund in your TFSA. Both accounts compound simultaneously. The TFSA grows entirely tax-free. The RRSP grows tax-deferred. At retirement, the combination is materially larger than either account alone.
This calculator quantifies the loop. Enter your annual RRSP contribution, your marginal tax rate (which the NOA Decoder can help you estimate), your time horizon, and your expected return. The tool shows you the annual refund amount, the TFSA balance that refund grows into, the RRSP balance after estimated withdrawal tax, and the combined total.
The comparison that matters most is RRSP alone (after tax) versus the combined loop. For most middle-income Canadians contributing at a 40%+ marginal rate, the TFSA refund contribution adds 30 to 50% on top of the RRSP-alone result over 25 years. That is the loop premium, and it is real.
- 1Enter your annual RRSP contribution — check Line 26500 on your NOA for your available room.
- 2Set your marginal tax rate — use the NOA Decoder to estimate your combined federal and provincial rate.
- 3Enter your investment horizon and return — how many years both accounts will compound before withdrawal.
- 4Set your estimated withdrawal tax rate — your expected marginal rate in retirement, typically lower than your current rate.
- 5Review the three-way comparison — RRSP alone, TFSA loop alone, and the combined total.
Best for: Middle and higher-income Canadians with available RRSP room and unused TFSA room, particularly those earning enough that the refund is a meaningful annual amount.
Open Refund CalculatorAm I On Track?
Savings Benchmark
Compare your savings against Canadian benchmarks by age.
The most common question Canadian investors ask is not how to invest. It is whether they are behind. The Am I On Track tool provides context: your current savings compared against approximate Canadian benchmarks by age group, derived from Statistics Canada Survey of Financial Security data and standard financial planning income multiples.
The tool shows a score as a percentage of the benchmark for your age group and income level, a visual comparison across all age groups so you can see where you fit in the broader picture, and a projection of your portfolio at five-year intervals through to your retirement age at your current contribution rate.
The benchmark comparison is deliberately unsentimental. Many Canadians are behind these targets, particularly in their thirties and early forties when housing costs, childcare, and income volatility compete with savings. The tool does not judge. It shows you a number and, where relevant, what a different contribution level would change. The point is not to create anxiety but to give you the one thing that helps: a clear picture of where you actually stand.
- 1Enter your age and total invested savings — combined TFSA, RRSP, pension, and other invested assets, excluding your primary residence.
- 2Enter your annual gross income — used to calculate the income-multiple benchmarks appropriate for your earnings level.
- 3Set your monthly contribution and retirement target age — used to project your balance forward.
- 4Review your score and the benchmark comparison chart — showing where you sit relative to each age group's target.
- 5Read the summary — contextual explanation of what your score means and what changes would materially improve your trajectory.
Best for: Anyone who has wondered whether they are saving enough but has never had a concrete reference point. Particularly useful in your thirties and forties when the gap between where you are and where you should be is still highly correctable.
Check My BenchmarkHow to use these tools together
No single tool tells the complete story. The most useful session starts with the Investor Quiz to establish your starting point, followed immediately by the Portfolio Fee Audit if you hold anything other than XEQT. The gap between what you are currently paying and what XEQT costs is usually the single most motivating number available.
Once you understand your fees, the Growth Calculator shows you what the same money in XEQT would compound to over your investment horizon. For anyone in or approaching retirement, the Model Portfolio is worth reviewing alongside the growth calculator to anchor your expectations in actual historical data rather than projected returns.
Tax season is when the NOA Decoder earns its keep. Run it after you receive your Notice of Assessment each spring. Understanding your RRSP room and estimated marginal bracket in concrete numbers, not abstract percentages, is the fastest way to decide whether your TFSA or RRSP deserves your next contribution.
Finally, the Sentiment Tracker is worth checking during periods of market volatility, not to make decisions based on it, but to understand that you are not alone in how you are feeling. Seeing that the majority of Canadian XEQT investors are continuing to buy through a correction is a useful reality check for anyone tempted to do something dramatic with their portfolio.
Ready to put the numbers to work?
Open a commission-free TFSA, RRSP, or FHSA on Wealthsimple and buy XEQT. Takes five minutes. Get $25 free on your first deposit.