5 Pension Calculators to help you plan for retirement

To help you understand your current pension situation and retirement expectations, there are various online calculators to help you do that. Here, I have narrowed down 5 pension calculators that will give you some idea of what you can expect.

For each one you will need some basic information: your age or date of birth, the age at which you would like to retire, your current pension values and levels of pension contributions. Some of these pension calculators will give you a target income level. This is calculated based on your current income. The more advanced calculators will let you know different types of income (drawdown or annuity) and will allow you to easily toggle certain parameters.

MoneyHelper

MoneyHelper is a government-backed service that offers free and impartial money and pensions advice. To use their calculator, you input the and confirm if you want tax-free cash. It will automatically calculate an amount of income you may want to target based on your current salary and retirement age.

Once you have entered all of the information, the calculator will let you know if you are on track to receive the required annual pension. This will be the total of state pension and employer pension. It will also tell you how much of a deficit, if any, you may have based on your current pension value and contribution levels.

Under the calculated amounts, you are able to toggle the information you have already given. You also have the ability to select an amount of tax-free cash that you would like. Bear in mind also that this income level is for an annuity/income for life so the assumption is that this will be your selected option.

Nest

The Nest pension calculator is designed to allow their pension customers to understand what they can expect to get out of their fund when they retire. However, the information is still useful if you don’t have a Nest pension.

Once you have added in the usual information, you have the added ability to add in any expected future changes to your contribution levels and/or an added single contribution. You can also add an additional pension pot and then toggle other outputs such as tax free cash and guaranteed income.

Once all of the information has been entered, it will calculate a total pension value and give you an estimated annual income (plus a tax free amount if you asked for one). There is no ability to toggle any settings but you can click to change your input form and re-calculate. The state pension is not included.

Unbiased

The Unbiased pension calculator uses the usual information. It will give you a target income level based on you current income. It will let you know how on track you are with this based on your current contribution levels. You are able to toggle the state pension on and off and see how this effects your annual income too.

This calculator is based only on taking a private pension into drawdown. You can toggle the information as you go and see the changes live.

Aviva

Another easy to use calculator, you can opt to include the state pension before hitting submit.

The output will break down what you can expect from income drawdown and an annuity purchase. You can see any shortfalls against your target income as with other calculators. At the end of the page you can change some of the parameters or choose to resubmit.

The useful graph breaks down how much you can expect and for how long after your selected retirement age. It provides a good and helpful visual.

Which?

Although, the more limited of all the calculators, the Which? calculator is easy to use. It will tell you how much income you could get from drawdown or an annuity. It will also let you know the assumptions it uses (inflation rate, investment growth, etc.).

The calculator is limited as you can’t adjust the information and see different levels. You can go on to look at the state pension in a separate article on the Which? website. Unfortunately, it isn’t included in the calculator.