run monte-carlo-retirement

Monte Carlo Retirement Simulator

Run thousands of simulated retirements against random market sequences and see your plan's survival rate.

New to this? Start here

Markets don't return the same amount every year, so this runs 1,000 different possible futures for your savings and counts how many of them never run out of money. Set your portfolio and yearly spending, then watch the success rate move.
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Success rate
76%
of 1,000 simulated retirements never ran out
Median ending balance
$703,811
Worst-decile ending balance
$0
10% of runs ended below this

In 76% of 1,000 simulated markets this plan never ran out — workable but fragile.

P10–P90P25–P75Median
$0$1.0M$2.0M$3.0Myr 0yr 6yr 12yr 18yr 24yr 30
View as table
YearP10P25MedianP75P90
10$489,024$666,975$952,575$1,286,785$1,703,177
20$126,117$411,748$870,353$1,467,350$2,458,916
30$0$21,758$703,811$1,786,090$3,464,117

Methodology & assumptions

  • Returns are REAL (inflation-adjusted) — spending stays constant in today's dollars rather than being inflated each year.
  • Annual returns are drawn from a normal distribution (mean = expected return, std dev = volatility) — real markets are not normally distributed and show fat tails and autocorrelation this model does not capture.
  • Spending is fixed and does not adapt to portfolio performance — no dynamic 'guardrail' or spending-cut strategies are modeled.
  • 1,000 simulations run with a fixed random seed so a given scenario always reproduces the same success rate — refreshing the page won't change your result.
  • A simulation counts as 'failed' the first year its balance hits zero or below; it does not recover even if later draws would have been positive.

Educational only

This simulator is for education. It uses simplified assumptions, is not financial, tax, or investment advice, and no result here is a prediction or a recommendation. Talk to a licensed professional before acting.

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