Last updated 3 September 2026
How the projection works
Your current savings grow on their own at the assumed rate, compounding monthly. Each month's new contribution then has its own remaining time to grow, so an amount added in year one contributes far more by the end than one added in the final year. Add both together and that's the projected total — what you contributed, plus what growth added on top.
Real returns and sequence risk
A projection in nominal terms overstates what the money will buy. A fund reaching $1,000,000 in thirty years at 3% average inflation has the purchasing power of roughly $410,000 today, which is a very different retirement from the one the headline figure suggests. Working in real terms — subtracting inflation from your assumed return before projecting — gives a figure you can actually reason about.
The second issue no smooth projection captures is sequence risk. Two portfolios with identical average returns can end in very different places depending on when the bad years fall. A sharp fall early in retirement, while withdrawals are being made, does lasting damage that the same fall later would not, because the withdrawals lock in losses. This is the main reason advisers shift portfolios towards less volatile holdings as retirement approaches.
Assumptions and limitations
What the maths does. Your current balance is compounded monthly at the rate you enter, and monthly contributions are added as a future-value-of-an-annuity calculation at the same rate. The two are summed.
Nominal versus real return. The rate you enter is treated as a nominal return, so the total shown is in future currency, not today’s money. If you expect 7% growth with 3% inflation, entering 7% tells you the headline balance; entering roughly 4% instead gives a figure closer to what it will actually buy. Over thirty years the gap between those two answers is very large, and the second is usually the more useful one.
Fees and tax are not deducted. Fund charges, platform fees and adviser costs come straight off your return — a 1% annual fee turns a 7% return into 6%, which compounds against you for the whole period. Tax on contributions, growth or withdrawals is also not modelled, and it depends entirely on the account type and country.
A steady rate is not how markets behave. Real returns vary year to year and can be negative for several years in a row. The order in which good and bad years arrive changes the outcome, especially near retirement. A single average rate hides all of that.
What is not included. Contribution increases over time, employer matching, career breaks, state or workplace pension entitlements, and the drawdown phase after retirement.
Assumptions that apply to every finance calculator here
Currency is a display choice only. Changing the currency symbol relabels the output; it does not convert anything and no exchange rate is used anywhere in this tool.
Tax and lending rules vary by country. Nothing here is adjusted for the rules where you live — income tax, capital gains tax, stamp duty, lending caps, affordability tests and consumer-credit regulation all differ, and several of them can change the real answer materially.
Rates and returns are not guaranteed. Any rate you enter is treated as fixed for the whole period. Real interest rates move, real investment returns vary year to year and can be negative, and past performance does not predict future results.
This is an estimate, not advice. The result is arithmetic on the numbers you typed. It is not an offer, a quote, an approval, an investment recommendation or financial advice. Before committing to anything, get figures from the actual lender, provider or a qualified adviser in your country.
Common questions
What return rate should I assume?
Whatever you enter is an assumption, not a forecast, and this page has no market data behind it. Long-run averages quoted for diversified portfolios vary widely depending on the market, the currency, the exact period measured, and whether the figure is before or after inflation, fees and tax — so a number taken from one source will not match another. Past performance does not predict future returns. A deliberately conservative assumption produces a more robust plan, because under-saving is the more costly error.
Why does starting early matter so much?
Compound growth needs time more than it needs a large contribution. Money added in your 20s has decades to compound, so it can end up contributing more to the final total than a larger amount added later with less time to grow.
Does this account for inflation?
No — the total shown is in today's-dollar terms only if your return rate is already inflation-adjusted (a "real" return). If you use a nominal return rate instead, the final number will look larger than its actual purchasing power at retirement.