Welcome to Calculate My Pension

The Pension Planning Website

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Are you saving enough for retirement?
Could you already afford to retire and not even realise?
How much can you sustainably withdraw in retirement?

Calculate My Pension is an independent UK pension planning tool that can answer these questions and many more so that you can retire with confidence.

Using a powerful cashflow model, Calculate My Pension is designed to be the quickest possible way to discover the age at which you can afford to retire.

Get started now by clicking the button below, or scroll down for more information.

To understand how Calculate My Pension can help your retirement planning, tick the box that applies to you:

What You'll Learn

Earliest Affordable Retirement Age
Discover the earliest age at which you can afford to retire on your desired income, shown in years and months.
Fund Progression
Observe the future progression of your funds in a chart, growing up to retirement and then declining as you start taking income, targeted to reach zero by the age of your choice.
Retirement Income Breakdown
Analyse the breakdown of your retirement income between different sources in each retirement year, including your state pension, with different sources commencing payment at different ages.
The Effect on Retirement Age of Increasing Contributions
You can easily change your contributions and see the results update instantaneously. See how many more months of retirement you could gain if you increased your monthly contributions.
The Effect of Assumptions and Scenarios
See how your results change under the three standard growth scenarios prescribed by the FCA and three levels of charges.
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Assessing Retirement Income Needs

Calculating what income you can afford in retirement is just one half of the retirement planning equation. The other half is understanding how much income you’ll need to support your desired lifestyle.

We use the widely recognised Retirement Living Standards to help you estimate your personal income needs. These specify three standards of living: Minimum, Moderate, and Comfortable with income requirements for each that reflect real-world costs based on independent research.

Premium members have access to the Retirement Budget Calculator which allows you to tailor your retirement income needs in line with your own circumstances or preferences, using the same expense categories as the Retirement Living Standards research.

This provides a quick and easy way to allow for your own personal circumstances and preferences without already having a budget, while still using the Retirement Living Standards as a foundation. This tailored income target feeds directly into a comparison with your calculated affordable income, allowing you to see if you are on target and to adjust your plans accordingly.

Plan As A Couple

Retirement income needs are different for couples than for individuals. Two people living together can share many costs, such as housing, utilities, and food. It therefore makes sense to plan for retirement as a couple rather than as two separate individuals. The Retirement Living Standards website helpfully provides target incomes for its three standards of living for couples in addition to individuals.

In order to work out when you can afford your chosen combined income target, our Plan As A Couple feature models both of your retirement plans together, assuming that your retire at the same time. Your two affordable incomes are added together and compared with your combined target income at different retirement ages to work out the earliest point at which you can afford to retire together as a couple.

In addition, there is a feature to explore possible improvements in tax efficiency by redirecting contributions to your partner or vice versa, depending on who has the higher marginal tax rate. You will be able to see how much this could improve your affordable retirement age.

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Pension vs ISA

Getting the balance right between these two tax efficient vehicles could end up saving many thousands in tax over your whole retirement.

Calculate My Pension guides you through targeting the right level of pension withdrawal to make the most of your allowances and provides the tools to optimise tax over your whole retirement.

The model of your retirement income strategy automatically assumes that you use up your full tax-free personal allowance each year and also assumes you utilise UFPLS withdrawals from any remaining uncrystallised funds to take an additional 25% of your income tax free.

You can clearly see the amount of pension fund you need to withdraw each year to achieve this primary level of tax optimisation, avoiding unneccesary tax.

The next level of tax optimsation is to find the best mix of withdrawals from your pension fund and ISA over and above the primary withdrawals to meet your required income. This depends on your personal circumstances and the projection assumptions being used. Experimenting with different pension/ISA income splits in the model allows you to find the mix that minimises your long term tax bill.

You can also model the trade-off between pension and ISA contributions before retirement, assessing the impact of giving up pension tax relief for greater flexibility and future tax-free withdrawals, and see the direct effect on your earliest affordable retirement age.

Risk Management

Three advanced modelling features are available that allow you to investigate the impact of a market crash along with assessing measures to protect against it.

