ProjectionLab vs Retirement Scenario Explorer
The FIRE community's favorite modeling tool, compared honestly with the tool built for people who want the answer without the production.
ProjectionLab is the FIRE community's favorite retirement tool, and the visualizations are exceptional — well worth the price for serious FIRE planners.
What ProjectionLab does best
ProjectionLab is the FIRE community's favorite retirement tool, and for good reason. The visualizations are exceptional — chart-rich, dense with information, satisfying to explore. The simulation flexibility is unmatched: you can model nearly any scenario you can imagine, with surgical control over assumptions, and its historical simulation mode — replaying your plan through real market sequences — is a genuine methodological strength. For someone who wants to model “what if I take a sabbatical at 45, work part-time at 50, downshift expenses at 55, and still retire at 60,” ProjectionLab is built for exactly that.
Where ProjectionLab doesn't fit for most people
ProjectionLab's Premium plan runs $129 per year, ongoing — about $1,290 over a decade. Setup takes 30+ minutes to get a meaningful first projection: it wants detailed phase-by-phase income, expense, and savings inputs before producing results. There's no built-in AI advisor. And the depth of customization is its own form of friction — it's possible to spend hours configuring scenarios that, for most plans, don't materially change the answer.
ProjectionLab is built for the FIRE planner who treats retirement modeling as a hobby. We're built for people who want the answer to “am I on track?” without the production.
Head to head
| ProjectionLab | Retirement Scenario Explorer | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $129/yr Premium (free tier available) | Free calculator; $79 once for the AI Advisor tier |
| Time to first answer | 30+ minutes of setup | ~5 minutes |
| Simulation | Up to 2,000 Monte Carlo trials; historical or parametric mode — excellent | 1,000-trial seeded Monte Carlo (geometric returns, volatility drag) plus a historical back-test to 1928 |
| Visualizations | Best in class | Clean and focused — verdicts first, charts second |
| Tax modeling | Detailed federal + state | Detailed — federal brackets, IRS Pub 915 SS taxation, 51-state profiles, IRMAA, ACA subsidies |
| AI | None built in | AI Advisor that reads your full plan (paid tier) |
| Account & data | Account for saved plans; cloud storage | No account; data stays in your browser |
| Best for | Serious FIRE planners with complex multi-phase scenarios | Standard retirements — and FIRE plans that don't need 12 asset classes to answer the question |
Based on each product's public documentation and pricing pages, verified July 2026. ProjectionLab previously offered a lifetime license; its current pricing page lists annual plans only. If we've mischaracterized anything, tell us and we'll correct it.
Why people choose Retirement Scenario Explorer
If you're planning a relatively standard retirement — W-2 income, employer plans, Social Security, maybe a paid-off home — ProjectionLab's flexibility is mostly cost without value. The math under the hood is comparable: real Monte Carlo, real tax modeling, real Social Security actuarial adjustments. What's different is what we don't make you do: 30 minutes of setup, $129 a year forever, or learning a sophisticated tool to answer a simple question.
And if you're a serious FIRE planner with complex multi-phase scenarios? ProjectionLab is probably the right tool for you, and we'll cheerfully say so. For everyone else, $79 once and a five-minute first answer is the deal.
Common questions
Run your plan free in about five minutes — 1,000 futures, real taxes, real Social Security math. No account, nothing leaves your browser.
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