Seven retirement tools is six too many. Most people need a place that shows their net worth, an account that grows outside the 401(k), one quick “am I on track” check and their own Social Security estimate.
If you just want the answer: Monarch if you want your net worth and budget in one app ($99.99 a year, first week free), Fundrise if you want an IRA that owns real estate and private credit, and Boldin if you want a full retirement plan you can test for free.
Our top pick
Monarch
Net worth, budgeting and goals in one app
Best for: anyone who wants every account, the budget and the retirement goal on one screen
$14.99 a month or $99.99 a year, and the first week is free.
- Connects bank accounts, credit cards, loans, real estate and investments, 401(k)s included, and totals your net worth
- Goals with a target amount and a monthly contribution, so retirement savings has a number next to it
- Budgeting is built in, which Empower and Boldin skip
- No free plan, only a one week trial
- It is not a retirement planner, so pair it with Boldin or Fidelity’s score for the “when can I retire” math
Continue securely on Monarch’s site
Monarch sets the price and the trial terms. It also has a money-back guarantee.
Which one fits you
You want to see your net worth and your budget
Monarch links every account and totals it, then budgets on top. $99.99 a year, first week free.
Try Monarch freeContinue securely on Monarch’s site
You want retirement money growing outside your 401(k)
A Fundrise IRA, traditional or Roth, invests in real estate and private credit. The $125 yearly IRA fee is waived for a year when you invest $3,000 or more.
Open a Fundrise IRAContinue securely on Fundrise’s site
You want a full retirement plan you can test
Boldin builds the plan free. PlannerPlus adds tax projections and Monte Carlo for $168 a year after a 14 day trial.
Build a free Boldin planContinue securely on Boldin’s site
You want a free net worth dashboard
Empower’s dashboard and retirement planner cost nothing. You link your accounts and the numbers show up.
You want a quick “am I on track” check
Fidelity’s Retirement Score takes a few minutes. Vanguard’s calculator is the other quick one.
You want your Social Security estimate
Make a Social Security online account and pull your statement. Everyone should do this one.
You want your 401(k) or IRA set up right
The 2026 limit is $24,500 for a 401(k) and $7,500 for an IRA. Changed jobs? There is a rollover shortcut.
You want free official calculators
Investor.gov has compound interest, savings goal and fund cost calculators.
The tools, one by one
Monarch if you want budgeting with your net worth
Net worth and budgeting, paid
- Monarch costs $99.99 a year or $14.99 a month, and the first week is free.
- It has a money-back guarantee, no questions asked.
- It connects bank accounts, credit cards, loans, real estate and investments, including 401(k)s, and totals your net worth.
- You can set goals with a target amount and a monthly contribution.
- A Plus tier adds forecasting tools and deeper investment tracking. The pricing page doesn’t say what Plus costs, so check at checkout.
Monarch fits you if you want budgeting and net worth in one paid app. It isn’t a retirement planner, so pair it with Boldin or Fidelity’s score. Here’s our Monarch review.
Fundrise for an IRA that owns real estate
Retirement account
Fundrise IRA
A traditional or Roth IRA invested in private real estate and private credit
Best for: someone who maxed the 401(k) match and wants the next dollar somewhere other than the same stock funds
The $125 yearly IRA fee is waived for a year when you invest $3,000 or more, and it stays waived above $25,000.
- Traditional or Roth IRA, your pick
- Roll over an old employer plan into it
- Diversified private real estate and private credit instead of only stock funds
- $125 a year IRA fee unless you invest $3,000 or more (one year waiver) or keep the account above $25,000
- Private assets are not liquid the way an index fund is, so this is long money
Continue securely on Fundrise’s site
Fundrise sets the fee and the waiver rules. Investments can lose value. Our Fundrise review has more.
Boldin for a full plan you can test
Full plan, free to start
- Boldin used to be NewRetirement. It’s the same company under a new name, and more than 250,000 people use it.
- The Basic plan is free. It builds a personalized plan and lets you try what-if scenarios.
- PlannerPlus is $168 a year, billed annually, after a 14 day free trial.
- PlannerPlus adds Monte Carlo analysis, state and federal tax projections, a Roth conversion explorer and multiple scenarios.
- An optional checkup with a certified financial planner is a $3,200 flat fee.
Boldin fits you if you want to play with the numbers. Try retiring at 60 instead of 65 and see what moves. Then add a house purchase.
