Retirement Calculator

How your retirement balance is projected

A retirement projection combines your current savings, ongoing monthly contributions (including any employer match), and an assumed rate of return, compounded month by month across your remaining working years, to estimate what your balance will look like at retirement.

Employer matching contributions are, in effect, an immediate and substantial boost to your effective savings rate — a dollar-for-dollar match on contributions up to a certain percentage of salary is equivalent to an instant 100% return on that portion of your contribution, before any investment growth even begins. This is precisely why financial advisors near-universally recommend contributing at least enough to capture the full available match before directing extra savings elsewhere.

This same month-by-month approach is also used to project how long a retirement balance will last once withdrawals begin, simply reversing the direction — instead of adding contributions to a growing balance, the projection subtracts a monthly withdrawal from a balance that’s still earning investment returns, continuing until the balance either lasts through a very long retirement or is depleted. Modeling withdrawals this way, rather than through a simplified flat estimate, captures how ongoing investment growth continues to work in a retiree’s favor even during the withdrawal phase.

The 4% rule

The 4% rule is a widely cited guideline suggesting that withdrawing 4% of a retirement portfolio’s value in the first year of retirement, then adjusting that dollar amount for inflation in subsequent years, has historically had a strong track record of lasting at least 30 years without depleting the portfolio, based on historical US market return data.

The rule was originally derived from research examining historical stock and bond market returns across many different starting points, specifically identifying a withdrawal rate that would have survived even the worst historical sequences of returns for a 30-year retirement horizon. This is precisely why 4% (rather than a seemingly more generous 5% or 6%) became the standard reference figure — it reflects a deliberately conservative rate chosen to hold up even under historically unfavorable market conditions, not simply an average or typical outcome.

This translates directly into a savings target: divide a desired annual retirement income by 4%, which is the same as multiplying it by 25. Needing $60,000 per year in retirement implies a target portfolio of $1.5 million ($60,000 ÷ 0.04, or equivalently $60,000 × 25). This “25x annual expenses” framing is one of the most common ways retirement savings goals get set in the first place.

The 4% rule is a historically-grounded guideline, not a mathematical guarantee. It’s based on past US market return sequences, and future returns — along with the specific sequence of good and bad years early in retirement — could differ from historical patterns. Many retirees and advisors treat 4% as a reasonable starting point while remaining willing to adjust withdrawals based on how an actual portfolio performs over time.

The order in which good and bad market years occur matters more than most people expect, a phenomenon often called “sequence of returns risk.” Two retirees with an identical average annual return over a 30-year retirement can end up with very different outcomes if one experiences poor returns early in retirement (while withdrawing from a still-large balance) versus late in retirement (after the balance has already grown). This is part of why the 4% rule, despite being based on solid historical analysis, isn’t a guarantee for any single specific retiree’s actual experience.

How much do you actually need?

No single guideline fits every situation perfectly, since actual retirement income needs depend heavily on individual circumstances — expected Social Security benefits, any pension income, healthcare costs, mortgage status, and desired lifestyle all shift the real target up or down from any generic rule of thumb. These guidelines are useful starting points for a rough target, not a precise, personalized calculation.

Healthcare costs deserve particular attention when personalizing any generic guideline. Medical expenses tend to rise with age and can represent a significant, sometimes underestimated share of retirement spending, particularly before Medicare eligibility or for costs Medicare doesn’t fully cover. Building a specific healthcare cost estimate into a personalized retirement target, rather than relying entirely on a generic guideline that doesn’t account for this category specifically, produces a more realistic overall number.

The power of starting early

Time is the single most influential factor in retirement savings, more so than the contribution amount itself in many cases. A dollar invested at age 25 has decades longer to compound than a dollar invested at age 45, and that extra time produces a dramatically larger difference in final balance than the raw number of extra years might suggest.

A concrete comparison makes this vivid. Investing $200/month at a 7% annual return starting at age 22 produces roughly $655,000 by age 65. Starting the identical $200/month contribution at age 32 instead — just 10 years later — produces only about $309,000 by the same age 65: less than half, despite “only” losing 10 of 43 working years. This disproportionate impact is the direct result of compound growth, where money invested earliest benefits from the most total compounding periods.

