Flexible Retirement Planner

What it does

Flexible Retirement Planner models retirement outcomes with Monte Carlo simulation and reports a probability of success. Its 10,000 simulated paths cover both accumulation and spending phases.

You can model income such as Social Security, pensions and annuities, separate taxable, tax-deferred and tax-free balances, and project savings growth and withdrawals. Stable, Flexible and Conservative spending policies change how withdrawals respond to inflation and portfolio results.

Fees and plans

The Personal Edition is free for non-commercial personal use. A voluntary contribution of $10-20 is suggested; any contribution provides a license key. Educators and trainers may use it free for educational purposes.

The Personal use plan is also free for individual, non-commercial use. Any voluntary contribution unlocks a personal-use license key. There is no free trial.

Commercial use, including use by financial planners, is unsupported and not authorized.

Where it runs

The maker provides a web tool and standalone downloads for Windows and for Mac/Linux. The standalone planner installs on a computer, runs without an internet connection and can save plans locally.

Windows users can use the standalone version without installing Java. The published platform options are web, Windows, macOS and Linux.

Protection and rules, as published

Under the license, the website may be unavailable, insecure or non-private at times, and use is not guaranteed to remain uninterrupted or error-free. It supplies the software on an as-is basis and disclaims warranties about accuracy, performance, compatibility and fitness for purpose.

The license also prohibits copying, redistribution, sublicensing, reverse engineering and deriving source code. A named user may install the software on up to two computers or devices.

The maker does not publish an API or SDK. It publishes selected, incomplete Java snippets for simulation and spending rules; those snippets do not compile as a complete program.

Strengths

Income projection, savings growth, withdrawal planning, detailed tax treatment and Social Security modeling are handled within the same planner.

Scenario saving, multiple what-if cases and sensitivity analysis help show how inputs affect a plan. Goal-seek can search for variables that meet a target probability, although it may find several solutions or fail to converge.

Offline desktop use and documentation covering inputs, policies, settings, outputs and sensitivity analysis give users several ways to work with a plan.

Catches

The model uses user-supplied average portfolio return and standard deviation rather than correlations among individual asset classes. Its technical notes acknowledge that aggregate-return modeling can oversimplify real portfolios.

Inflation is constant by default and is not correlated with earlier inflation or portfolio returns. Goal-seek can produce multiple answers or fail to converge.

Commercial use is not supported. Check the supported Windows or Mac/Linux download, the two-device installation limit and the license terms before using it.

Who should skip it

Financial planners and other businesses should skip it because the maker does not authorize or support commercial use.

Verdict

Flexible Retirement Planner suits individuals and educators who want a free, desktop-capable retirement model with offline use, detailed cash-flow and tax inputs, and probability-based results. Its three spending policies, saved scenarios and sensitivity analysis add room for comparison.

It is a weaker fit for commercial planning work, mobile-only users or anyone who needs asset-level correlation modeling, linked inflation behavior or a guaranteed online service. The license places clear limits on use, installation and warranties, while the maker's own notes describe important modeling simplifications.

Questions