If you’re looking for ways to track your retirement savings and financially map out your golden years, there are many digital tools available to help you. Some are free, while others require a one-time payment or charge ongoing subscription fees. Determining which of these services is right for you will depend on how thorough you want to be in your retirement planning, as certain tools offer an excellent overview while others provide more detailed guidance.
The best retirement planning tools and software include:
— Betterment
— Boldin Simple Retirement Calculator
— Charles Schwab Retirement Calculator
— The Complete Retirement Planner
— Empower
— Fidelity Retirement Score
— Playing With Fire Retirement Calculator
— ProjectionLab
— The U.S. News Retirement Calculator
— Vanguard Retirement Income Calculator
— WealthTrace Retirement Planning Software
Here is a breakdown of these options, along with information regarding their cost and top features.
Betterment
The Betterment app helps you set up a retirement plan. After creating an account and sharing some information about yourself, including financial information and location, you receive a plan for retirement saving and investing to achieve your goals. With the app, you can check your spending, track your net worth and make changes as your lifestyle and needs change. Betterment’s stocks and bonds investment advice can be accessed for 0.25% a year or $4 a month, depending on your account balance.
[READ: Frequently Asked Social Security Benefit Questions.]
Charles Schwab Retirement Calculator
Charles Schwab offers a free retirement savings calculator to determine if you are saving enough to cover your estimated annual retirement expenses. The calculator collects information from you, including your current age, planned retirement age and investment style. You also enter your current income, amount saved for retirement and monthly savings. The calculator asks when you plan to start receiving Social Security benefits and how much you plan to spend each year in retirement. The tool then provides a summary of your projected retirement savings, along with the savings needed for retirement. It offers suggestions on what to change, such as your retirement age or annual contributions, to meet your savings needs by the time you retire.
Fidelity Retirement Score
Use this free tool to get a quick assessment of your savings strategy. You answer six questions about your age, income, current savings amount, monthly savings, expected retirement lifestyle and investment style. The tool will give you a score based on your responses. You can also see what happens to your score if you change certain factors like your monthly savings, standard of living in retirement or retirement age.
[Read: How to Build a Balanced Retirement Portfolio]
Empower
Empower provides access to an investing platform and financial management tools. You can link your accounts to the planner so it can analyze your savings, net worth and spending habits. It has a free retirement planner that allows you to envision different scenarios and understand how they could influence your financial plan. You can adjust for various factors such as tax rates, inflation rates and a possible recession. It has a feature to see your expected income from Social Security and other sources, and how changes might impact those figures. You can tap financial advisors to discuss and set goals, and then track your progress toward those milestones. While the tracking and forecast tools do not have a cost, you’ll pay a 0.49% to 0.89% management fee if you choose to invest through the platform.
The Complete Retirement Planner
At $89.99, this planner allows you to create a customized and comprehensive financial plan for before and after retirement. It includes information on inflation, including a separation between general and health care inflation, to forecast retirement expenses. If you’re married, it allows annual amounts to be entered for each spouse in different categories, including multiple income sources, health savings accounts, traditional 401(k) and IRA contributions, investment return rates and Social Security income. You can use it to evaluate which age you want to start taking distributions from a 401(k) or IRA. There are integrated notes on complex topics like Medicare costs, Social Security benefits and common tax laws. The planner shows total income versus total expenses each year so that you can track cash flow.
Boldin Simple Retirement Calculator
If you’re wondering how much you’ll need to retire, Boldin helps you estimate your retirement income, when you’ll be able to retire, the amount of savings you need and your overall net worth. With this free retirement calculator, you can also look at what-if scenarios to see how a few changes in timing and savings can impact your retirement lifestyle. For instance, you can observe what would happen to your finances if you work part time for three additional years past your planned retirement age and receive 50% of your current salary.
Playing With Fire Retirement Calculator
If you’re considering retiring early, this free calculator shows you when you’ll be able to achieve financial independence. You need to enter your age, annual income, annual expenses, current net worth, how your assets are allocated and your expected rate of return on investments. You can then make changes to review how additional savings or other lifestyle changes could allow you to retire even earlier.
[How to Start Investing and Saving for Retirement With Little Money]
WealthTrace Retirement Planning Software
This planning software is easy to use and lets you see a detailed view of your financial and retirement situation. After you import and link accounts, the software will automatically update daily, so your balances remain current. You can evaluate your funds for retirement, see when your resources will run out, and have a WealthTrace expert guide you through your plan online. You can also run different scenarios to see how to overcome financial challenges and unexpected expenses. The basic individual plan starts at $229 a year.
ProjectionLab
You can use this tool for retirement planning and see how different withdrawal strategies could play out. For instance, if you want to withdraw 4% every year, you can look at projections to see how this would impact your savings. You can also evaluate other strategies, such as taking out various percentages during certain years. A free version is available as well as a premium one for $109 a year.
The U.S. News Retirement Calculator
The U.S. News retirement calculator provides you with an estimate how long savings and income will last in retirement. While it does not specifically calculate Social Security benefits, users can project retirement income. To use the calculator, enter your age, annual pretax income, current retirement savings and monthly account contributions. The calculator also accounts for your retirement age, life expectancy, inflation rate and estimated retirement expenses. Calculations include annual income increases and any expected additional retirement income. Retirement planners can adjust their earnings, retirement income estimates and savings goals to see how these factors will impact their income later in life.
Vanguard Retirement Income Calculator
You can fill in details regarding your age, the time you plan to retire, your income and how much you have saved in this free calculator. You’ll also be asked about your length of retirement, how much you plan to spend and your investment allocation. Then Vanguard will help you envision how long your retirement savings will last.
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Great Retirement Planning Tools and Software for 2025 originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 04/03/25: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