Market Crash Modelliing
Stress-test your retirement plan by modelling a sudden fall in fund values at any age and for any percentage. See immediately whether a crash just before retirement would delay your plans, or how much spending would need to change if it occurred after you have already stopped working.
Asset Mix Modelling
Set the proportion of your pension and ISA held in cash and short-term bonds and see the trade-off between stability and long-term growth. A more defensive allocation may reduce the impact of market falls in the short term, while a higher growth allocation can increase your affordable retirement income. The model automatically rebalances each year and allows different strategies for each partner when planning as a couple.
Annuity Purchase Modelling
Explore the impact of converting part of your pension into a guaranteed income for life at different ages and for different amounts. Compare the security of an annuity with the flexibility of drawdown and see how introducing guaranteed income can protect your long-term spending against poor investment returns or living longer than expected. An integrated calibration tool ensures the annuity rates used reflect current market conditions.
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Tax Free Cash Modelling

Your tax-free cash is one of the most valuable features of your pension, but the way you use it can make a significant difference to your retirement income over time.

Calculate My Pension lets you test three clear strategies.

Take your tax-free lump sum at retirement and spend it immediately.
Drip feed £20,000 of it into your ISA each year.
Use UFPLS, where 25% of each withdrawal is tax-free until your Lump Sum Allowance is used up.

It is easy to compare the impact of each strategy on your long term affordable income. Pension income is assumed to first be taken from any uncrystallised funds that remain, so UFPLS is used by default.

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Free Features

Here is a list of the free features, providing a valuable tool to all users.

  • Get straight to the most important figure - the age at which you can afford to retire.

  • A smart search algorithm finds the age at which your affordable retirement income matches the inflation adjusted target income for your selected standard of living in retirement.

  • Increase your planned pension contributions or ISA deposits and immediately see the impact on your affordable retirement age.

  • Seeing the impact of increased contributions in terms of additional months or years of enjoying your retirement can be a powerful motivator to save more.

  • See your affordable retirement age for each of the three recognised living standards: Minimum, Moderate, and Comfortable.

  • These standards are based on reliable, independent research from PensionsUK and are detailed on the official Retirement Living Standards website.

Navigate to the Analysis Page and see how your pension fund and ISA will grow with investment return and contributions until retirement and then decrease as you withdraw funds in retirement, ending up at zero at the end of the projection.

View a clear breakdown of your net retirement income in each future year by source, including pensions, ISA withdrawals, State Pension, and other income.

Access the detailed numerical breakdown behind your charts with clear and concise tables:

  • Retirement Income: View exact gross and net income from each source.

  • Pension Fund and ISA Cashflow: Review opening and closing balances each year and clearly see all cash movements in and out.

  • Quickly find clear and concise answers to the most common questions on retirement planning, grouped intuitively by category.

  • Perfect for beginners and helpful even if you're not sure what questions you should ask.

  • An ideal resource to build your knowledge and confidence around pensions and retirement.

  • Clearly understand your tax and National Insurance contributions.

  • View detailed breakdowns by tax bands, including specific calculations for the Scottish tax regime.

If you register for a free account you can log in at a later date and resume your investigation with the same inputs from where you left off. There is a button to clear all inputs and start again if required. The inputs are stored securely and are not shared with any third parties.

Premium Features

Below is a full list of premium features currently available. The premium subscription is currently available at the early adopter price of £79.99 per year. The are several more Future Premium Features in the pipeline, to be added in the coming months. The subscription price will increase to reflect the additional functionality, but existing annual subscribers will continue to enjoy all updates at their originally-locked rate. So subscribe now to lock in the best rate!

Retirement Planning

  • Plan for retirement as a couple by modelling both of your pensions together and recognising the shared cost advantages of living under one roof.

  • Uses the official couple's cost of living benchmarks from the Retirement Living Standards (Minimum, Moderate and Comfortable standards of living).

  • See the exact age (years and months) at which you can afford to retire together, based on your chosen combined retirement income target.

  • Explore smarter contribution strategies by redirecting pension savings between you and your partner to reduce tax drag where one of you pays a higher marginal rate.

  • Instantly quantify how improved joint tax efficiency could move your retirement date forward — and understand the real-world impact on when you can stop working together.

