Enter your age, savings, contribution, and employer match to project your balance at retirement — in nominal and inflation-adjusted terms, with an estimated retirement income.
Cumulative contributions (yours + employer match) vs. projected balance, year by year.
| Year | Contributed (cumulative) | Balance | Growth |
|---|
Enter your employer's match as a percentage of your own contribution, and a monthly dollar cap — this covers common structures like "50% match up to 6% of salary" once you convert that into a monthly dollar cap yourself (e.g., 6% of a $5,000 monthly salary is $300, so a 50% match caps at $150/month). The calculator adds the matched amount on top of your own contribution every month before compounding.
A commonly cited starting point (the "4% rule," from the Trinity study) for how much you can withdraw annually from a retirement portfolio without a high risk of running out of money over a typical 30-year retirement. It's a rule of thumb, not a guarantee — actual safe rates depend heavily on market returns during your specific retirement years (sequence-of-returns risk) and how long your retirement actually lasts, so many planners now suggest 3–3.5% for extra safety margin.
The nominal figure is the actual future dollar amount your account will show; the real figure discounts that by your assumed inflation rate to show what it's worth in today's purchasing power. A headline "$1.5 million at retirement" sounds very different once you see it's worth roughly $650,000 in today's terms after 35 years of 3% inflation.
The underlying math — contributions compounding over time, with an optional employer match — is universal and applies to any retirement account: a UK workplace pension, an Indian NPS or EPF, an Australian superannuation fund, or a plain taxable brokerage account earmarked for retirement. Only the specific tax treatment and contribution limits are country- and account-specific, which this calculator intentionally doesn't model, since they vary too much and change frequently.
Worked example: starting at age 30 with $20,000 saved, contributing $500/month with a 50% employer match capped at $250/month (so $750/month total), at an assumed 7% return over 35 years to age 65, projects to roughly $1.58 million nominal — worth about $562,000 in today's purchasing power at 3% inflation. At a 4% withdrawal rate, that supports about $63,000/year in nominal retirement income.
Part 5 of our book, From Paycheck to Portfolio, works backward from a retirement target using the 4% and 25x rules. Retiring in the UK? See the 2026 Budget's frozen allowances and dividend tax changes. Retiring in Australia? See whether the RBA hikes again in August 2026. Aiming to retire early? Try the FIRE & Coast FIRE Calculator. Defined-benefit income sits outside this projection — value it with the Pension Calculator, and estimate the government portion with the Social Security Calculator. The withdrawal rate this assumes matters enormously — Morningstar now puts it at 3.9%, not 4%, and inflation changes the target more than most people expect. Borrowers on income-driven repayment face the trade-off from both sides, since pre-tax retirement contributions lower the AGI that sets the loan payment; the repayment plan comparison quantifies that side of it.