Retirement Calculator

Written by Great Medico

Updated September 25, 2026 •3 min read

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Retirement Calculator is useful when you want a quick number without losing sight of the assumptions behind it. It projects a retirement account balance using the current balance, annual contribution, employer-match assumptions, return, fee, and years until retirement.

What this calculator does

Retirement Calculator projects a retirement account balance using the current balance, annual contribution, employer-match assumptions, return, fee, and years until retirement. The visible form contains Current retirement balance, Your annual contribution, Employer match rate, Maximum annual employer match, Expected annual return, Annual account fee, Years until retirement, Desired annual retirement income, Safe withdrawal rate. These are the inputs that define this calculator’s scope. If a value, rule, or adjustment is not represented by a working field, it should not be assumed to be included in the result.

How to use it

Enter Current retirement balance, Your annual contribution, Employer match rate, Maximum annual employer match, Expected annual return, then complete the remaining displayed fields: Annual account fee, Years until retirement, Desired annual retirement income, Safe withdrawal rate. Enter percentage or rate fields on the scale shown by the form rather than converting them to decimals yourself. Keep monetary inputs in the same currency, or use the currency selector when one is provided. Keep time and payment-frequency assumptions consistent with the labels on the page. Before calculating, recheck Current retirement balance and the other values that materially affect the result. For a clean comparison, hold the other inputs constant while changing one assumption at a time so you can see what is driving the result.

How the calculation works

The current calculator uses monthly compounding at expected annual return minus annual fee and adds monthly contributions plus the modeled employer match. It then calculates a simple withdrawal amount from the projected balance and the entered safe-withdrawal rate. This is the calculation method that should anchor any manual check of the output. If a displayed field does not affect the current calculation, that limitation is stated below rather than silently treating the field as part of the formula.

Example

With the displayed defaults, the calculator projects a retirement balance of about 844,435.51 and also compares the projected safe-withdrawal income with the entered desired retirement income.

How to interpret the result

Use the output to compare saving and return scenarios rather than as a retirement-income guarantee. The ending balance changes substantially with time, contributions, fees, and investment-return assumptions. Compare results produced from the same definitions and time period. A mathematically larger or smaller number is not automatically better unless the financial context makes that direction meaningful.

Limitations and notes

The desired-retirement-income field is now used to calculate the balance implied by the entered safe-withdrawal rate and to show a funding gap. The projection still does not model taxes, inflation, Social Security, pensions, sequence-of-returns risk, or changing contributions unless those effects are represented by the visible inputs.