10 Great Retirement Planning Tools
Planning for retirement is a crucial step towards financial security. Fortunately, numerous online tools can assist you in projecting your future income needs, estimating potential savings, and making informed decisions. Here's a rundown of some noteworthy retirement planning tools, including details about their cost and key features.
1. Betterment
2. Boldin Simple Retirement Calculator
3. Charles Schwab Retirement Calculator
4. Empower
5. Fidelity Retirement Score
6. Playing With Fire (PWFIRE) Retirement Calculator
7. ProjectionLab
8. The U.S. News Retirement Calculator
9. Vanguard Retirement Income Calculator
10. WealthTrace Retirement Planning Software
Betterment offers automated investing and portfolio management services with advisory fees ranging from 0.14% to 0.79% annually, alongside a free goal-setting tool. Its top features include goal-based planning for retirement and other financial objectives, tax-efficient investment strategies like tax-loss harvesting, automated portfolio adjustments, and access to financial advisors on higher-tier plans, providing projections of retirement income and potential shortfalls.
Boldin Simple Retirement Calculator is a free and incredibly user-friendly tool designed for a quick initial assessment of your retirement readiness. By inputting basic information like your current age, retirement age, current savings, annual contributions, and estimated return rate, it provides a straightforward estimate of whether you are on track for a comfortable retirement.
Charles Schwab Retirement Calculator is a free, comprehensive tool that allows users to factor in various income streams such as Social Security and pensions, alongside expenses and inflation, to project retirement outcomes. A key feature is its ability to run "what-if" scenarios, enabling exploration of different retirement ages, contribution levels, and investment returns, with optional integration with Schwab accounts for streamlined data entry.
Empower, formerly Personal Capital, provides a free financial dashboard to track all your accounts and offers basic retirement planning tools at no cost, while paid advisory services range from 0.49% to 0.89% annually. Its notable features include the unified financial dashboard, tools for analyzing your retirement trajectory, a Fee Analyzer to detect hidden investment costs, and access to financial advisors for paying clients.
Fidelity Retirement Score is a free tool available to Fidelity customers that uses a proprietary scoring system to evaluate your likelihood of achieving your retirement goals. It analyzes your savings rate, asset allocation, and time horizon, providing actionable recommendations to improve your score and retirement preparedness, seamlessly integrating with Fidelity brokerage accounts.
Playing With Fire (PWFIRE) Retirement Calculator is a free tool specifically designed for those interested in the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, allowing users to input detailed expenses and expected returns to calculate their FI number. It incorporates concepts like the 4% rule and displays visualizations of your projected path to financial independence.
ProjectionLab offers both a free basic plan and more advanced paid subscriptions starting around $19 per month, providing a highly customizable and detailed financial planning experience. Its key features include the ability to model complex income and expense scenarios, perform sophisticated Monte Carlo simulations to assess retirement plan viability (in paid versions), and support planning for multiple financial goals.
The U.S. News Retirement Calculator is a free and relatively simple tool that helps users estimate their retirement needs by considering factors like current savings, intended retirement age, desired retirement income, and inflation. It delivers an estimation of the additional savings required to meet your retirement objectives.
Vanguard Retirement Income Calculator is a free tool focused on projecting your potential retirement income based on your existing savings and ongoing contributions. It allows the inclusion of various income sources, such as Social Security and pensions, offering insights into potential income shortfalls and suggesting adjustments to your savings strategy, and it integrates well for those with Vanguard accounts.
WealthTrace Retirement Planning Software is a subscription-based platform with various tiers starting around $199 per year, offering a comprehensive suite of retirement planning tools utilized by both individuals and financial advisors. Its top features include detailed projections with Monte Carlo simulations, tax and estate planning functionalities, stress-testing capabilities, and options for collaboration with a financial advisor.
