Self-service help: how to use it, the math (with sources), safe usage, and managing your Pro purchase. Support is provided through these docs, we don't offer one-to-one support.
A free, educational learning tool for exploring hypothetical retirement scenarios, the big question being will the money last, so you can see how choices like when to retire, how much to spend, and when to claim Social Security might play out, and walk into a financial professional's office prepared. It is not advice and never tells you what to do.
No, please don't. Use a fake name and round, hypothetical figures. You get the exact same insight, and there's nothing personal to protect. The goal is to learn the dynamics, not to record your finances.
On Scenario Snapshot, use Share this scenario to send a file someone can open in any browser, part of Pro. Export (a CSV scenario snapshot) and Print Report (a polished PDF) are Pro features. Your data lives only in your browser, so exporting is how you keep a copy.
We play your whole retirement out about 1,000 times, each a different random sequence of good and bad market years, and count the share where you never run out before your plan-to age. So 85% means the money lasted in roughly 85 of every 100 simulated retirements. It's a measure of resilience, not a promise.
After running those 1,000 retirements, we sort the endings. The median is the middle outcome (half do better, half worse). The unlucky end shows a rough 1-in-10 bad run; the lucky end a 1-in-10 good run. Most futures land in between. It's a range of possibilities, not a prediction.
Because markets and lifespans are uncertain. A single number hides the risk, especially the danger of a bad market early in retirement. Showing the range, including the unlucky runs, is the honest way to plan. See "the math" below for how the simulation works.
No. They are hypothetical illustrations of the assumptions you enter. Different assumptions produce different results, and your actual retirement will differ, possibly a lot. The tool can't and doesn't predict markets, inflation, or how long you'll live.
Instead of one smooth average, we simulate a couple of thousand randomized year-by-year retirements to map the range of outcomes. Standard technique in finance, engineering, and science.
The order of good and bad years matters enormously once you're withdrawing, a crash early in retirement does lasting damage even if the long-run average is fine. The tool lets you drop a real historical crash (the Great Depression, the 1970s, 2008, COVID) at any year of retirement and watch how the timing changes what's left. The market history it draws on covers 1928–2023. The stock and inflation series are checked against published long-run benchmarks; the bond series is a close approximation.
Decades of research examine how much a portfolio can sustainably support in withdrawals across history. Rather than asserting one "safe" rate, we simulate depletion risk directly for the spending you enter.
Risk is the year-to-year swing (standard deviation) of a stock/bond mix. Because assets move partly together, the honest risk is higher than a naive average. This is the core of modern portfolio theory.
Claiming later generally raises your monthly benefit for life, while claiming earlier starts income sooner at a lower amount. The tool lets you test different claiming ages (and a spouse's) so you can see the trade-off. Educational context, not a claiming recommendation.
Where the money sits, pre-tax (401(k)/traditional IRA) vs. Roth vs. taxable, changes the taxes and forces Required Minimum Distributions from pre-tax accounts later in life. We model tax-smart withdrawals, RMDs, and the taxation of Social Security using illustrative federal brackets you can verify.
The money has to outlast you, and for couples, whoever lives longer. We model a plan-to age around life expectancy so the plan is stress-tested against a long life, not just an average one.
Years of long-term care (an aide, assisted living, or a nursing home) are the big "what if" that can drain a plan, and care costs have historically risen faster than general prices. You can switch on a care-cost scenario to see the effect.
Real retirees rarely spend a fixed amount straight into a downturn, they ease off. Modeling flexible spending (including a Guyton, Klinger "guardrails" style rule) is usually a realistic boost to how long the money lasts.
What matters is purchasing power. We convert future dollars to "today's dollars" by removing inflation, so the headline reflects real buying power over a long retirement.
This tool draws each year's return independently and does not adjust for starting valuations or model mean reversion. If you want to reflect high valuations, set a more conservative average return yourself.
We don't store your scenarios. Your figures stay in your browser on your device (local storage) and are not sent to or saved by us. To keep a copy, Export/Print it; to erase it, clear it in the app or clear your browser data.
It's an ordinary web page on your own device, not a secure, login-protected vault, so please use hypothetical, rounded numbers and avoid real names or personal data. The app itself doesn't send the figures you type anywhere; they stay in your browser. Our hosting provider keeps standard server request logs, the same as any website, and we don't collect your scenario inputs. We don't control your device's security, so on a shared computer keep inputs hypothetical or use a private/incognito window.
Keep your inputs hypothetical there. We don't manage the security of your device, and the tool isn't password-protected, it's a sandbox. On a shared machine, use made-up numbers, a private/incognito window (which saves nothing), or clear the browser when you're done.
We don’t use advertising trackers or cross-site tracking cookies, and we don’t run third-party analytics today. If we ever add usage measurement, we’ll say so in the Privacy Policy first. The app uses your browser’s local storage to remember your scenarios and settings on this device — that’s essential to how the tool works, and it isn’t sent to us. Our hosting provider keeps standard server request logs (IP address, timestamp, browser type), the same as any website, to run and secure the site. You can clear local storage and block or delete cookies in your browser settings at any time. See the Privacy Policy.
Free includes the full planner, simulation, charts, and one saved scenario. Pro unlocks unlimited saved scenarios so you can compare many what-ifs side by side (retire a year earlier vs. later, spend less, claim Social Security at 62 vs. 70), unlimited sharing, print report (PDF), export outcomes (CSV), import a scenario, backup & restore, plus every update we release during your license year.
Pro is a one-time $14.99 for a full year of access, and it does not auto-renew. It's a one-time charge for the year and is non-refundable. One license covers up to 5 device activations. When the year ends it simply stops, buy another year to keep Pro.
After you start Pro you receive a license key. In the app, when you reach the saved-scenario limit, choose Activate, paste your key, and unlimited scenarios unlock on that browser. Keep your key private, don't share or publish it. Your key stays valid for your license year.
No. Pro is a one-time purchase for the year and doesn't auto-renew, so there's nothing to cancel and you're never charged again, your access simply ends when the year is up. For receipts or billing questions, go to the Polar customer portal and enter the email you used at checkout to get a secure sign-in link.
Support is self-service through this help page and the in-app Method documentation, there's no guaranteed one-to-one support. This keeps the product affordable. For billing or cancellation, use the Polar customer portal; for anything else, email scenario-labs@julieclarkson.com (best-effort; response times vary).
Something not working? Send the details and we'll use them to fix it. (This goes to our queue, it isn't a live chat, and we can't promise an individual reply.)
Pro is a one-time $14.99 for a year and does not auto-renew, so there's nothing to cancel. One license covers up to 5 device activations.
Billing, payment method, invoices, and receipts are all handled securely through the Polar customer portal. There is no separate account to create, go to the customer portal, enter the email you used at checkout, and Polar emails you a secure sign-in link.
Anything we could do better? (optional, it helps us improve)
The one-time $14.99 for the year is non-refundable and does not auto-renew. One license covers up to 5 device activations.
Scenarios are saved in your browser's local storage. They're cleared if you clear your browsing data, use a private/incognito window, or switch browsers/devices. Use Export to keep a copy.
Check for extra spaces, confirm the key is the one emailed at purchase, and make sure you're online (activation needs a quick license check). If it still fails, use the bug report form with your order details, or check the Polar customer portal.
Do a hard refresh (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+R) to load the latest version.
Support is self-service through these docs and the in-app Method pages, we don't offer one-to-one support. For a problem, use the bug report form; for billing or cancellation, use the Polar customer portal.