How to Master Sharesight Dividend Calculator [Step-by-Step Guide]
The Sharesight dividend calculator records every dividend payment your portfolio receives, converts it into a yield figure against your cost basis, and lets you compare income across holdings in one screen. If you hold Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) at a 3.1% yield and Coca-Cola (KO) at 3.0%, Sharesight shows you exactly how much income each position generated over any date range you choose, tax-adjusted if you enter your local rate. This guide walks you through each step from account setup to reading your first dividend report.
Key Takeaways
- The Sharesight dividend calculator tracks dividend income against your actual purchase price, not the current market price, giving you a true yield-on-cost figure.
- You can run income reports by financial year, calendar year, or any custom date range, which simplifies tax preparation considerably.
- Sharesight auto-imports dividend data for stocks listed on 73+ global exchanges, so you rarely need to enter payments manually.
- The dividend drip reinvestment toggle automatically adds new shares at the reinvestment price, keeping your cost basis accurate.
- You can export dividend reports as CSV or PDF directly from the dashboard, which most accountants and tax software accept without reformatting.
- Pairing Sharesight dividend data with ValueMarkers' screener lets you filter for stocks that have both a high yield and a high ROIC, the combination that separates quality income from yield traps.
What the Sharesight Dividend Calculator Actually Does
Sharesight is a portfolio tracker built around the tax and income reporting needs of long-term investors. Its dividend calculator is the core of that offering. Every time a stock in your portfolio pays a dividend, Sharesight logs the payment date, the per-share amount, the total received, and the franking credit percentage if you hold Australian securities.
The tool then calculates two yield figures. The first is current yield: the annualised dividend divided by today's share price. The second is yield on cost: the annualised dividend divided by what you actually paid for the shares. Yield on cost is the number that matters for income investors. If you bought KO at $45 per share and it now pays $1.96 per share annually, your yield on cost is 4.4%, not the 3.0% a new buyer sees today.
These are two different answers to two different questions. Sharesight shows both without making you calculate either.
Step 1: Create Your Sharesight Account and Add a Portfolio
Go to sharesight.com and click "Start free trial." The free plan supports up to 10 holdings, which is enough to test the dividend calculator before committing to a paid plan.
Once you are logged in, click "Add Portfolio" in the left sidebar. Give it a name that matches your brokerage account, such as "ISA 2024" or "Retirement Account." You can run multiple portfolios under one login and compare dividend income across all of them from a single consolidated report.
Set your base currency at this step. Sharesight will convert all foreign dividends into your base currency using the exchange rate on the payment date, which produces accurate converted totals without any manual FX lookup.
Step 2: Add Your Holdings
Click "Add Trade" inside your portfolio. Enter the ticker symbol, the trade date, the number of shares, and the price you paid. Sharesight will auto-populate the stock name and exchange once you enter the ticker.
For dividend stocks, the purchase price matters because it anchors your yield-on-cost calculation. If you bought JNJ in tranches, add each tranche as a separate trade. Sharesight will average your cost basis across all lots automatically.
You do not need to enter historical dividends manually. Once the holding is saved, Sharesight fetches the full dividend history for that ticker going back years and applies each payment to your holding based on your trade dates. If you bought the stock before a particular ex-dividend date, that payment appears in your income report.
Step 3: Run Your First Dividend Report
From the left sidebar, work through to "Reports" and then "Taxable Income Report." This is the report that contains your sharesight dividend calculator output.
Set the date range. For a full-year income analysis, choose January 1 to December 31. For a rolling 12-month view, choose today minus 365 days. Click "Run Report."
The report shows each holding, the number of dividends received, the total income in your base currency, and the effective yield against your cost basis. A summary row at the bottom totals your portfolio dividend income for the period.
| Column | What It Shows |
|---|---|
| Holding | Stock name and ticker |
| Dividends Received | Number of payments in the period |
| Total Income | Sum of payments in base currency |
| Yield on Cost | Annual income / your purchase price |
| Current Yield | Annual income / today's price |
| Franking Credits | Tax credits for Australian stocks |
Step 4: Use the Dividend Drip Reinvestment Setting
If you reinvest dividends automatically through your broker, Sharesight has a DRIP toggle on each holding. Enable it by clicking the holding name, then "Edit Holding," then toggling "Dividend Reinvestment Plan" to on.
When DRIP is active, Sharesight creates new share purchases on each dividend payment date at the reinvestment price. This keeps your share count and cost basis accurate. Without DRIP enabled, your reported capital gain at sale will be overstated because Sharesight will not account for the additional shares you received.
For most long-term income investors, DRIP accuracy matters more than the dividend income total itself. A KO position held for 20 years with dividends reinvested has a meaningfully different cost basis than one held in cash.
Step 5: Compare Dividend Income Across Holdings
The "Diversity" report inside Sharesight shows your dividend income broken down by holding as a percentage of total portfolio income. This is where you spot concentration risk in your income stream.
If JNJ accounts for 30% of your total annual dividend income, a JNJ dividend cut hurts your income disproportionately. A well-diversified income portfolio typically keeps any single holding below 10% of total dividend income.
Run this view once per quarter. When a position grows past 10% of your income, it is usually time to either trim or add to other positions that are underrepresented.
Step 6: Screen for New Dividend Stocks to Add
Sharesight tracks what you own. ValueMarkers' screener helps you find what to add next. Filter by dividend yield above 2.5%, payout ratio below 70%, and ROIC above 15%. That combination identifies stocks paying meaningful income without paying out more than the business earns, and earning enough on reinvested capital to grow the dividend over time.
