Interest payments are tax-deductible, so WACC uses the after-tax cost of debt: Cost of Debt × (1 − Corporate Tax Rate). A company paying 6% on its bonds with a 21% corporate tax rate has an after-tax cost of debt of 4.74%. That tax shield is why adding moderate debt often lowers a company's average cost of capital — up to the point where default risk starts raising both inputs.
WACC Calculator
Weighted average cost of capital, pre-filled from any ticker's real filings. Every input stays editable.
Try:
Apple Inc. (AAPL)filings TTM 2026-06-27
Weighted average cost of capital
9.05%
That's elevated. Investors demand this from smaller, more cyclical or more leveraged businesses, and future cash flows get discounted hard.
- Cost of equity (Re)
- 9.22%
- Cost of debt (Rd)
- 0.00%
- After-tax Rd
- 0.00%
- Equity weight (E/V)
- 98.2%
- Debt weight (D/V)
- 1.8%
Adjust the inputs & assumptions
Company financials — from filings, TTM 2026-06-27
$M
$M
$M
Cost of debt Rd = interest expense ÷ total debt
%
Market assumptions
1.0 = moves with the market
US Treasury 10Y, 2026-08-17
%
%
Extra return demanded for stocks over Treasuries (~4–5.5%)
How to calculate WACC for any company
- Enter a ticker (like AAPL) or company name and hit Get WACC.
- We pull market cap, total debt, interest expense and the effective tax rate from the latest TTM filings.
- Read the result and its verdict, then check Re vs Rd: equity should cost more than debt.
- Open Adjust the inputs to change beta, the risk-free rate or the ERP and watch the WACC move.
- Compare against the company's ROIC: value is created only when returns on capital beat its cost.
Filings data refreshes with each company's reporting cycle; the 10-year Treasury yield refreshes daily.
How this was calculated
WACC = (E/V) × Re + (D/V) × Rd × (1 − Tc)
E is the market value of equity (market cap) and D is total debt from the latest trailing-twelve-month balance sheet; V = E + D. The cost of equity Re comes from CAPM: Re = Rf + β × ERP, with the risk-free rate Rf taken from the current 10-year US Treasury yield and beta and the equity risk premium as stated, editable assumptions. The cost of debt Rd is approximated as trailing interest expense divided by total debt, and Tc is the effective tax rate (income tax expense ÷ pre-tax income), because interest is tax-deductible.
Ticker mode uses the company's reported filings; results are educational estimates, not investment advice.
The after-tax cost of debt
WACC as the discount rate in DCF valuation
In corporate finance, WACC is the standard discount rate in valuation: it represents the minimum return — the required rate of return — a company must earn on invested capital to satisfy both shareholders and lenders. In a discounted cash flow model, future cash flows are discounted at WACC to arrive at net present value; analysts typically estimate the cost of equity input with the capital asset pricing model. If a project cannot beat the company's WACC, it destroys value no matter how large its revenue is.
Worked example: how WACC is calculated
Take a publicly traded company with a market capitalization of $80 billion — the market value of equity, from share price times shares outstanding — and $20 billion in market value of debt, giving a company's capital structure of 80% equity and 20% debt. Say the cost of equity is 9%, built on the current risk-free rate, and the company's cost of debt is 5% before a 21% tax shield. The WACC calculation: 0.8 × 9% + 0.2 × 5% × (1 − 0.21) = 7.99%. That blended figure is the expected return — the return required by all capital providers, equity holders and lenders together, weighted by how the equity and debt actually finance the business.
Analysts use WACC as the DCF discount rate and to frame investment decisions: a higher WACC means future cash flow is worth less today, so the company's value falls; a lower WACC raises it. This free WACC calculator pulls each ticker's debt and equity inputs from financial data providers, so you see how WACC is calculated in practice rather than in a textbook — an educational tool for analysis, not financial advice.
What is a typical WACC?
Rough ranges at today's rates. Where your result lands says a lot about how the market prices the business's risk.
5–7%
Mega-cap defensives
Utilities and staples, with stable cash flows and cheap debt.
6–9%
Established large caps
The broad middle of the S&P 500 lives here.
8–11%
Growth & mid caps
More equity-funded, higher beta, pricier capital.
10–14%+
Small or volatile
High-beta, leveraged or stressed businesses.
Prefer the WACC formula in Excel? Download the free WACC Excel template. Same formula, yours to keep.
WACC for popular companies
Open the calculator pre-filled from a specific company's latest filings.
How does your stock score?
MonkScore™ distills 149 fundamental ratios into one 0–100 score across five pillars. The scores live inside MonkStreet.
- Growth (value available with a MonkStreet trial)
- Profitability (value available with a MonkStreet trial)
- Quality (value available with a MonkStreet trial)
- Conviction (value available with a MonkStreet trial)
- Safety (value available with a MonkStreet trial)
Frequently asked questions
WACC = (E/V) × Re + (D/V) × Rd × (1 − Tc), where E is the market value of equity (market cap), D is total debt, V = E + D, Re is the cost of equity, Rd is the cost of debt (interest expense divided by total debt) and Tc is the effective tax rate. This calculator pre-fills E, D, Rd and Tc from the company's latest trailing-twelve-month filings and lets you edit every input.
It means the company's investors (shareholders and lenders combined) require roughly a 12% annual return for financing the business. Projects or acquisitions earning less than 12% destroy value for them; anything above it creates value. It is also the discount rate most analysts would apply to that company's future cash flows in a DCF.
Lower is cheaper financing, but 'good' depends on the business. Large, stable companies often have a WACC of 6–9%, while riskier or smaller companies can exceed 12%. What matters most is the spread between the return on invested capital (ROIC) and WACC: a company earning 15% on capital that costs 8% is compounding value.
WACC is the discount rate in a discounted cash flow (DCF) valuation: future cash flows are worth less today the higher the WACC. A one-point change in WACC can move a DCF fair value by 15–25%, which is why it pays to use the company's real capital structure and tax rate instead of a generic assumption.
Beta measures how much a stock moves relative to the market and is typically estimated by regressing five years of monthly returns against an index like the S&P 500. Most data providers publish it on their quote pages. In this calculator beta is an editable input: 1.0 is the market average, defensive businesses sit below 1 and cyclical ones above.
Because WACC estimates what financing costs today. The market value of equity (market cap) reflects the price at which the company could actually raise equity now, while book equity reflects historical accounting values. Debt is usually taken at book value as a practical approximation of its market value.
They are usually the same number when valuing the whole enterprise: the DCF discounts unlevered free cash flows at WACC. If you value equity directly (dividends or free cash flow to equity), the right discount rate is the cost of equity alone, not WACC.
WACC assumes the capital structure and risk profile stay constant, relies on an estimated beta and equity risk premium, and treats today's tax rate as permanent. For companies with changing leverage, negative earnings or unusual tax situations, treat the output as a starting range and test how sensitive your valuation is to it.
Yes — it is a step-by-step weighted average you can build in any spreadsheet. This calculator pre-fills a ticker's real inputs, which makes it a fast sanity check for your Excel or Google Sheets model.
The MonkStreet letter
One weekly email on what the fundamentals say, without the hype.
Subscribe freeData updated: July 2026