Six tools people in the FIRE community actually use — what each one is genuinely good at, what it costs, and where it falls down. Three of them are free and we make no money whichever you pick.
Pricing verified July 2026
At a glance
Tool
Best for
Price
Free tier
Fire Horizon
Tracking a FIRE plan against real accounts
Free, paid from $6.99/mo
Yes — full analytics on the free tier
ProjectionLab
Deep manual modelling without linking accounts
Free tier; Premium $129/yr; Pro $549/yr
Yes — forecasting and Monte Carlo included
Boldin
Tax-aware planning close to traditional retirement
Free tier; PlannerPlus $144/yr after a 14-day trial
Yes — plan building and what-ifs included
Empower Personal Dashboard
A free net-worth dashboard with a retirement check
Free tools; advisory from 0.89% of assets
Yes — the dashboard and planner are free
FI Calc
Comparing withdrawal strategies against history
Free
Yes — entirely free
cFIREsim
Open-source historical simulation with fine control
Free
Yes — free and open source
The tools in detail
1. Fire Horizon
our product
Best for: Tracking a FIRE plan against real accounts
Free, paid from $6.99/mo
A FIRE-native portfolio tracker and planner. The FIRE variants — Coast, Barista, Lean, Fat — are first-class plan types rather than something you approximate by editing a spending field, and the plan re-checks itself daily against your actual holdings.
Strengths
Coast, Barista, Lean and Fat FIRE are built-in plan types, each with their own target line and markers
Links to brokerages (Plaid and SnapTrade) or imports broker CSVs, then prices holdings daily
Monte Carlo, dividend income, what-if scenarios and net worth are free on every tier
Choose how you draw down: fixed dollar, percent-of-balance, or guardrails with a floor
The math is public at /methodology, and the projection engine is open to read
Trade-offs
No tax modelling — no Roth conversion planner, no state or federal tax projections
No Social Security claiming optimizer
The newest product here, with the smallest track record
Best for: Deep manual modelling without linking accounts
Free tier; Premium $129/yr; Pro $549/yr
The most respected pure planning tool in the FIRE community, and deliberately manual: it does not ask to link your accounts, which is precisely why a lot of privacy-minded planners choose it.
Strengths
Extremely flexible life-event and cash-flow modelling
Historical backtesting alongside Monte Carlo
No account linking by design — nothing of yours leaves your control
Genuinely capable free tier
Trade-offs
You keep it current by hand — it is a planner, not a tracker
Tax and withdrawal-strategy depth sits behind the $129/yr Premium tier
Best for: Tax-aware planning close to traditional retirement
Free tier; PlannerPlus $144/yr after a 14-day trial
Formerly NewRetirement, and the deepest consumer tool here for the tax side of retirement. If your hard questions are about Roth conversions and when to claim Social Security, this is the strongest answer on the list.
Strengths
Roth conversion explorer, plus state and federal tax projections
Social Security claiming comparison for you and a spouse
A large education library — live classes, recorded courses and weekly Q&A
An optional flat-fee CFP® plan review if you want a professional to look at it
Trade-offs
Built around traditional retirement — the FIRE variants are not first-class plan types
The class library and deeper modelling are the paid tier
Best for: A free net-worth dashboard with a retirement check
Free tools; advisory from 0.89% of assets
A free, polished net-worth dashboard with a Monte Carlo retirement planner attached. Worth knowing why it is free: the tools are the front door to a wealth-management business.
Strengths
Links a lot of institutions and gives a clean net-worth picture at no cost
Retirement planner and fee analyzer included free
Trade-offs
Expect contact from advisors — the free tools are lead generation for a 0.89%-and-up advisory service
Not FIRE-shaped: no Coast, Barista, Lean or Fat targets
Best for: Comparing withdrawal strategies against history
Free
A focused, elegant historical simulator. Instead of one 4%-rule answer it lets you run a retirement against 100+ years of real market history under a range of withdrawal strategies.
Strengths
Excellent, readable historical-cycle simulation
A wide set of alternative withdrawal strategies to compare
Free, fast, and needs no account
Trade-offs
A simulator, not a tracker or a plan — nothing is saved against your real portfolio
Answers the drawdown question only; the accumulation side is up to you
Best for: Open-source historical simulation with fine control
Free
The long-standing community simulator. Less polished than the newer tools, but open source and unusually configurable if you want to control the details of a historical run.
Strengths
Free and open source — the model itself is auditable
Fine-grained control over spending, allocation and withdrawal rules
Trade-offs
Dated interface with a real learning curve
Simulation only — no tracking, no saved plan against live accounts
Five questions worth asking of any retirement calculator, including ours. They are also how we ordered this list.
Does it model uncertainty honestly?
A single average return is the most common way a calculator flatters you. Monte Carlo or historical backtesting — ideally with a stated success rate — is the minimum bar for a number you would act on.
Does it stay true without manual work?
A plan is only right on the day you typed it in. Tools that connect to real accounts keep answering the question months later; pure planners need you to come back and update them.
Does it model the drawdown, not just the climb?
Reaching a number is half the question. Whether the money lasts depends on how you withdraw — a fixed inflation-adjusted amount behaves very differently from a percentage of the balance.
Can you check the math?
Any tool making a claim about your retirement date should be willing to show its assumptions and its method. Published methodology beats a confident-looking chart.
What does it actually cost?
Free is not always free. A tool funded by an advisory business is priced in a different currency — your contact details and a sales conversation.
There is no single best one, because the tools answer different questions. For tracking a FIRE plan against real accounts, Fire Horizon is built for it. For deep manual modelling without linking accounts, ProjectionLab. For tax and Roth conversion depth near traditional retirement, Boldin. For a free historical simulation of withdrawal strategies, FI Calc or cFIREsim.
Are there genuinely free FIRE calculators?
Yes. FI Calc and cFIREsim are free with no upsell at all. Fire Horizon, ProjectionLab and Boldin each have real free tiers. Empower is free because it is the front door to a paid advisory service, which is worth knowing before you sign up.
Do I need a paid retirement planner?
Not to get a credible answer. A free tool with Monte Carlo will tell you roughly when you can retire. You start paying for depth — tax modelling, multiple accounts, automatic tracking, scenario comparison — and whether that is worth it depends on how complex your situation is and how often you want the answer refreshed.
What makes a FIRE calculator different from a retirement calculator?
FIRE planning assumes a much longer retirement, usually funded entirely by a portfolio rather than by Social Security and a pension, and it comes with its own variants — Coast, Barista, Lean and Fat. Most mainstream retirement calculators assume a retirement age in the sixties and a 25 to 30 year horizon, which quietly makes them optimistic for someone retiring at 45.
How accurate are these calculators?
None of them predict the future. The useful ones give you a range and a probability rather than a single date, which is what Monte Carlo and historical backtesting are for. Treat every output as a conditional projection based on the assumptions you supplied — not advice.
Every tool above gives you a number once. Link a brokerage or drop in a CSV and Fire Horizon keeps answering on your real balances — free, no card required.
Not financial advice — projections are estimates based on your assumptions
Disclosure: we build Fire Horizon, so we are not a neutral party — read this the way you would any comparison written by one of the entrants. Every competitor figure is quoted from their own public pricing and feature pages, and we have tried to be specific about what they do better.