  • Personalise your retirement budget using the spending categories used in the Retirement Living Standards research.

  • Easily select Minimum, Moderate, or Comfortable levels for each category, or fine-tune exact amounts using sliders.

  • The Retirement Living Standards are a helpful yardstick for assessing your retirement income needs, but are inherently one-size-fits-all. Being able to adjust each category of spending to your own specific needs provides you with a much more accurate and personalised retirement plan.

  • Switch from accumulation planning to a post-retirement view in one click, so projections start from your current age and focus on sustainable income from today.

  • Automatically sets retirement age to your current age and hides future contribution/accumulation controls that are no longer relevant once retirement has started.

  • Improves tax modelling by letting you input the percentage already taken as tax-free cash at retirement, and where needed, the actual lump sum already taken.

  • When planning as a couple, applies the same already-retired treatment for your partner while keeping retirement-income controls visible so you can still stress-test drawdown options.

  • Planning to boost savings after paying off a mortgage or when your children become independent?

  • Specify the exact age and contribution increase to your pension and/or ISA and immediately see how accelerating savings impacts your retirement age.

Tax Efficiency

  • Test the impact of redirecting contributions from your pension into your ISA, giving up the tax relief for greater flexibility and future tax-free withdrawals.

  • Instantly see the impact of this on your earliest retirement age. The extent of the effect very much depends on your individual circumstances, along with the economic scenario you are using.

  • Understand the value of pension tax relief you are giving up in exchange for greater financial flexibility.

  • Find the most tax efficient mix of Pension and ISA withdrawals above your personal allowance.

  • The calculation initially prioritises pension withdrawals to ensure your personal allowance is fully utilised in the calculation of your retirement age. But after that it prioritises ISA withdrawals, until your ISA funds have been used up.

  • This feature allows you to specify a Pension Withdrawal Priority for withdrawals above your personal allowance. You can plan to draw all ISA or all pensions or any mix in between.

  • The optimum mix to minimise your total tax bill over your whole retirement depends on your specific circumstances and on the economic scenario you are modelling.

  • Lowering your lifetime tax bill directly increases your affordable retirement income.

  • Currently, the model assumes any tax-free lump sum is spent immediately.

  • This feature allows you to gradually reinvest the lump sum into your ISA, considering annual contribution limits.

  • Funds awaiting transfer to the ISA will grow at a lower rate, reflecting the impact of taxes until fully sheltered.

Access to two additional charts relating to tax payments:

  • Tax By Tax Band: See the breakdown of your tax payments in each retirement year split by tax band. This makes it easy to see how you might adjust your plans to reduce overall tax payments.

  • Tax Free Allowance: See the cumulative tax free allowance as up to 25% of your pension income is tax free but only up to a lifetime maximum of £268,275. When this limit is reached you will see a significant increase in tax, so it is worth considering adjustments to your drawdown plan to avoid this.

Withdrawal Strategy

  • Experiment with taking a reduced final salary / defined benefit pension at various earlier ages than your scheme retirement age.

  • This changes the required withdrawal profile of your defined contribution pension fund and can impact the amount of tax you will pay at certain ages.

  • You can enter your scheme’s specific early retirement factors for each age, if published, to get precise amounts for the early retirement benefits.

  • Plan a temporary uplift in spending for a set period of retirement.

  • Particularly useful when planning as a couple to cover any early shortfalls your partner has, or vice versa.

  • Choose the Age To Commence Boost, the Percentage Boost, and the Number of Years.

  • One very effective way to boost your early retirement spending, or retire earlier, is to plan ahead for lower income needs in your later retirement years.

  • It is often the case that people slow down their activity once past their mid-70s. Your required spending may decrease. Specifically planning for this allows you to maximise activity in those early years.

  • With this premium feature you can specify the age at which and by what percentage your income will reduce, in two separate steps, and instantly see how this strategy impacts your retirement income or allows an earlier retirement.

Risk Management

  • Quickly see how your affordable retirement income changes under the Low, Intermediate, and High growth and inflation scenarios defined by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for use in pension projections.

  • Explore the scenario of Stagflation with sustained High Inflation and Low Growth, a concerning possibility in today's economic and political climate.

