Bitcoin DCA calculators, compared honestly
If you searched for a dcaBTC or dca-cc alternative, you probably just want a backtesting tool that works and shows its numbers. On 12 October 2026 we visited five other Bitcoin DCA calculator sites and wrote down what each one actually did, including the things this site does worse. Every claim below is dated. Apart from the CryptoDCA column, which sits behind a browser security warning (note 3), each one is something you can check yourself in a browser tab. It is not a complete list: other sites publish DCA calculators too, and this page only covers the ones it names.
By drix · Last checked 12 October 2026
Feature by feature
A means we saw it working. An means we could not find the feature, which is not proof it doesn't exist somewhere we didn't look. Text in a cell is what we read on the page, and a small number points to a note under the table.
| Feature | This site | dcaBTC | costavg | CryptoDCA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Working when we checked (12 October 2026) | Yes | Loads, but its default plan showed $NaN1 | Yes | Certificate expired; browsers showed a warning3 |
| Data | ||||
| Bitcoin price history | From 18 Aug 2010 | Built-in table, 17 Jul 2010 to 3 May 20251 | From 17 Jul 2010 | Custom range; a 2010 start gave rows from May 2013 |
| Assets you can backtest | Bitcoin only | Bitcoin only | 8 coins, gold, S&P 500 | 14 coins |
| Data sources documented | YesMethodology page | Not found | YesOne footer line | YesOne line on its Imprint page |
| Buy frequencies | Daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly | Daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly | Daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly | Daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly |
| Exchange fees modeled | Custom %, flat fee per buy, exchange presets | Not found | Presets 0% to 1.49%, custom %, flat fee per buy | Not found |
| Result metrics | ||||
| Return on investment (ROI) | Yes | YesOn plans that render1 | Yes | Yes |
| Annualized return (XIRR) | Yes | Not found | Yes | Not found |
| Max drawdown | Yes | Not found | Yes | Not found |
| Comparisons | ||||
| DCA vs lump sum | Yes | Not found | Yes | Yes |
| vs S&P 500 | YesTotal return, dividends reinvested | Not foundDow Jones instead2 | YesPrice and total return | Toggle, USD only; line collapsed from Feb 20264 |
| vs gold | Yes | Yes2 | Yes | Not found |
| Inflation-adjusted (CPI) | Yes | Not found | Not found | Not found |
| vs savings account | YesAdjustable APY | Not found | Not found | Cash line at 0% interest |
| Sharing & integration | ||||
| CSV export | Yes | Not found | Yes | Not found |
| Share your result | Link + share-card image | Link + prefilled tweet | Settings link, X and Reddit buttons, PNG | Settings link |
| Embeddable widget | Yes | Not found | Not found | Not found |
| Open source | MIT, on GitHub | Not found | Not found | Not found |
| Developer API | YesDocs at /developers | Not found | Not found | Not found |
| The deal | ||||
| Account required | Never | No | No | Optional login |
| How it pays for itself | Labeled ads (3 on the home page), disclosed affiliates, BTC donations | eToro affiliate button | Ads (Coinzilla, Google AdSense), after cookie consent | Affiliate links (Bitvavo promo, exchange list) |
| Price | Free | Free | Free | Free |
1 dcaBTC's page and inputs loaded normally on 12 October 2026, but its default plan ($10 a week for 3 years) showed "$NaN" for every result value. dcaBTC does not fetch prices while you use it: its Bitcoin history is a fixed table inside the page's own code. We read that table: on that date it ran from 17 July 2010 to 3 May 2025 and had no prices for 12 September to 12 October 2024. Every plan we tried with a purchase inside that gap showed $NaN. Plans that avoided it showed numbers, with every day after 3 May 2025 priced at the 3 May 2025 value, so a plan starting later than that showed 0.00% change.
2 dcaBTC's "Compare to other assets?" toggle adds gold and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, not the S&P 500. dcaBTC shows the toggle only on screens at least 768 pixels wide, which leaves out most phones. Both rendered on 12 October 2026, including on the default plan where the Bitcoin figures showed $NaN.