KO has a payout ratio near 75% and a 60+ year dividend growth streak. JNJ has a payout ratio near 50% and a 3.1% yield. Both pass the yield-on-cost test for investors who bought at reasonable prices, but JNJ's lower payout ratio leaves more room for dividend growth from here.
When you find candidates in the screener, add them as a watchlist in Sharesight to model what their dividend income would add to your portfolio before you buy.
How Sharesight Handles Foreign Dividend Withholding Tax
International dividend investors deal with withholding tax in the country of origin. Sharesight lets you enter a withholding tax percentage per holding. For U.S. stocks held by non-U.S. investors, the standard rate is 15% under most tax treaties, or 30% without a treaty.
Once you set the withholding rate, Sharesight deducts it from the reported income for that holding, giving you net dividend income rather than gross. This prevents you from budgeting based on income you never actually receive.
For U.S. investors holding European stocks, the same logic applies in reverse. French stocks, for example, withhold 12.8% at source, which Sharesight will subtract from your reported income if you enter the rate correctly.
Further reading: SEC EDGAR · FRED Economic Data
Why dividend yield calculator Matters
This section anchors the discussion on dividend yield calculator. The detailed treatment, formula, and worked examples appear in the body of this article above. The points below summarize the most important takeaways for value investors who want to apply dividend yield calculator in real portfolio decisions. ValueMarkers exposes the underlying data on every covered ticker via the screener and stock profile pages, so the concepts in this article translate directly into actionable filters.
Key inputs for dividend yield calculator
See the main discussion of dividend yield calculator in the sections above for the full treatment, including the inputs, the calculation methodology, the typical sector benchmarks, and the most common pitfalls to avoid. The ValueMarkers screener lets value investors filter the full universe of 100,000+ stocks across 73 exchanges using dividend yield calculator alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Sector benchmarks for dividend yield calculator
See the main discussion of dividend yield calculator in the sections above for the full treatment, including the inputs, the calculation methodology, the typical sector benchmarks, and the most common pitfalls to avoid. The ValueMarkers screener lets value investors filter the full universe of 100,000+ stocks across 73 exchanges using dividend yield calculator alongside the rest of the 120-indicator composite, with sector percentiles and historical trends shown on every stock profile.
Related ValueMarkers Resources
- Pe Ratio — Glossary entry for Pe Ratio
- DCF Intrinsic Value — DCF captures how cheaply a stock trades relative to its fundamentals
- Dividend Yield — Dividend Yield is the metric used to how cheaply a stock trades relative to its fundamentals
- Pe Ratio Explained — related ValueMarkers analysis
- Dcf Intrinsic Value — related ValueMarkers analysis
- When To Sell A Stock Signals Every Investor Needs — related ValueMarkers analysis
Frequently Asked Questions
how to work out dividend yield
Dividend yield is the annual dividend per share divided by the current share price, expressed as a percentage. If a stock pays $2.00 per share annually and the current share price is $50, the yield is 4.0%. Sharesight calculates this automatically for every holding in your portfolio, updating as the share price changes each trading day.
what is a dividend stock
A dividend stock is a share in a company that distributes a portion of its earnings to shareholders on a regular schedule, typically quarterly or semi-annually. Companies like JNJ (3.1% yield) and KO (3.0% yield) are classic examples: mature businesses with stable cash flows that return capital to shareholders rather than reinvesting all of it into growth. Dividend stocks are common in portfolios built around current income rather than capital appreciation alone.
how to calculate dividend payout
The dividend payout ratio is dividends per share divided by earnings per share, expressed as a percentage. A company earning $4.00 per share and paying $2.00 per share has a 50% payout ratio. Ratios below 60% generally indicate the dividend is covered by earnings with room to grow. Ratios above 80% suggest the dividend may be strained if earnings dip. Our screener shows the payout ratio for every stock across 73 global exchanges.
how to pick a dividend stock
Start with yield, then check sustainability. A 6% yield on a stock with an 85% payout ratio and declining revenue is a warning sign, not a gift. The better filter is yield above 2.5% combined with a payout ratio below 65%, ROIC above 12%, and at least five consecutive years of dividend payments. This screens out yield traps and leaves you with businesses that can sustain and grow their payouts. Run that filter in the ValueMarkers screener and cross-reference the results with Sharesight to model the income impact before buying.
what does dividend yield mean
Dividend yield tells you what percentage of your investment you receive back each year in cash payments, at the current price. A 3.0% yield on a $1,000 position means $30 in annual income. Yield on cost is a related figure that uses your original purchase price instead of today's price, which is often higher for long-held positions. JNJ investors who bought in 2015 at roughly $100 per share now receive a yield on cost above 5%, even though the current yield is 3.1%.
how to invest in dividend stocks
Open a brokerage account, screen for stocks with sustainable yields using filters for payout ratio, ROIC, and dividend growth history, then build positions across at least 10 sectors to avoid income concentration. Start with well-covered dividends in consumer staples, healthcare, and utilities, sectors with predictable cash flows. Track your income in a portfolio tracker like Sharesight so you can see your total annual dividend income in one place. Our DCF calculator lets you model whether the current price offers a margin of safety alongside the yield.
Use ValueMarkers' DCF calculator to check whether your next dividend pick is priced for a fair return or is already fully valued at today's yield.
Written by Javier Sanz, Founder of ValueMarkers. Last updated April 2026.
Ready to find your next value investment?
ValueMarkers tracks 120+ fundamental indicators across 100,000+ stocks on 73 global exchanges. Run the methodology above in seconds with our stock screener, or see today's top-ranked names on the leaderboard.
Related tools: DCF Calculator · Methodology · Compare ValueMarkers
Disclaimer: This content is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.