  • Fund charges are critical: even small changes can materially affect your affordable retirement age, so testing low, moderate, and high charge levels is an important part of risk planning.

  • See the effect of changing the term of the projection to ages less than the 99 prescribed by FCA.

  • Find out the average life expectancy for your age and gender.

  • Stress-test your retirement plans by simulating a market crash.

  • Choose the age at which the crash occurs and the percentage fall.

  • See the impact on your retirement age of a sudden market crash just before you were planning to retire.

  • Or if you are already retired, see the impact of your sustainable income if a crash were to occur. How much would you need to reduce your spending by?

  • Set separate percentages for your pension fund and ISA to hold in cash and short term bonds.

  • See the trade-off directly: a higher defensive mix can soften the impact in market crash scenarios, but the lower long term growth can reduce your affordable retirement income.

  • The model rebalances each year to maintain your chosen asset mix percentages across the full projection.

  • When planning as a couple, set separate pension and ISA asset mix percentages for each partner.

  • Annuities provide a guaranteed income for life, removing the stress of volatile fund values and the risk of poor long term fund growth. They also insure you against living longer than were expecting to.

  • They are back in fashion as annuity rates have increased dramatically over the last few years, driven by the rise in interest rates.

  • With this premium feature you can investigate purchasing an annuity for different amounts at different ages and see the impact on your sustainable retirement income.

  • To ensure the rates used by the calculation reflect your circumstances and the latest market rates, an Annuity Rate Calibration Tool is also provided to align the conversion rates to the level that are currently available.

See the effect of possible changes to government policy on your retirement age or income:

  • State Pension Age: See the effect on your earliest affordable retirement age if the state pension age is raised to 70.

  • Tax Band Freeze: Tax bands are currently frozen until 2031. See the effect of a possible extension to this freeze on your retirement age. You can specify the number of extra years to freeze the bands.

  • Tax Free Lump Sum Limits: See the impact on your retirement plans of a reduction of the 25% tax free lump sum maximum. Also see what would happen if the lifetime limit on tax free cash of £268,275 is reduced.

Account Tools

  • Export all your retirement calculations and cash flow projections directly to Excel for detailed analysis and record-keeping.

  • The file contains separate sheets for Inputs, Assumptions, and Results along with a sheets for all of the chart data and tables.
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Future Premium Features

These features are planned for rolling out over the next 12 months. The subscription price will increase to reflect the additional functionality, but existing annual subscribers will continue to enjoy all updates at their originally-locked rate. So subscribe now to lock in the best rate!

  • A pioneering AI chat bot dedicated to answering questions about pensions and retirement planning.

  • A solution has been found to the problem of AI hallucinations, maximising the accuracy and reliability of responses.

  • Ask detailed strategic questions and receive comprehensive answers with links to sources of evidence.

  • Currently in testing with a planned public release in 2026.

  • A chat-style assistant to help explain and strategise on the Analysis screen.

  • Ask follow-up questions about the charts, tables, and assumptions in your results and get answers based on your actual results.

  • Receive strategy suggestions to help you improve your retirement plan.

  • Instantly download a customised PDF summary of your retirement plan scenarios.

  • Includes clearly presented charts, tables, and assumptions.

  • Perfect for printing, record-keeping, or sharing with your financial adviser.

  • Manage multiple client logins from a single adviser account, keeping households organised in one place.

  • Save and compare multiple scenarios for each client without losing historical plans.

  • Attach advisor notes to every scenario so recommendations and context stay with the plan.

  • Bulk import client data via a formatted CSV to onboard faster.

  • Upload reusable assumption presets from CSV to rapidly deploy starting templates for new clients.

  • Upload pension benefit statements and automatically extract the key facts needed for modelling.

  • Map the parsed data straight into the required input fields to build scenarios in minutes.

  • Reduce manual data entry errors by pulling values directly from the uploaded statement.

  • Specify the absolute minimum spend for each Retirement Living Standards category when stress-testing your plan.

  • Automatically roll those choices into a consolidated “minimum viable budget” for downturn scenarios.

  • Quickly compare your normal plan against a fallback budget to see how resilient your retirement income really is.