What are category rank and percentile?
Rank answers the plain question: out of the funds in this category, where does this one stand? A rank of 4 out of 21 means three funds did better. On its own, rank is hard to compare, because 4 out of 21 and 4 out of 49 describe very different positions.
Percentile fixes that. It converts the rank into the share of the category the fund beat, so results compare across categories of any size. Punji computes it as (total funds - rank + 1) / total funds, so rank 1 is always the 100th percentile and the last place fund is just above zero.
Percentile = (Total funds - Rank + 1) / Total funds × 100
Quartiles group percentiles into four bands: top quartile (75th percentile and above), second quartile, third quartile and bottom quartile.
Real comparison across 6 funds
Each bar is a fund’s percentile on 3-year rolling CAGR within its own category. Higher is better.
CHART
Category percentile on 3Y rolling CAGR - 6 real funds
Percentile within each fund's own SEBI category, using direct-plan funds with a 3-year history.
| Fund | Category | Rank | Percentile | Quartile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parag Parikh ELSS Tax Saver | ELSS | 3 of 49 | 95.9 | top quartile |
| ICICI Prudential Value | Value Fund | 4 of 21 | 85.7 | top quartile |
| Parag Parikh Flexi Cap | Flexi Cap Fund | 7 of 36 | 83.3 | top quartile |
| SBI Focused | Focused Fund | 14 of 27 | 51.9 | second quartile |
| DSP Value | Value Fund | 12 of 21 | 47.6 | third quartile |
| SBI Multicap | Multi Cap Fund | 16 of 22 | 31.8 | third quartile |
Parag Parikh ELSS Tax Saver ranks 3 of 49 in its category, the 95.9th percentile. SBI Multicap ranks 16 of 22, the 31.8th percentile. Note how rank and percentile read differently: Parag Parikh ELSS Tax Saver is only third in its category, but because the category has 49 funds that is a stronger result than third place among a handful.
See Why Punji Doesn’t Show Star Ratings for how category-relative ranking compares with a blended star score, tested on real fund-size data.
Reading the quartiles
Quartiles split a category into four equal groups. Of these six funds, 3 sit in the top quartile, 1 in the second, 2 in the third and 0 in the bottom. SBI Focused ranks 14 of 27, which puts it right at the middle of its category, where rank and median coincide.
Quartiles are coarse on purpose. Two funds at the 76th and 99th percentile are both top quartile, yet the gap between them can be as large as the gap between the 51st and 74th. Use the percentile when the difference matters and the quartile when you only need a rough placing.
Why the window and metric matter
A fund’s rank on one measure says nothing about another. The same fund can be in the top quartile on 3-year rolling CAGR and below the median on 1 year, or rank well on returns and poorly on risk. A percentile is only meaningful if you know the metric, the time window and the category it was taken in. Compare it with the Category Median to see not just that a fund is above or below the middle, but by how much.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU A high rank is a description of the past, not a promise. Rankings move as new data comes in, and a fund near the top of a small category is not the same as a fund near the top of a large one. Treat percentile as a first screen, then look at consistency across windows and at risk before deciding.
METHODOLOGY 3-year rolling CAGR (the median rate across every 3-year window), direct-plan funds, ranked within their SEBI category as of 2026-10-16. Higher values rank first. Percentile is computed from rank and category size as shown above. Data: Punji category rankings. Not investment advice.