PlannerPlus adds 100+ inputs over Basic, so give it an evening. But start with Basic and see if you like it first. Our Boldin review has more.
Continue securely on Boldin’s site
Boldin sets the price and the trial terms.
Empower for a free look at your whole picture
Net worth, free
- The dashboard and its financial tools are completely free.
- Link your accounts and your net worth shows up next to your spending and investments.
- The Retirement Planner lets you test retiring at different ages and set up retirement withdrawals.
- Personal Capital’s tools now live at Empower.
- Human advice is a separate, paid service for people with $100,000 or more, priced on the assets Empower manages for you.
Empower fits you if you want one free screen that shows every account, with a retirement planner behind it.
But it only gets useful once your accounts are linked, there’s no budget, and the advice side costs money. Our Empower review goes deeper.
How does this compare?
Monarch
Net worth plus budgeting
Continue securely on Monarch’s site
Monarch sets the terms.
Fidelity for a quick score and a savings yardstick
Quick check
- The Retirement Score estimates how much of your retirement income goal your plan would cover.
- It tests that against a significantly below average market, so it’s a cautious number.
- Fidelity’s guideline is at least 1x your salary saved by 30, 3x by 40, 6x by 50, 8x by 60 and 10x by 67.
- That guideline assumes you save 15% of your income every year from age 25, employer match included, and retire at 67.
Use the score when you want one number fast. Use the multiples when you just want to know if you’re roughly on pace. Want to retire early? Then the multiple goes up.
Open Fidelity’s Retirement Score
How does this compare?
Boldin
A full plan you can test
Continue securely on Boldin’s site
Boldin sets the price and the trial terms.
Vanguard for checking how close you are
Quick check
- Vanguard points you to its Retirement Income Calculator to see how close you are to your retirement goal and what to change.
- The old Retirement Nest Egg Calculator address now lands on a general Vanguard learning page, so skip any guide that still sends you there.
- Vanguard also has a Retirement Expenses Worksheet for totaling what you’d spend each month.
It fits you if you want a plain calculator rather than a full planning app. Run it once with your real numbers, then run it again with a higher savings rate.
How does this compare?
Boldin
A full plan you can test
Continue securely on Boldin’s site
Boldin sets the price and the trial terms.
Do this one regardless
- Your online Social Security account lets you get your Social Security Statement, review your earnings history and estimate benefits at different ages.
- You sign in through Login.gov or ID.me, and Login.gov asks for an email address, a government photo ID and a phone number.
- If you were born in 1960 or later, your full retirement age is 67.
- You can start at 62, but a $1,000 benefit at full retirement age becomes $700, which is 30% less. Waiting past 67, up to age 70, raises it.
Why bother? Everyone reading this page should have one, it takes a few minutes, and the earnings record is worth a scan for missing or wrong years.
Open your Social Security account
How does this compare?
Monarch
See every account next to that estimate
Continue securely on Monarch’s site
Monarch sets the terms.
Investor.gov for free official calculators
Free calculators
- Investor.gov, the SEC’s investor education site, lists free planning tools.
- Use the Compound Interest Calculator to see how invested money grows over time.
- The Savings Goal Calculator finds how much to save each month to hit a target.
- And the Fund Analyzer shows how fees and expenses can eat into a mutual fund, ETF or money market fund.
The Fund Analyzer is the one most people skip, and it can save you real money. Plug in your 401(k) funds and see what they cost you over 30 years.
How does this compare?
Fundrise IRA
Real estate and private credit in an IRA
Continue securely on Fundrise IRA’s site
Fundrise sets the fee and waiver rules. Investments can lose value.
Set up your 401(k) and IRA right
Your 401(k) provider almost certainly has a planner inside your account. Log in and use it, since it already knows your balance. Then check two things: that you’re contributing enough to grab the full employer match, and what your funds cost you each year. The Fund Analyzer above will tell you.
Here are the 2026 limits from the IRS.
| What | 2026 limit |
|---|---|
| 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457 or TSP | $24,500 |
| Catch-up, age 50 and over | $8,000 |
| Catch-up, ages 60 to 63 | $11,250 instead |
| IRA, traditional or Roth | $7,500 |
| IRA catch-up, age 50 and over | $1,100 |
| Roth IRA income phase-out, single or head of household | $153,000 to $168,000 |
| Roth IRA income phase-out, married filing jointly | $242,000 to $252,000 |
| Saver’s Credit income limit, single | $40,250 |
Source: IRS notice IR-2025-111.
