SCHD vs DGRO: Dividend/Income Calculator Comparison

Which one fits whom

These two funds are closer than most pairings in this cluster: both are qualified-dividend growth ETFs. On the current anchors, DGRO carries the faster trailing dividend-per-share growth (~9.2% five-year CAGR vs SCHD's ~7% recent-years anchor, which decelerated to +5.4% in 2025), but SCHD begins with the meaningfully higher yield (~3.3% vs ~2.1%). In the projection that head start wins: with both growth anchors tapering toward price growth after the first decade, DGRO's faster rate does not overtake SCHD's larger compounding base inside a typical horizon, so SCHD tends to lead on current income and, with dividends reinvested, on total value. DGRO's case rests on a different lever — its screen drops the highest-yielding names, which is why the model pairs it with a slightly higher forward price-growth assumption. Someone accumulating and reinvesting who wants the larger, sooner-compounding payout leans SCHD; someone who prefers a growthier, lower-yield tilt and a smaller current-year tax footprint in a taxable account leans DGRO. Neither is a yield-versus-safety trade the way a covered-call fund would be — both are plain qualified-dividend index funds with no NAV erosion.

SCHD vs DGRO: what actually separates them

Yield and dividend growth

This looks like the familiar yield-versus-growth fork — SCHD starts at ~3.3% with a ~7% growth anchor, DGRO at ~2.1% with a faster ~9.2% — but the gap in starting yield is large enough, and the growth-rate edge small and taper-limited enough, that the model shows no income crossover inside a typical horizon: SCHD's income line sits above DGRO's from the start, because a 2.2-point growth advantage needs decades of uninterrupted compounding to close a base gap of more than half, and both anchors taper toward price growth after year ten. The difference traces to construction. SCHD tracks the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100, which first requires ten consecutive years of dividends and then ranks survivors on cash-flow-to-debt, return on equity, yield, and five-year dividend growth. DGRO tracks the Morningstar US Dividend Growth Index — companies with at least five straight years of raises, with the very highest-yielding names and stretched payout ratios screened out. That exclusion is exactly why DGRO's yield is lower, and it is the reason the model gives it a slightly higher forward price-growth assumption than SCHD.

Tax treatment — qualified for both

Here the funds are genuinely alike, which is worth stating plainly rather than manufacturing a difference. Both distribute almost entirely qualified dividends, taxed at the 0/15/20% long-term capital-gains rates in a taxable account rather than at ordinary marginal rates — the opposite of a covered-call income fund, whose option-premium distributions are taxed as ordinary income up to 37%. So the account toggle moves both projections the same way: in a taxable account each year's qualified-dividend tax is subtracted before the DRIP reinvests, and inside an IRA or Roth both compound untaxed. The one honest nuance is directional: because SCHD pays the larger distribution, it also generates the larger annual tax bill in a taxable account, so the after-tax gap is a little tighter than the pre-tax gap — though SCHD still leads on these inputs. DGRO's lower current income is its only tax edge: less taxable distribution each year is less to tax while you are still accumulating.

NAV erosion and total return

Neither fund finances its dividend out of principal, so neither carries the structural NAV erosion that drags a high covered-call yield — the erosion column reads — for both, and the yield you see is earned, not returned capital. The useful thing this calculator surfaces is that the total-value ordering depends on the DRIP toggle. With reinvestment on, SCHD's larger distribution buys more shares every year and, compounding on the same dividend growth, it ends the horizon ahead of DGRO on portfolio value as well as income. Switch DRIP off — spending the dividends instead — and DGRO's higher assumed price growth, net of its slightly higher 0.08% expense against SCHD's 0.06%, lets its share value pull ahead, even though SCHD still pays more income. So the "which ends with more money" answer can flip on the reinvestment toggle, and the price-growth edge that powers DGRO's side is an editorial preset assumption, not a forecast. All figures above are illustrative projections of each fund's current yield, trailing dividend growth, and expense ratio asOf 2026-06, not predictions. For the fund-by-fund detail behind each side, see the individual calculators below.