How to Calculate Year-over-Year (YoY) Growth (with a Calculator)

When you’re tracking your business performance over time, it helps to know how much you’ve grown — not just month to month, but compared to the same time last year.

Year-over-Year or YoY Growth gives you a big-picture view of your progress and shows whether your business is scaling, staying flat, or slowing down. It’s one of the most popular growth metrics used in business, finance, and marketing.

Enter a label for each entry along with numbers for this year and last year. The tool will give you the YoY growth. It will also plot the numbers for easy visualization.

📅 Year-over-Year (YoY) Growth Calculator


    🙋 What Is Year-over-Year (YoY) Growth?

    YoY Growth compares a number — like revenue, profit, users, or traffic — from one period to the same period one year earlier. It tells you how much you’ve grown (or shrunk) in percentage terms.

    It’s helpful for spotting trends, evaluating progress, and removing the noise of seasonality. For example, comparing December to November can be misleading — but comparing this December to last December shows true performance.

    🔢 YoY Growth Formula

    Here’s the formula:

    YoY Growth (%) = [(This Year – Last Year) ÷ Last Year] × 100

    You subtract last year’s number from this year’s, divide by last year’s number, and multiply by 100 to get the percent change.

    ✅ Example

    Let’s say your Q1 revenue this year was $120,000 and last year it was $100,000.

    YoY Growth = [(120,000 – 100,000) ÷ 100,000] × 100
               = (20,000 ÷ 100,000) × 100
               = 20%

    🎉 That means your revenue grew 20% compared to the same quarter last year.

    If your number is negative, it means you’ve shrunk YoY. For example, if this year was $80,000, then:

    YoY Growth = [(80,000 – 100,000) ÷ 100,000] × 100 = -20%

    📊 Why YoY Growth Matters

    YoY Growth is a smart way to:

    • Track long-term trends
    • Remove seasonal spikes or dips
    • Show investors your momentum
    • Compare performance across years or regions

    📉 When to Be Cautious

    • Make sure you’re comparing the same period (e.g., Q2 to Q2)
    • Watch for anomalies (like big one-time spikes last year)
    • For newer companies, high YoY growth might just reflect a low starting point

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