Not sure which account to use? Start with the best retirement plan for young adults. If the answer is an IRA and you want it in something other than stock funds, that’s the Fundrise IRA above.
Changed jobs? A direct rollover sends your old plan’s money straight to the new plan or IRA, and no tax is withheld. Capitalize finds the old 401(k) and handles the rollover paperwork for you. Our IRA rollover bonus guide covers who pays you to move it.
Other tools you’ll see recommended
Betterment has a retirement forecaster inside its investing app that shows how much you’ll have and need, down to your ZIP code. Investing starts at $5 a month with no minimum balance, and drops to 0.25% a year once you set up $200 a month in deposits or reach $24,000. Fine if you already invest there. Not worth opening an account just for the forecaster.
Future Capital offers a no-cost retirement analysis and a call with one of its professionals, whatever your balance. It manages 401(k) accounts for a price, and its site doesn’t list one, so ask before you sign up. Here’s our Future Capital review.
Two old picks are gone. Blooom shut down in November 2022 and its website no longer loads. Vanguard’s Retirement Nest Egg Calculator was replaced, as covered above.
Set it up in an afternoon
- Make your Social Security online account and look at your earnings record.
- Sign up for Monarch, or Empower if you only want the free dashboard, and link your bank, 401(k) and IRA so your net worth shows up.
- Log in to your 401(k) and confirm you’re getting the full employer match. Fidelity suggests saving 15% of your income, match included.
- Run one quick check, either Fidelity’s Retirement Score or Vanguard’s calculator, and write down the result.
- Open a free Boldin Basic plan if you want to test what happens when you retire earlier or save more.
- Got money left after the match? Open the IRA. A Fundrise IRA is the pick if you want it outside stock funds.
- Set a yearly reminder to redo steps 2 and 4, and again whenever your pay or job changes.
How we picked these tools
We opened each company’s own pricing and tool pages, plus the IRS and Social Security pages, and wrote down what they say. We dropped anything we couldn’t confirm. When a company doesn’t state a figure, this page says so.
Retirement tools FAQ
It depends on the job. Empower’s dashboard and financial tools are completely free, and that includes a retirement planner. Boldin has a free Basic plan with what-if scenarios. For your Social Security estimate, use your online Social Security account at ssa.gov/myaccount.
Only if you also want a budget. Monarch costs $99.99 a year or $14.99 a month and does net worth, budgeting and goals, but it is not a retirement planner. If net worth is all you want, Empower does that for free. If you want the “when can I retire” math, that is Boldin.
Yes. Fundrise offers a traditional or Roth IRA invested in private real estate and private credit, and you can roll over an old employer plan into it. The IRA fee is $125 a year, waived for a year when you invest $3,000 or more and waived on an ongoing basis above $25,000.
Fidelity’s guideline is at least 1x your salary by 30, 3x by 40, 6x by 50, 8x by 60 and 10x by 67. It assumes you save 15% of your income each year from age 25, employer match included, and retire at 67. Use it as a starting point, not a pass or fail test.
Create an online Social Security account at ssa.gov/myaccount. You sign in through Login.gov or ID.me, which ask for an email address, a government photo ID and a phone number or a device with a camera. Once you are in, you can get your Social Security Statement, review your earnings and estimate benefits at different ages.
For 2026 the IRS limit is $24,500 for a 401(k), 403(b), governmental 457 or the TSP, and $7,500 for an IRA. At 50 or older you can add $8,000 to a 401(k) and $1,100 to an IRA. Ages 60 to 63 can add $11,250 to a 401(k) instead of $8,000.
If you were born in 1960 or later, your full retirement age is 67. You can start as early as 62, but a $1,000 benefit at full retirement age becomes $700, which is 30% less. Waiting past full retirement age, up to age 70, raises your benefit.
It runs your plan through many possible market paths instead of assuming one steady return every year. Fidelity’s methodology uses Monte Carlo simulations and scores your plan against a significantly below average market. Boldin PlannerPlus includes Monte Carlo analysis.
The bottom line
Bottom line: link your accounts, check your Social Security estimate, and run one quick score. That takes an afternoon and tells you more than any seven-tool list. If you do one thing today, start Monarch’s free week and link everything, or go with Empower if you only want the free dashboard.
Then come back once a year. Every estimate on this page moves with your pay, your savings and the market, and none of them is a promise.
Retirement projections are estimates and your investments can lose value.