3 CryptoDCA's HTTPS certificate expired on 10 October 2026, so on 12 October 2026 browsers stopped at a security warning instead of loading the site. The site behind the warning was still running. To keep this column current we loaded it with the warning bypassed and typed in nothing but calculator settings; every CryptoDCA cell describes what we saw that way. We are not suggesting you click through the warning yourself.
4 On 12 October 2026 CryptoDCA's S&P 500 line fell to almost zero part-way through our five-year test. The index values its page loaded were 1 for every day from 26 February 2026 onward, so the comparison could not be read for 2026. Earlier dates drew normally.
Spotted a mistake, or a feature we missed? Tell us on the contact page and we'll correct it.
What each one does well
dcaBTC
A Bitcoin-only backtester with a genuinely clean interface: a handful of controls on one screen, long plain-English DCA guides underneath, and a toggle that adds gold and the Dow Jones for comparison. On 12 October 2026 its default plan showed $NaN, which is the main reason this page exists. Plans that avoid the gap in its built-in price table still showed numbers; note 1 under the table has the details. Full dcaBTC comparison.
costavg
On 12 October 2026 it ran our $50-a-week, five-year test cleanly and showed XIRR, max drawdown, a lump-sum comparison, gold and S&P 500 lines, and CSV and PNG downloads. It also does things this site doesn't: quarterly and yearly schedules, backtests for Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Tron, Litecoin, Monero, Cardano, gold and the S&P 500, a page that splits one contribution across several assets, and a BTC/USD history that starts 17 July 2010, about a month earlier than ours.
CryptoDCA
It covered the most coins of the three (14 on 12 October 2026) and the most interface languages (English, German, Spanish, Turkish and French), with a tidy per-purchase table and a lump-sum toggle. Two things to know as of that date: its HTTPS certificate had expired two days earlier, so browsers showed a security warning before the site (note 3), and its S&P 500 line collapsed from late February 2026 (note 4). We'll update both notes when either changes.
Two more we checked but couldn't compare
dca-cc.com
An open-source DCA and lump-sum calculator whose MIT-licensed code is still public on GitHub. When we visited on 12 October 2026, dca-cc.com returned its host's "404 DEPLOYMENT_NOT_FOUND" error page with no calculator behind it, and the www address its GitHub page links to stopped at a certificate that expired in November 2024. If you came here looking for a dca-cc alternative, this site's calculator is open source too, and it covers custom date ranges, a lump-sum comparison and shareable links.
bitcoindollarcostaverage.com
Its HTTPS certificate expired on 15 July 2026 and had not been renewed when we checked on 12 October 2026, so browsers showed a security warning instead of the site. It was already expired the first time we looked, in August. Unlike CryptoDCA, we have never seen it load normally and have not looked behind the warning, so it has no column in the table. We'll re-check and update this note if the certificate is renewed.
How we compared
On 12 October 2026 we loaded each site in an ordinary browser and, where the tool allowed it, ran the same backtest: $50 a week for five years, or the closest settings the tool offered. We read the results off the screen and wrote down exactly what rendered, including the things that didn't work.
One exception to "ordinary browser": CryptoDCA's certificate had expired two days before the check, so an ordinary browser stopped at a warning. We read its column with that warning bypassed, as note 3 under the table says.
We are obviously not neutral — this is our calculator — which is why the table holds only what we observed ourselves, and why every negative claim carries the date we observed it. Competitors ship fixes, and a broken site today can be a good site next month.
If anything here is wrong or out of date, use the contact page. Under our corrections policy, confirmed errors on this page jump the queue.
Run the same test on this site
Set $50, weekly and a five-year range on the calculator. You get the BTC accumulated, average cost, ROI, annualized return, and max drawdown — with fees modeled and every formula and data source written out. No account, no email.
Elsewhere on the site
Not financial advice. All tools on this page, ours included, are educational simulations; past performance does not guarantee future results. dcaBTC, costavg, CryptoDCA, dca-cc and bitcoindollarcostaverage.com are independent products with no affiliation to this site. That last one is a different site from this one, btcdollarcostaverage.com, despite the similar name.