ProjectionLab Review | Financial Planning Software
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ย. 2022
- Today we take a detail look into a fairly new financial planning software called Projection Lab: go.robberger.com/projectionlab. As you'll see, the tool offers a lot of features and an excellent user interface for a reasonably price.
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ABOUT ME
While still working as a trial attorney in the securities field, I started writing about personal finance and investing In 2007. In 2013 I started the Doughroller Money Podcast, which has been downloaded millions of times. Today I'm the Deputy Editor of Forbes Advisor, managing a growing team of editors and writers that produce content to help readers make the most of their money.
I'm also the author of Retire Before Mom and Dad--The Simple Numbers Behind a Lifetime of Financial Freedom (amzn.to/3by10EE)
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As a 9 year early retiree I've used all these calculators including; ESPlanner, Maxifi, OnTrajectory, New Retirement, FireCalc, Flexible Retirement Planner, cFireSim & OPR (now defunct). I've put many, many hours into each of these and consider myself a relative expert on each one. Last year I purchased a year of Pralana Gold and find it to be head and shoulders above anything I've used in the past. Particularly with respect to Roth Conversions and tax calculation. It definitely is not as pretty in its presentation as some of these modern web-based calculators. However, your data is more secure as it resides on your system and not in the cloud. If you are comfortable with excel spreadsheets, Pralana offers the best bang for the buck IMHO. The bronze edition is free to give you a sense of what you are looking at if you choose to purchase the Pralana Gold. I'm hoping Rob does in in depth review of it in a near term episode. In lieu of that, there's a bogleheads review with the developer on youtube which is very informative. Just do a YT search for Pralana Gold.
How did you find MaxiFi as compared to this or Pralana or NR?
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.
You've outdone yourself Rob, this is really good.
@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.
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!
This looks like a good one. Thanks for the walkthrough.
If you could incorporate a recap section were you discuss pros and cons. That would be much appreciated. Great review!
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
Hi Rob, thank you for doing this. I spent a week with NR and they cannot model the right withdrawal strategy. Looks like this tool has a better way of modeling it, the issue with with showing the actual tax brackets. I will definitely try it out.
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.
I use FRP. It's my standard and what I compare the others to. He set up many iterations through the Monte Carlo simulations. And the developer's online forum has many posts to explain the functionality.
I also use FICalc because of historical returns to compare to with FRP.
This one and New Retirement are interesting and way better than my workplace investments calculator.
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.
Yes, the both are on the list.
ty
Great thumbnail! And content.
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.
They are both on my list.
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 ?
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
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.
no taxes on a roth conversion? maybe @Rob Berger will chime in on that
I've not seen that issue, and I have been able to model a single year conversion. I suggest you ask your question in ProjectionLab's Discord.
@@noreenn6976 I'm in early retirement with minimal taxable income. Even sold a rental property this year that the Long Term Capital Gains will all be at 0%. Most of my tax advantaged money is already in a ROTH.
@@davidtvedte1337 that's awesome
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
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.
Does anyone know how this compares to the New Retirement Pro tool?
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
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, can you please give me websites to track my Bond portfolio with daily price EOD to understand my overall portfolio EOD
Can you do a review of M1 Finance?
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 :)
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
How strange that your question is almost word for word like the question above? For me, I chose Projection Lab because it doesn't see our accounts as something they want to manage for a fee! I cancelled my Personal Capital account when they actually called me on the phone, despite me selecting that we self-manage our investments.
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!!!
I have found NewRetirement to be mostly fluff. It's pretty, but just not hugely useful and (worse) not very accurate. OnTrajectory is far better, but I really am starting to think ProjectionLab may be the best yet. I've been toying with it for a week and it is truly better than NR and OT in my opinion.
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.
The data is read-only to your actual accounts if you link them(you dont have to of course but it can be convenient). No one can move money with your NR or ProjectionLab login credentials. I dont see the security risk, only a privacy risk if you someone get phished/hacked.
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.
In the Plan, click the Pin in Income and Social Security is an option. You can set the estimate from My SS Statement and increase for inflation, set the year or "at retirement" etc.
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.
Do you like Projection Lab better than New Retirement?
I like this, but the subscription model is a deal killer to me.
The way you look at that software in the thumbnail is disturbing.
This made me laugh, well smile, not really laugh, but it definitely brightened my day.
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???
Hey Paul, thanks for trying out the tool! Is it possible you missed the Expenses section of the House asset form? That includes some defaults you can customize for things like maintenance, insurance, property taxes, etc. If you'd like some help, feel free to reach out on the PL discord 🙂
@@projectionlab YUP- i did miss that. Great software.
@@PH-dm8ew Me too.
How does this compare to ontrajectory
It's a great question. Once I'm through the reviews of the major options, I'll share my thoughts on how they all compare.
Couldn’t get on trajectory to save me information, currently doing a trail of New Retirement and it’s great. Simple to operate
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
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.
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.
I didn’t see Social Security…
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.
That is much cheaper than Money Guide Pro that we all use.
"that we all use"