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See what your retirement savings could become with our free retirement savings calculator. Enter your age, current savings, monthly contributions, and expected return — get your projected balance at retirement in seconds.
Getting your projection takes less than a minute. Follow these steps:
Pro tip: run three scenarios — 5% (conservative), 7% (expected), and 9% (optimistic). If your goal is funded even at 5%, your plan is solid; if it only works at 9%, consider saving more or retiring later.
Retirement savings is the money you accumulate during your working years to support yourself after your paychecks stop. Because retirements now routinely last 25 to 35 years, planners often suggest replacing 70 to 80 percent of your pre-retirement income — which means building a nest egg worth roughly 10 to 12 times your final salary.
The engine behind every retirement plan is compound growth: each year’s investment returns generate their own returns in later years. At a 7 percent annual return, one dollar saved at age 25 becomes about $15 by 65 — while a dollar saved at 55 barely doubles to $2. Time in the market does the heaviest lifting, which is why a 25-year-old saving modestly can end up wealthier than a 45-year-old saving aggressively.
Most workers save through tax-advantaged accounts. A 401(k) is an employer-sponsored plan that accepts pre-tax contributions (lowering today’s tax bill) or Roth after-tax contributions (tax-free in retirement). Many employers add an employer match — for example, 50 cents for every dollar you contribute up to 6 percent of your salary. That match is part of your compensation; contributing too little to earn the full match is the same as declining a raise.
An IRA (Individual Retirement Account) is a second bucket you open on your own. Traditional IRAs offer tax-deductible contributions with tax-deferred growth, while Roth IRAs use after-tax dollars that then grow and withdraw tax-free. Self-employed workers get access to even larger buckets such as SEP IRAs and Solo 401(k)s. Used together, a 401(k) and an IRA let most households shelter their entire annual savings from yearly taxes.
How do you know if you are on track? A widely used set of benchmarks: save one times your salary by 30, three times by 40, six times by 50, eight times by 60, and ten times by 67. These are rough guides, not guarantees — your target depends on spending, pensions, Social Security, and life expectancy. Enter your numbers in the calculator above to see your projected balance, then compare it against the income you will actually need.
Retirement income traditionally rested on a three-legged stool: Social Security, employer pensions, and personal savings. Two of those legs have weakened — pensions are rare outside government jobs, and Social Security replaces only about 40 percent of an average earner’s income. That leaves personal savings carrying most of the weight, which is exactly why running your own numbers matters more than ever.
One more reality check: calculator projections are nominal, meaning they ignore inflation. At 3 percent annual inflation, prices double roughly every 24 years, so $1 million at 65 buys what about $500,000 buys today. To plan in purchasing power, either rerun the calculator with a lower real return (for example, 4 percent instead of 7) or mentally discount the headline number.
The calculator projects your balance with two standard future-value formulas added together:
Total = P × (1 + r)t + PMT × [((1 + r/12)12t − 1) ÷ (r/12)]
Here P is your current savings, r is the expected annual return as a decimal, t is years until retirement, and PMT is your monthly contribution. The first term compounds your existing balance once a year; the second term treats your monthly deposits as an annuity compounding monthly.
Worked example 1 — the default scenario. You are 35, plan to retire at 65 (t = 30), have $50,000 saved, contribute $500 a month, and expect 7 percent annually (r = 0.07):
Your total deposits are just $230,000 ($50,000 + $500 × 360 months), yet the balance approaches $1 million — compound growth contributes more than $760,000. These are the exact numbers the widget shows with its default settings; change any input to watch the math update.
Worked example 2 — a mid-career saver. You are 40, plan to retire at 67 (t = 27), have $20,000 saved, contribute $800 a month, and expect 6 percent annually:
Even starting at 40 with a lower return, disciplined $800 monthly deposits build nearly three-quarters of a million dollars — consistency matters as much as the rate.
Small inputs, huge outputs. Raising the monthly contribution in example 1 from $500 to $600 lifts the total by about $122,000; raising the expected return from 7 to 8 percent lifts it by roughly $258,000. Conversely, retiring at 62 instead of 65 removes three of the most productive compounding years. The calculator makes this sensitivity tangible — nudge each input and watch the total respond.
