Make better retirement decisions with Plus
Go beyond building a retirement plan. See how much you could spend, compare the decisions that matter, and find out how your plan holds up when things go wrong.
The free planner covers the core of a plan: your accounts, income, Social Security, pensions, expenses, and debts, taxed for where you live, and how likely the money is to last. Plus models more of your life, from real estate to long-term care, and adds the tools for what comes next: trying changes, comparing choices, and searching for better ones.
Questions Plus helps you answer
Spending Optimizer
Could I afford to spend more?
Careful savers often spend less than their plan could support, and give up travel or help for family to guard against a risk they had already covered. The Spending Optimizer reruns your plan at spending from 30% below today to 30% above, and shows what each level does to your chance of success, your funded ratio, and what is left at the end.
- Seven spending levels, each run through your whole plan
- A suggested range for a conservative, balanced, or aggressive approach
- Healthcare, debt payments, and one-time costs stay as planned, so the test is your everyday spending
What-If Explorer
What if I retired earlier, or Social Security paid less?
Most retirement questions are really a what-if: retire two years sooner, work part time for a while, spend more while you are young enough to travel, or plan for a cut in Social Security. The What-If Explorer tries each change on top of your plan without touching it, and shows the difference against your baseline. Changes stack, so a market crash and a benefit cut in the same decade are tested together, the way they would actually arrive.
- Retirement age, spending, part-time work, inflation, returns, and paying off debt
- Historical crashes timed to the start of your plan or of retirement
- Your saved plan stays exactly as it is until you decide to change it
Time Machine
What happens if the market drops right after I retire?
Losses in the first years of retirement do more damage than the same losses later, because you are selling while prices are down. Plus samples real market history in every simulation, and Time Machine lets you choose the history: replay your plan on the returns that actually followed any year since 1872, in the order they happened, or put two starting years side by side.
- Compare two retirement start years on one chart
- Test every starting year on record and see how many your plan survives
- Find the spending change that would carry your plan through all of them
Social Security and Pension Optimizers
When should I claim Social Security, and should I take the pension lump sum?
Claiming is one of the largest decisions in a plan and one of the hardest to undo, and for a couple the answer depends on both ages together. The optimizer runs every claiming age from 62 to 70, for you and your spouse, through your whole plan with taxes included, and ranks the results. The pension optimizer does the same for the payout options you enter, monthly or lump sum, instead of relying on a generic break-even age.
- Every claiming-age combination for a couple, ranked by success rate or what is left over
- Pension options compared across a range of lifespans
- Social Security and pension choices searched together, since each changes the other
Roth Conversion Optimizer · Medicare and ACA
Should I convert to Roth, and how much each year?
A conversion trades tax now for less tax later, and whether that pays depends on your brackets, Medicare surcharges, and ACA subsidies that a simple calculator leaves out. Plus models all three in your plan, and the Roth optimizer compares about two dozen conversion strategies, ranked by what you keep after taxes.
- Fill-to-bracket strategies from 12% to 35%, timed around Social Security and RMDs
- Options to protect ACA subsidies and stay under IRMAA thresholds
- Strategies ranked on after-tax wealth, with chance of success alongside
Multiple Plans · Compare Plans
Which version of my plan works best?
Retire at 62 or 65, downsize or stay, spend more early or hold steady: each is a different plan, and looking at one at a time hides the tradeoff. Plus keeps up to ten complete plans side by side. Compare any two to see how their results differ and exactly which inputs make them different.
- Success rate, funded ratio, and ending balance for every plan on one page
- A breakdown of where two plans’ ending balances part ways
- A field-by-field list of every input that differs
Relocation Explorer · Passport
Would moving leave me better off?
State income tax, housing, and everyday costs vary more than most people expect. The Relocation Explorer runs your own plan with a move to each state and ranks them by what you would have left compared with staying put. It works closer to home too: a move to another area of your own state, or a new home in the area you live now, such as selling and renting or downsizing nearby. For a move abroad, Passport builds a copy of your plan with that country’s cost of living and healthcare, and checks your income against its residency visa requirement.
- Every state ranked on your own plan, by income tax, cost of living, or both
- Several moves on one timeline, each year taxed by the state you live in
- Save any move as a new plan and keep working on it
Screenshots are from the example plans in demo mode. Your results depend on your own plan.
Ask these questions of your own plan
Plus works on the plan you have already built. Nothing to re-enter, and your baseline plan stays as it is while you explore.
Free covers the core of your plan. Plus models more of it, and explores, compares, and optimizes it.
Free
- The core of your plan: accounts, income, Social Security, pensions, expenses, and debts
- Monte Carlo and straight-line simulations, with your chance of success
- Federal and state taxes for where you actually live
- The funded ratio, in today’s dollars
Plus adds
- More of your life in the plan: real estate, other assets, life insurance, charitable giving, long-term care, and a legacy goal
- Optimizers for spending, Social Security, pensions, and Roth conversions
- Historical simulation and the full range of outcomes
- Your funded ratio split into essentials and full lifestyle
- What-If Explorer and Time Machine
- Up to ten plans, compared side by side
- Roth conversions, Medicare and IRMAA, ACA subsidies
- Relocation Explorer, state and international moves, and Passport
- And more
Try Plus on your own plan
Every Plus feature runs on the plan you already have, from the first day.