What Is the Best Free Retirement Planning Software?

Which free retirement planning tool fits my needs?

Choose a task first, then compare the free tier. These five options include full planning workflows and more focused calculators. A longer feature list does not establish that a tool handles your particular situation well.

When should I start with Beagle?

Start with Beagle when you want to follow a retirement decision through the annual numbers. Enter accounts manually or import a supported holdings CSV, save a baseline, and compare a different retirement date or spending level. You can examine estimated taxes and withdrawals, add recurring large purchases, and compare six Roth presets or a manual conversion schedule. Bank linking is neither required nor offered.

For example, compare your current budget with another $500 a month of travel spending. That adds $6,000 to the first year's annual budget before inflation and any extra taxes needed to fund it. Inspect which accounts supply the difference and which years become harder to fund. This is a suggested exercise, not a published simulation result.

Beagle's methodology explains its limits: one modeled age and longevity, approximate state taxes, and a fixed withdrawal sequence. Joint filing does not create a two-person retirement model. Roth presets are not a lifetime tax optimizer, and healthcare income warnings do not calculate insurance premiums or subsidies. Those limits may matter more than the subscription price.

What do Boldin Basic and ProjectionLab Basic include?

Both offer a free entry point, but their paid feature lists matter. Boldin Basic supports a personalized plan and what-if exploration. Boldin lists maintaining multiple scenarios, detailed tax planning, Monte Carlo stress testing, and its Roth Conversion Explorer under PlannerPlus. Do not assume a feature demonstrated during a paid-tier trial remains in Basic.

ProjectionLab Basic lists forecasting, Monte Carlo simulations, and historical backtesting. Premium adds Compare Mode, Roth conversions, tax estimation, and downloadable reports. Its public pricing summary does not clearly settle Basic's plan-saving limits; verify that you can save and reopen your own plan without an active paid trial before relying on it for ongoing planning.

If either tool feels promising, identify the exact feature you need before evaluating an upgrade. Our ProjectionLab comparison discusses Beagle's narrower planning scope. For people already evaluating a switch from Boldin, the Boldin alternatives guide also covers paid options.

When are Empower and FIRECalc useful?

Empower is worth considering when you want a retirement projection alongside a broader financial dashboard. Its free financial tools include Monte Carlo retirement analysis and account aggregation. You can incorporate major financial events into the plan. Read the signup and account-connection terms to decide whether that workflow suits you. The separately offered advisory service charges fees; access to free software is a different offering.

FIRECalc is useful for a focused historical spending check. Its public calculator starts with portfolio value, spending, and years, then lets you refine income and other assumptions. It shows how the plan would have behaved across past market periods. A historical success rate is not the probability that your own future will succeed, and this exercise does not replace a detailed withdrawal and tax plan.

How can I tell whether a free plan is enough?

Try a small fictional plan before entering all your finances. Use a round portfolio balance, your intended retirement age, and a simple spending budget. Then check the following:

1. Save and return. Can you close the tool, sign back in, and reopen the plan? Does that still work after a trial ends?
2. Change one assumption. Increase spending by $500 a month. Can you compare the result with the original or record enough detail to reconstruct it?
3. Follow the money. Can you tell whether an annual withdrawal includes taxes and which account supplies it? If not, note what additional calculation you need.
4. Check household coverage. Can you enter the ages, income dates, and survivor assumptions you need? A joint-filing option alone does not answer that.
5. Keep a record. Check whether reports or exports are free, and keep a separate list of your assumptions so you can reproduce the plan.

This is a usability checklist, not a cross-product accuracy test. When two tools disagree, compare spending definitions, inflation, taxes, timing, and the meaning of success before drawing conclusions. Our Monte Carlo explainer shows why more simulations alone do not resolve uncertainty about the future.

When is paying for retirement software worthwhile?

Consider paying when a specific missing capability prevents you from answering an important question. That might be two-person survivor modeling, more detailed taxes, a particular withdrawal strategy, or maintaining several plans. Confirm that the paid product actually handles your case, then use its trial to test that workflow.

You may also find that a free planner plus a focused second calculation is enough for your current task. A historical spending check can complement an annual cash-flow plan, but agreement between two tools is not proof that all assumptions are sound. Start with a manageable plan you understand and can update as circumstances change.

Once you have an annual plan, our monthly retirement paycheck walkthrough connects account withdrawals, tax reserves, and the cash needed for bills.

Try a retirement plan before entering your own numbers

Explore Beagle's sample plan, inspect the annual cash flow, and decide whether its current free early-adopter offering fits your needs.