ProjectionLab Review | Financial Planning Software

Do you like Projection Lab better than New Retirement?

Hi Rob, can you please give me websites to track my Bond portfolio with daily price EOD to understand my overall portfolio EOD

Like You Need a Budget this is another expensive tool with a high monthly or annual charge. As a 34 year old I cannot justify spending $5k in total (by paying monthly) or even the $500 lifetime sub. It's just too expensive for a tool that someone should use less than quarterly once set-up.

Rob, I am already retired so I am using Projection Lab as a "Post Retirement" analysis tool. I wanted to make absolutely sure that I am not required to include my Fed and State taxes in my Living Expenses. I assume this is automatically calculated by the program. Correct?

Hi Rob. I wanted to ask if you would recommend linking accounts to financial planning software tools such as this and specifically such as NR? I see value to linking accounts but am a little concerned about security risk. Any thoughts appreciated.

Can you do a review of M1 Finance?

Rob, congratulations for the show. Really interesting. I found ProjectionLab and NewRetirement tools very appealing for somebody that will start retirement in less than a year. What I find is that the tools could be more powerful on the income derived from taxable accounts (the expense options are huge and very helpful). Just to bundle all of them into one bucket seems too simple. In my case most of my future income will be provided by taxable accounts. I guess is what I need is to get not only my future expenses right but also the income side (from investments). Thanks again and congratulations for the show, extremely useful. Osvaldo

Does this plan figure the affects of Roth conversions.. like hitting IRMMA cliffs , higher tax brackets, the new age 73 RMD age, and the tax rate increase in 2026 ?

Nice software and good prospects to be one of the best. However, there are no printed reports to PDF; everything is on screen only. And reports that show the detail by year of the income and withdraw components would be nice - it gives you comfort that its all there and nothing is missed. That particular report is in most other software options, including a great example in MoneyGuidePro.

If you could incorporate a recap section were you discuss pros and cons. That would be much appreciated. Great review!

Thanks for this review, Rob. Your channel is very helpful. I have been trying out the software, but I don't see how the user can incorporate social security (SS) considerations. Did I just miss this? I also could not figure out how to enter a deferred pension that would begin at a future age, perhaps several years after a retirement date. SS is applicable to the vast majority (in the U.S.), so that must be incorporated somehow. Deferred pensions are obviously less prevalent in the U.S.

Rob, shouldn't it tell you when and how much Roth conversion to do instead of you just doing trial and error ad infinitum? (I'm going to assume I don't know how to "ask" it to do a Roth conversion strategy for me.) Otherwise, the few hours I've spent on the free, premium trial, ProjectionLab software initially leads me to believe it to be the best of the many tools I've tried, including software I've actually paid to use.

ProjectionLab looks to have great potential for useful extended use in that it includes the ability to export your data set to share with a financial planner for yet another opinion on your plan.

Isn't that why we're all using this kind of tool? Thanks.

Hi Rob, Do you prefer this planner over the Personal Capital Retirement Planner that you reviewed before? Do you have a video where you compare the planners and suggest one over the other? Thank you!! Kitty Sue

Hi Rob, do you prefer this planner over the Personal Capital Retirement Planner that you reviewed before? Do you have a video describing your favorite planner of all those that you review? Thank you!! Sue Ellen

Great review I will be playing around and comparing it to Flexible retirement planner which I use. Hopefully you can do an in depth review of sometime I think it's still the best Free planner out there.

After watching this great review I tried to use the software to model Roth conversions in retirement. What I found was that unless an individual pays for the Premium version it looks like tax rates are fixed. Given that accurate tax rates are pretty crucial to whether or not it makes sense to make Roth conversions that was a bit of a disappointment. Evidently the free version only uses fixed tax rates. if you want the software to estimate taxes you have to turn that on, and the option to do so is only active in the Premium version. Certainly the company deserves the right to set what options are available in the free version, but if you want it to estimate taxes you will need to pay.

Rob, I'm trying to decide between ProjectLab and NewRetirement. Any suggestions? I will have a pension when I retire and also have LTC insurance. I'm a homeowner with no kids. No debt (Thank you Dave Ramsey) except the house. We do have Deferred Comp 457b, but I'm late to the game in contributing. I'm 58 with 25 years of County employment (CalPERS). Only debt is $240K on the house, locked in at an incredible 1% (thank you Wells...). Love your videos!!!

Of the tools you have analyzed which works best from someone already in retirement? I am 72 and living comfortably on Social Security (debt free) but want to manage 2M in IRAs in best manner, especially when dealing with RMDs. You mentioned your next book is for those of us in retirement...looking forward to its release.

I am testing this tool to use with clients in my financial advisory practice. If you think your situation is somewhat complex please reach out and we can do some co-beta testing together :)

Thanks for reviewing these planning apps Rob! Not sure if these 2 low-cost, retirement planners are on your radar to review... Pralana Gold is an extensive, Excel based tool I use often. And, Quicken's Lifetime Planner which is a tool that is integrated into the overall Quicken PFM software. While they are both desktop applications and lack the slick interface of a modern web-based application, they are extremely capable planners.

Follow up to my comment below. This software looked great. Until i added a house. The more i put in for the assets worth (despite listing it as fully owned) it made it look as if i run out of money at 83. Without the house i am good until 93. Not sure where the error is. I think i entered everything correctly???

Will you be able to share some tools and sites that are for an International audience? The tools you share have US-specific tax and Retirement implications which may not be relevant to investors living outside of the US. Can you please share something that is not specific to the USA? On another note. Thank you for sharing your wisdom

Curious Rob since this does not link to accounts as stated by their website do you find the tool valuable enough in it's modeling capababilities to go through updating your actual values when you want to consider doing your ongoing analysis

I have been retired for two years. No pension . IRA traditional and roth and taxable. I have a series of short term bond fund and a Vanguard TDFs to use for cash flow. An account with Schwab with Rowe Price and American TDF for end of life. With medigap and Part D and no debt. Also an emergency fund

This is not complicated. My bills are very predictable. Simplify everything and you will sleep easier

You've outdone yourself Rob, this is really good.

Great Demo of Projection Lab. Would love a review/demo of MaxiFi (I like and use it) and Income Strategy. Income Strategy is great on modeling Roth conversions and the income tax savings.

This looks like it has the features of New Retirement and On Trajectory. NR is good at forwarding looking projections and OT maintains your historical progress. I’ll definitely be checking out this program. Thanks Rob for reviewing!

@Rob Berger: this looks like a keeper. I am not a New Retirement Plan Fan. too complicated and i am not sure of the data it gives. This looks very intuitive. My problem is i never know how to determine the quality of the output. I love that he links to the actual sources and concepts. Great review Rob.

Another very good analysis and walkthrough of this plan. It appears that after the upcoming update addressing the taxes, it would be very similar to New Retirement's planner. Thanks Rob.

This looks like a good one. Thanks for the walkthrough.

I was playing with the Basic Plan yesterday. Pretty straight forward. I tried to model a Roth Conversion of my small IRA ($6200). I will be able to convert it over the next two years with no taxes. In the software it was not allowing me to convert all of it. It would also not allow a conversion in just 1 year.

How does this compare to ontrajectory

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The way you look at that software in the thumbnail is disturbing.

Does anyone know how this compares to the New Retirement Pro tool?

That is much cheaper than Money Guide Pro that we all use.

Great thumbnail! And content.