Beagle vs. Empower: When a Probability Ranking Is Not Enough
Compare Beagle and Empower's free Retirement Planner on taxes, market stress tests, setup, and transparency, and see when each one fits.
Empower's free Retirement Planner is many people's first look at whether they are on track. Link your accounts, and it runs thousands of market scenarios against your plan. If that answer leaves you asking why, Beagle is the next step: it shows the taxes, withdrawals, and account balances behind each year of the plan, and the methodology behind the math.
At a glance
| Planning need | Beagle | Empower |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free for early adopters, with no advisory service. | Free tools; Personal Strategy advisory services are offered when you invest more than $250,000 with Empower. |
| Account setup | Manual entry or CSV import, with live prices per holding. No account linking. | Built around connecting your accounts to the Empower dashboard. |
| Market risk | Steady returns, historical market paths from 1928, and Monte Carlo odds shown as a percentage. | Monte Carlo with 5,000 scenarios, summarized as a low, medium, or high probability of success. |
| Taxes | 2026 federal brackets, capital gains from cost basis, RMDs, and a flat state rate, with withdrawal taxes funded year by year. | The public planner page does not describe how taxes are modeled. |
| Roth conversions | Six presets, including 12% and 22% bracket-fill rules, plus manual conversions. | Not described on the public planner page. |
| Withdrawal order | Cash above your reserve, then taxable, pre-tax, and Roth; Roth before pre-tax under age 59.5. | Not described on the public planner page. |
| Transparency | Published methodology with formulas, validation checks, and known limitations. | Assumptions behind the ranking are not published on the planner page. |
| Couples | One modeled person. | Not described on the public planner page. |
Beagle's calculations and limits: read the methodology. Competitor features and tiers: Empower's official pages, linked in the sections below.
Why we would add Beagle after Empower
A low, medium, or high ranking tells you whether to worry. It does not tell you which year is the problem. Beagle shows the plan year by year: income, spending, estimated federal and state tax, required distributions, and which account each withdrawal comes from. When the money runs short, you can see the first year it happens and what drove it.
Taxes are where the annual view matters most. Beagle applies 2026 federal brackets, stacks capital gains on top of ordinary income, and taxes brokerage sales using your cost basis. Tax on a pre-tax withdrawal is paid with another withdrawal, calculated until the year balances. A plan with most of its money in a 401(k) needs larger withdrawals than the spending figure alone suggests, and Beagle shows that.
Three ways to stress-test the same plan
Beagle runs your plan three ways. Steady returns gives a clean baseline. Historical markets replays every start year since 1928, so you can see how the plan would have fared through 1929, 1966, or 2000. Monte Carlo runs 1,000 randomized paths and puts the odds of lasting to your plan's end age on the main card, colored from green to red.
Empower's Monte Carlo uses more scenarios, 5,000 by its own description, and reports a probability ranking. Neither number is more correct by itself. Odds depend on return, inflation, and spending assumptions, so compare those before comparing percentages.
What Empower does well
Empower's planner works from your linked accounts, so balances stay current without data entry. That is a real advantage if you already track spending and investments in its dashboard. Beagle has no account linking; you enter balances or import a CSV from E*TRADE or Schwab, and holdings update with live prices.
Empower's planner page also offers Personal Strategy advisory services when you invest more than $250,000 with the company, and financial professionals who can build and adjust a plan with you. If you want an advisor to manage the money, that may be what you need. Beagle is a planning tool only. It does not manage money or sell advice.
Source: Empower Retirement Planner.
Know Beagle's limits before you switch
Beagle models one person. Choosing joint filing changes the tax brackets but does not create a second retirement timeline or survivor benefits. Working-year savings go to a taxable brokerage account; 401(k), IRA, and HSA contributions are not modeled. Healthcare costs are not calculated automatically, though the plan checklist reminds you to add insurance before Medicare.
A practical test is to enter the same balances, spending, and Social Security in both tools. If Empower says high and Beagle's odds are lower, look at the annual table for the years with the largest tax bills or withdrawals. We have not run that comparison for this article; it is a suggested exercise, not a measured result.
See how Beagle fits your plan
Explore the sample plan from our home page, or sign in to build and compare your own scenarios.
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Product information checked October 10, 2026. Beagle descriptions reflect the current planner and its published methodology. Evaluation exercises are suggestions, not measured cross-product results. No claim is made that competitors lack features merely because their public pages do not describe them. Projections depend on assumptions and are educational estimates, not guarantees or personal financial advice.