Scenario 1: The early starter. Priya is 25 with nothing saved yet. She invests $300 a month — about 7 percent of a $50,000 salary — at a 7 percent expected return until age 65. That is 40 years, or 480 deposits totaling $144,000. The calculator projects her balance at roughly $787,444. Compounding contributes more than $643,000 — over four times what she put in. Because she started at 25, every dollar from her twenties compounds for four full decades, the most productive money she will ever invest. If she waits until 35 to start the identical plan, the same $300 a month reaches only about $365,991 — the ten-year delay costs her more than $421,000.
Scenario 2: The late bloomer catching up. Daniel is 45 with $100,000 already saved across an old 401(k) and an IRA. He contributes $1,000 a month at a 6 percent expected return until 65 — 20 years. His existing $100,000 compounds to about $320,713.55, while his $240,000 of contributions grows to roughly $462,040.90, for a total near $782,754. Daniel still lands in strong shape because his larger deposits and existing balance partly offset the shorter runway — proof that starting late beats never starting.
Try both scenarios in the calculator above. Then add just $100 to the monthly contribution and watch the total jump — seeing your own numbers move is what turns the formula from trivia into a plan. Small, boring, automatic deposits are the entire secret; the calculator simply shows you the receipt in advance.
Keep planning with our other free financial tools. Our 401(k) calculator projects your employer-plan balance including matching contributions, and the IRA calculator compares traditional and Roth growth side by side. The compound interest calculator shows how any lump sum grows over time, while the retirement calculator estimates how long your savings will last once you stop working. Also try the investment calculator and the pension calculator for a complete picture of your future income.
This page provides a free retirement savings calculator plus an original guide covering how to use the calculator, retirement savings fundamentals (compound growth, 401(k), IRA, employer match), the future-value formula with two worked examples, practical saving scenarios, five common mistakes, and eight FAQs. Key entities: SigmaCalculator.net, Retirement Savings Calculator, future value of an annuity, monthly compounding, employer match, 401(k), IRA. The calculator projects a retirement balance from current age, retirement age, current savings, monthly contributions, and expected annual return.
A common benchmark is three times your annual salary by 40 — about $240,000 on an $80,000 income. If you are behind, raising your monthly contribution now helps more than chasing higher returns, because contributions are the one variable you fully control.
At a 7% annual return, saving about $380 a month from age 25 to 65 reaches $1 million. Starting at 35, you would need roughly $820 a month for the same goal — another reason starting early matters.
It can be a strong foundation: $500 a month for 30 years at 7% grows to about $609,986 from contributions alone. Most planners suggest saving 15% of income, so check whether $500 meets that target for your salary.
Many planners use 6–8% nominal for stock-heavy portfolios, or 4–5% after inflation for conservative ones. Run the calculator above at 5%, 7%, and 9% to see your full range of possible outcomes.
The 4% rule suggests withdrawing 4% of your savings in your first retirement year — $40,000 from a $1 million portfolio — then adjusting that amount for inflation each following year, aiming to make the money last about 30 years.
The usual order: contribute to your 401(k) up to the full employer match first, then fund an IRA (often a Roth), then add more to the 401(k) up to the annual limit. The match is free money — capture it before anything else.
About $380,613 — $50,000 × 1.07^30 — with no additional contributions. Add $500 a month and the same 30 years reaches roughly $990,598.
Possibly, if your spending is modest: $1 million supports about $40,000 a year under the 4% rule. But retiring at 55 means fewer compounding years and more years to fund, so test your exact numbers in the calculator above first.
Cite this page as:
APA: SigmaCalculator. (2026). Retirement savings calculator. https://sigmacalculator.net/financial-calculators/retirement-savings-calculator/
MLA: “Retirement Savings Calculator.” SigmaCalculator, 8 Oct. 2026, https://sigmacalculator.net/financial-calculators/retirement-savings-calculator/.
Chicago: SigmaCalculator. “Retirement Savings Calculator.” Last modified October 8, 2026. https://sigmacalculator.net/financial-calculators/retirement-savings-calculator/.
Last updated: October 8, 2026