What Making Sergeant Is Worth in Dollars, and How to Count the Points

The raise from a promotion is predictable and the points behind it are countable. Here is what one grade of rank can add, what $200 a month grows into, and how I total the 800 points before the board does.

A promotion to sergeant is a raise you can plan for like a savings goal. Most soldiers treat it like weather and wait to see what happens.

I enlisted in the Army in January 2026 at age 38, with $781,000 already built. I have spent 8 years watching what a few hundred extra dollars a month does when it is invested every payday, and a promotion is one of the few moments in a military career when that kind of raise is within your control.

What the raise actually looks like

The 2026 military pay raise was 3.8 percent, effective January 1, 2026. Published 2026 pay charts show an E-4 under two years of service at about $3,142 a month in basic pay, and the E-5 pay rate starting around $3,343. Those figures come from the 2026 basic pay charts published after the NDAA, and your own LES and the DFAS pay table are the final word on your exact number. The gap between those two starting rates is roughly $200 a month, or about $2,400 a year.

Basic pay is only part of the check. BAH, BAS and special pays sit on top of it, and your rank and time in service shift the base number. Treat $200 a month as a conservative floor for what stepping up a grade adds, then check your own pay table.

What $200 a month turns into

Here is the math I run. Invest $200 a month in an S&P 500 index fund and assume a 10 percent annual return, which is the commonly cited long-run average for the index since 1926. After 20 years that is about $143,650. After 30 years it is about $412,570. You contributed $48,000 in the first case and $72,000 in the second. The rest is compounding.

That is a hypothetical, and markets do not pay 10 percent every year. I held through 2018, 2020 and 2022 and never sold, so I know what the bad years feel like. The point is the size of what one grade of promotion can fund if you refuse to let the raise disappear into a bigger truck payment.

Why the points matter more than they look

Promotion to SGT or SSG in the Army runs on points. For the semi-centralized board the total is 800, split across four categories: military training up to 280, awards and achievements up to 145, military education up to 240, and civilian education up to 135. Those ceilings come from AR 600-8-19, Enlisted Promotions and Demotions, published 6 March 2026 and effective 6 April 2026.

Every category has a cap, which means effort beyond the cap earns nothing. A soldier who has maxed civilian education at 135 gains no points from another degree and should spend that time on the categories with room left. That is the part most people skip. They work hard, but not in the category where the next point is available.

How I run the numbers

I built a free Army Promotion Point Calculator. It follows the AR 600-8-19 category ceilings, the current AFT conversion table and the weapons tables by weapon system, and it produces a printable review sheet you can take to your S-1. You enter what is in your record, it totals the four categories against the 800, and you can see which category still has room.

Read the fine print the same way I wrote it. The result is a planning estimate. Your promotion point worksheet in IPPS-A is the authoritative number, and if the tool and your worksheet disagree, the worksheet is right and something in your inputs or your records needs a second look. Points only count once the data is in the system of record, and entries have to be in by the 26th of the board month to affect the following month's cutoff. The calculator also does not determine eligibility. Time in grade, time in service, PME and your commander's recommendation gate promotion separately.

Put the raise to work before it arrives

Pick the promotion date you are working toward and decide now where the extra $200 goes. My answer is the TSP C Fund, set up as an automatic allotment so the money never sits in checking long enough to get spent. A raise you have already assigned is a raise you will not feel missing. Do that before the promotion orders arrive.

The rest of my calculators are on the free tools page, built for the same kind of decisions.

I am a battle buddy, not a financial guru. The points are knowable, the raise is predictable, and the discipline to invest it is the only part that is up to you. Boring on purpose, relentless by design.