Pensions can be complicated, and it’s often difficult to work out whether you’re on track for a comfortable retirement, or whether you should be saving more.
Fortunately, there are a whole host of calculators out there that can help you figure out what your pension pot could be worth when you reach retirement.
We’ve put together this list of five of the most useful pension calculators on the web to help you get started. For most of these to work properly, you should have your annual income, the current value of your pension pot, and the amount you and your employer contribute to your pension each month to hand.
Bear in mind that none of these calculators can accurately predict the future, and factors such as investment performance, inflation, wage growth and changes to the State Pension will all have a considerable impact on your retirement funds. These tools exist to help you think about whether you might want to contribute more to your pension if you can afford to, how much retirement income you’re likely to need, or whether delaying your target retirement age might be an option.
If you’re considering getting professional financial advice, Unbiased is offering Rest Less members a free pension review. It’s a chance to have a qualified independent financial advisor (IFA) take a look at your pension arrangements and give an unbiased assessment of your retirement savings.
The review is free and without obligation, but if the IFA feels you’d benefit from paid financial advice, they’ll go over how that works and the charges involved.
Which?
Our view: A quick and easy calculator that shows its working, but could drill a bit deeper to provide more comprehensive results.
The Which? pension calculator has only one short page to complete to get your results, so you only need some basic info to get a calculation.
This calculator shows your estimated pension fund at retirement straight away, followed by estimates of how much you could stand to withdraw per year via pension drawdown compared to how much you could receive yearly by using your pension to buy an annuity instead. Learn more about annuities in our article Annuities explained.
This calculator shows the assumptions it has made to reach your results, such as the rate of your pension fund’s performance while invested, inflation, charges and so on. There is also a table that shows the difference that fund performance could make to your final pot.
However, the results page is also not dynamic – in other words, you can’t tweak the information on the page itself in order to adjust your results, so you’ll need to complete the form again if you want to change your calculations. Bear in mind that this calculator does not factor in the State Pension either.
2. MoneyHelper
Our view: A thorough, data-driven calculator with a couple of minor drawbacks.
One of the first things the MoneyHelper calculator does is ask for your current annual income – it then automatically suggests the yearly income you might aim to have in retirement based on what other people in your salary range say they need.
Once you have filled out all the remaining questions, the calculator will provide you with a table that shows your estimated annual income if you used your pension pot to buy an annuity, or income for life.
It will also let you know whether this estimated income, together with the full new State Pension, is enough to meet the suggested yearly income. If it’s not enough, the table will show you the shortfall, whereas if it’s more than enough, it will show the surplus amount.
You can use sliders to adjust the information you have already given. This will dynamically change the information in the table, so you can immediately see, for instance, the difference it would make to retire at a different age or increase your pension contributions.
One downside to this calculator is that it automatically assumes you’ll be eligible for the full State Pension, and includes this when calculating your shortfall/surplus. There is no way to tweak this variable. It uses the current 2023/24 tax year new State Pension figure of £10,600.20.
It also assumes that you buy an annuity with your pension pot, so there is no way to view an estimated drawdown income.
3. Aviva
Our view: A relatively speedy easy-to-use calculator providing comprehensive results.
Aviva’s pension calculator is fairly quick to fill in, with options to include or exclude the State Pension. It gives you a range of useful estimates at the end, such as how much you can expect annually if using drawdown, as well as the income you could get from an annuity, and the amount you could get as a tax-free sum. Read more about this in our article Should I take a tax-free lump sum from my pension?
While you cannot change all of the information you have already input for dynamic results (unless you redo the form), you can tweak certain parameters to see how it will affect your results, such as investment performance, planned retirement age and target income.
If you set up a MyAviva account, you can save your details and come back to edit and view them whenever you want.
4. Hargreaves Lansdown
Our view: A simple calculator with great dynamic options, but no annuity estimates.
The Hargreaves Lansdown calculator is another one that’s quick to use. Simply enter your date of birth, existing fund, target monthly income, gender and whether you want a tax-free sum, in order to generate your results.
Your forecast will show how long your pension pot will last if you drawdown income from your pension at your target rate, using your demographic’s average life expectancy as a benchmark. Like the Which? tool, it shows you its assumptions about investment growth and fund charges, but also lets you tweak these, and provides a useful chart to demonstrate the difference that fund performance can have on your pension’s longevity.
The downsides are that this calculator has no option to allow you to factor in the State Pension, and – unlike most of the others on this list – won’t give you an estimated income from buying an annuity instead.
5. Unbiased
Our view: A quick and easy calculator with good dynamic options.
Last but not least, the Unbiased calculator is simple and user-friendly. Like MoneyHelper’s calculator, it will provide you with a target retirement income for you based on your current salary, but you can adjust this figure if you like.
Your results page will then show how much you’re on track to drawdown each year compared to your target, with dynamic sliders below to adjust your results based on income, planned retirement age, and pension contributions.
While it lists all the assumptions it makes below your results, it doesn’t let you adjust all of them (such as investment performance), so it is not totally comprehensive. It also doesn’t factor in the State Pension, give you your estimated total pension fund, or show you how much you could get from an annuity instead.
Further food for thought
If using a calculator has made you think more about your retirement plans, our pensions section contains a wealth of information to help you get your financial future in shape. To get started, check out our articles When can I retire?, How much should I save for retirement? and Preparing for retirement: Your seven-step pension checklist.
If you’re considering getting professional financial advice, Unbiased is offering Rest Less members a free pension review. It’s a chance to have a qualified independent financial advisor (IFA) take a look at your pension arrangements and give an unbiased assessment of your retirement savings.
The review is free and without obligation, but if the IFA feels you’d benefit from paid financial advice, they’ll go over how that works and the charges involved.
Rest Less Money is on Instagram. Check out our account and give us a follow @rest_less_uk_money for all the latest Money News, updated daily.