Retirement calculators can help you plan for the future. Over the last few years, several retirement calculators have been developed, each offering slight variations and tools, such as different methods for estimating future expenses and income needs during retirement. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Saving and investing for retirement is a long-term project best tackled over decades. If you want the tailwinds of compounding growth, you need to invest for retirement early and often.
However, generic advice doesn’t answer most people’s biggest retirement questions. You want to know how much to save each month, when you can retire, if your portfolio will last, and what you can afford along the way. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
That’s where retirement planning calculators come in. Whether you’re just starting to invest for retirement, or are planning to exit the workforce within a year or two, you can benefit from a retirement calculator. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Best Retirement Calculators For 2026
We’ve tested close to 20 retirement calculators and chosen our favourites for 2026. You can see the full list (in ranked order) later in the article, but here are our top picks, starting with the T. Rowe Price Retirement Income Calculator (it’s free).
Best Overall Retirement Calculator: Rowe Price
With a near-perfect score on usability, a sophisticated approach to analysis, a deep level of customisation, and a free price tag (which was the tie-breaker), the T. Rowe Price Retirement Income Calculator was our top pick for the best overall retirement planning calculator. The questions it asks are detailed enough to give you a clear idea of whether you’re on track to retire but high-level enough to get your answer in under five minutes. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
The T. Rowe Price calculator uses Monte Carlo simulations to help you understand if you’re likely to meet your retirement goals or not. It also allows you to “play” with your assumptions (increasing savings rates, retiring earlier or later, adding cash infusions, etc.). This provides a dynamic retirement calculator that isn’t overly burdensome. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
The calculator focuses exclusively on retirement, so you shouldn’t use it for all your financial planning needs. But if you’re wondering whether you’re on track to retire, it will help you find the answer. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Best Free Retirement Planning Tool: Empower
While the retirement planning calculator from T. Rowe Price answers whether you can retire, Empowerto your retirement planning questions. Empower allows you to do detailed scenario planning based on your actual financial situation. By using real-time data from your financial accounts (including your spending accounts), you can dig into real details instead of hypotheticals. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Even better, the tools are free to use, and Empower lives on your phone or computer, so you can review the results at your leisure.
Best For Quick Analysis: Fidelity’s Retirement Score
By answering six quick questions, you can receive Fidelity’s Retirement Score. The score shows the probability that your money will outlive you (based on your responses to the questions). If you’re not planning to retire in the next few decades, Fidelity’s calculator lets you know whether you’re on track for retirement. It’s not designed for detailed retirement planning, but it will show you if you need to save more aggressively or if you can take your foot off the gas. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Best For Total Life Planning: ProjectionLab
ProjectionLab takes the prize this year for total life planning. It integrates tax planning, life events and has a really easy-to-use interface to make it happen. It takes your current financial goals and easily helps you plot out future life events and more.
ProjectionLab has a free plan, but you’ll need to upgrade to Premium to unlock cash flow planning and other key features. The Premium Plan is $109 per year. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
A few years ago, very few companies offered comprehensive financial planning for everyday people. In this analysis, we reviewed four easy-to-use tools that give you the flexibility to consider all sorts of life events in your analysis. All five received scores that allowed them to tie for second place overall.
In addition to ProjectionLab, MaxiFi, New Retirement, and OnTrajectory all offer sound financial planning tools that allow you to consider retirement along with the rest of your life. We happily recommend any of these tools for personal finance aficionados who want to answer life’s biggest financial questions. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Retirement Planning Calculators Details
Below is a full list of the retirement planning calculators that we tested — their usability ratings, prices, and the final score assigned to them. Some scores indicate a multi-way tie, but the descriptions above provide more detail on why we ranked certain tools above others. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
A Few Caveats About Our Judgment Criteria
We required each calculator presented in this article to meet specific “table stakes” criteria for inclusion. These criteria include having clear and fair assumptions (especially related to investment growth and inflation). Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Calculators using simple assumptions (such as ignoring volatility) were allowed as long as assumptions surrounding growth and inflation were displayed. Such calculators are best for people with two decades or more until retirement.
It also needed to provide details about an investor’s expected net worth at retirement and their portfolio’s expected longevity following retirement. Calculators that didn’t provide both of those details were excluded. We also excluded tools that require you to have a retirement account with the brokerage in order to use the tool. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
If the calculator met these criteria, it was allowed into the list of considered tools. At that point, the most important criterion for judging these calculators was usability for the average person. This factor accounted for two-thirds of the overall score. A typical person should be able to jump into the calculator and get understandable results using reasonably accurate estimates of their financial situation. Any calculator that required users to wade through jargon or text-heavy pages was discounted on the usability front, as it hindered the user’s ability to quickly and easily obtain the information they needed to make informed financial decisions.
Calculator Robustness
The other criterion for judging the calculator was robustness. Calculators that accounted for more investment scenarios, better refinement of assumptions, or better simulations of risk were deemed better than those with fewer options. Most calculators allow you to “play with your assumptions” to see what you can get on track for retirement. But that’s only the first part of robustness. You may also want to see how your current decision (to upgrade a house, have a child, take time off of work, etc.) is likely to affect your retirement plan. Some calculators allowed you to do this, but others didn’t. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
While robustness is important, it only accounted for a third of the overall score for several reasons. First, most people don’t need incredibly detailed financial retirement calculations until the decade before they retire. Unless you’re pursuing extremely early retirement, you probably don’t need a detailed financial calculator until you’re 50-60 years old. Additionally, most people won’t use the refinement features. A few curious people may use the refinement features based on their current life goals, but most people won’t. If you’re someone who rigorously tracks your net worth or religiously uses your budgeting app, you may find it hard to believe that people don’t love spending time on financial tools. However, most people who want a robust analysis will pay a financial planner for an analysis rather than research tools themselves. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting
Retirement Calculator Wrap-Up
No matter which retirement calculator you choose, you should always spend some time each year on your retirement plan to help you stay on track. You may not need to build a comprehensive plan, but a high-level retirement target can help you live well today and tomorrow. If you’re more focused on your day-to-day personal finances, consider using one of these budgeting apps and these investing apps to help you take daily steps to build your financial health. Best Retirement Calculators For Projecting