This doesn’t mean starting later isn’t worthwhile — it emphatically still is, since any consistent saving still produces meaningful growth over even a shorter remaining working period. The point is specifically about the relative advantage of an earlier start, not an argument against starting at all regardless of current age. Someone starting at 40 still benefits enormously from starting today rather than waiting until 45 or 50 — the same disproportionate-impact-of-time logic applies at every stage, not just to the earliest possible starting point.

Maximizing employer match and contribution limits

For 2026, the 401(k) employee contribution limit is $24,500 ($32,500 for those 50 and older), and the IRA contribution limit is $7,500 ($8,600 for those 50 and older). These limits are adjusted periodically for inflation, so checking the current figures directly with the IRS or a plan administrator before finalizing a specific year’s contribution strategy is worthwhile.

Beyond capturing the full employer match, contributing 10–15% of gross income toward retirement is a commonly cited general target, though the right figure for any individual depends on when they started saving, their specific retirement timeline, and their target lifestyle. For anyone with room in their budget, maximizing both a 401(k) and an IRA captures the largest possible tax-advantaged saving opportunity available in a given year.

Choosing between traditional and Roth accounts adds another layer to the contribution strategy. Traditional accounts use pre-tax contributions with taxes owed on withdrawal, while Roth accounts use after-tax contributions with tax-free qualified withdrawals — meaning the better choice depends partly on a comparison between current tax bracket and expected tax bracket in retirement. Many financial planners recommend holding some balance of both account types specifically for the tax flexibility this provides in retirement, rather than committing entirely to one or the other.

Real-world applications

Checking whether a current savings pace is actually on track for a specific retirement goal benefits directly from this calculator’s goal-progress figure — rather than vaguely hoping contributions are “enough,” seeing a concrete percentage of goal progress makes clear whether course correction is needed now, while there’s still time for adjustments to compound meaningfully.

Deciding how much an increased contribution actually helps benefits from the “close the gap” suggested contribution figure — translating an abstract percentage shortfall into a specific extra dollar amount per month makes the decision to increase contributions far more concrete and actionable than a vague sense that “more would help.”

Evaluating whether a planned retirement age and withdrawal rate are realistic together benefits from the “years savings will last” projection — seeing that a specific balance and withdrawal combination would only last 15 years, for instance, when 30+ years of retirement might reasonably be expected, is a clear, actionable signal to revisit either the withdrawal rate or the overall savings target.

Comparing multiple retirement age scenarios side by side — retiring at 62 versus 65 versus 67, for instance — benefits from running the projection separately for each target age, since even a few additional working years can meaningfully change both the final balance (through additional contributions and growth) and how long that balance needs to last (through a shorter remaining retirement span), often producing a larger combined effect than either factor alone would suggest.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Not contributing enough to capture the full employer match. This is effectively leaving free money on the table — always contribute at least enough to receive the complete available match before directing savings elsewhere.
• Underestimating how much starting a decade earlier actually matters. The compounding effect of an earlier start is dramatically larger than most people intuitively expect — a modest delay can cut a final balance by half or more, even with identical ongoing contributions.
• Applying a generic rule of thumb (25x expenses, 10-12x salary) without adjusting for personal circumstances. Social Security, pensions, healthcare costs, and desired lifestyle all shift a realistic target meaningfully — generic guidelines are a starting point, not a precise personal figure.
• Assuming the 4% withdrawal rule guarantees a portfolio will never run out. It’s a historically-grounded guideline, not a mathematical certainty — actual future returns and the specific sequence of good and bad years could differ from the historical patterns it’s based on.
• Assuming the same investment return rate used during working years will continue unchanged through retirement. Many retirees shift toward a more conservative asset allocation as they age, which typically comes with a somewhat lower expected return than a working-years growth-focused allocation.
• Treating a single retirement projection as a fixed, one-time calculation. Income, expenses, market performance, and personal goals all change over a multi-decade savings horizon — revisiting the projection periodically keeps the plan grounded in current, real circumstances rather than assumptions made years earlier.
• Ignoring sequence of returns risk when planning a withdrawal strategy. The order in which good and bad market years occur during retirement can meaningfully affect how long savings last, even with an identical average return — some retirees address this by maintaining more flexibility in withdrawal amounts during market downturns rather than withdrawing a rigid fixed amount regardless of performance.
• Not accounting for Social Security or pension income when setting a personal savings target. These income sources can substantially reduce how much a personal portfolio actually needs to cover — building a target based purely on portfolio withdrawals, without factoring in other expected retirement income, can lead to an unnecessarily conservative (or in some cases unrealistic) savings goal.