![Teapot vs FI Calc retirement calculator comparison](/blog/teapot_ficalc_normal.png)

## Two Different Questions

Picture someone who found FI Calc a few years before they retired. They plugged in their savings target and their planned annual spending, and the tool ran their scenario through every market cycle since the 1920s. It told them their plan would have succeeded 94% of the time. That felt reassuring. They kept saving.

Then they actually retired. And the questions changed.

Now they have $1.2 million split between a traditional account, a Roth, and a taxable account. They have a spouse who is five years younger, with her own accounts and her own Social Security timeline. They are in a state with a 5.5% income tax that exempts Roth withdrawals but not traditional ones. They want to know whether to start Roth conversions, how much to convert each year, and whether their Medicare premiums might jump in three years because of what they do today.

FI Calc cannot answer any of those questions. That is not a criticism — it was never designed to. It answers a different question: would this portfolio have historically survived a given spending rate? That question is worth asking. But for most retirees, it is not the only question, and it is not the most expensive one to get wrong.

## What FI Calc Does Well

FI Calc is excellent at what it was built for. It runs your portfolio through every retirement cohort in recorded US market history and shows you how many of those cohorts would have survived your spending plan. The interface is clean, fast, and requires no account. You can model several different withdrawal strategies — constant dollar, percent of portfolio, guardrails — and see historical results instantly.

For anyone in the accumulation phase asking whether a target savings number is large enough to support a target spending level, FI Calc gives a clear and well-grounded answer.

## The Tax Blind Spot

FI Calc does not model taxes. Its own documentation states that taxes and RMDs are not included, and that users must fold their estimated tax bill into their withdrawal amount as a manual adjustment.

That means the tool cannot tell you how much of your traditional account withdrawal is actually taxable versus what comes out of Roth tax-free. It cannot show you how income stacks across brackets in a year when you take a large distribution. It cannot flag whether a planned conversion would push your modified adjusted gross income past an IRMAA threshold two years before your Medicare enrollment begins. And it cannot tell you whether your state taxes retirement income at all.

For anyone holding a mix of pre-tax, Roth, and taxable accounts — which describes most people who have been saving seriously — the tax layer is not a detail. It is often where the largest planning decisions live.

## One Portfolio Number, Not Three Account Types

FI Calc treats your entire portfolio as a single figure. It does not distinguish between a traditional account, a Roth, and a taxable account.

In practice, those three account types behave completely differently. A dollar in a traditional account will be taxed as ordinary income when you withdraw it. A dollar in a Roth comes out tax-free. A dollar in a taxable account may carry years of embedded capital gains at a preferential rate, or it may be nearly free of gain and efficient to sell. The sequence in which you draw from these accounts over a 25-year retirement can mean tens of thousands of dollars in lifetime tax savings or losses. A calculator that treats them as one number cannot help with that decision.

## No Couples Support

FI Calc does not support two spouses with different ages, different retirement dates, and different Social Security timings. A couple with a five-year age gap has meaningfully different planning needs than a single individual. The younger spouse may have a 30-year retirement horizon where the older spouse has 20. Their Social Security benefit timings, RMD schedules, and survivor income needs all interact — and they interact differently depending on which accounts each person holds and who draws down first.

## Historical Scenarios Only

FI Calc uses historical return sequences rather than Monte Carlo simulation. Historical backtesting is genuinely useful, but it is bounded by what markets have already done. Monte Carlo simulation generates thousands of forward-looking scenarios — including conditions outside the historical record — and produces a probability-of-success estimate calibrated to your own inputs rather than to past cohort matching.

## How the Two Tools Compare

| Feature | FI Calc | Teapot |
|---|---|---|
| Historical scenario testing | Yes | No |
| Monte Carlo simulation | No | Yes |
| Federal tax modeling | No | Yes, real brackets |
| State tax modeling | No | All 50 states |
| IRMAA / ACA / NIIT / QBI cliff awareness | No | Built in every year |
| Account type differentiation (Traditional / Roth / Taxable) | No | Yes |
| Couples support | No | Yes, separate inputs |
| Year-by-year projections | No | Yes |
| Roth conversion optimizer | No | Yes (predefined strategies, after-tax rank) |
| Tax-efficient withdrawal ordering | No | Yes, threshold-aware: taxable → traditional (to bracket/cliff limit) → Roth → traditional fallback |
| RMD calculations | No | Yes |
| Requires account linking | No | No |
| Free to try | Yes | Yes |

## Who Each Tool Is Built For

FI Calc is best suited for the accumulation phase. If you are still building toward a retirement number and want to stress-test whether your savings target and spending plan would have survived historical markets, it gives you a clear and credible answer quickly.

It is a harder fit for the distribution phase — for someone who has already retired or is close enough to retirement that the questions have shifted from "am I saving enough" to "what do I do with what I have." Those questions involve taxes, account types, couples coordination, and income cliff management. FI Calc does not address them.

Teapot covers both phases. During accumulation it models year-by-year savings growth, contributions, and projected balances across Traditional, Roth, and Taxable accounts so you can see exactly where you are headed. As you approach and enter retirement it shifts to the distribution questions: federal and state taxes under real brackets for all 50 states, 10,000 Monte Carlo scenarios as a long-term risk view, and automatic comparison of predefined Roth conversion strategies ranked by after-tax ending wealth with IRMAA and ACA effects included in every projection year.

## The Bottom Line

FI Calc is a good tool for a specific question, and it answers that question faster and more simply than most alternatives. If your question is whether your portfolio would have historically survived a given spending rate, it is an efficient place to start.

If your questions have shifted to the actual mechanics of retirement — what to convert, when, from which account, at what cost — you need a tool that can see your tax situation, your account types, and your household. Both tools are free to try, and they serve genuinely different stages of the planning process.

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## Disclaimer

This information is for education only. It is not personal tax, legal, or investment advice.

The free tools linked in this article are available to new users for 7 days at no cost. No credit card required to start.


FI Calc does not model taxes, RMDs, account types, or couples. Teapot adds federal and state tax modeling, IRMAA/ACA cliff awareness, Roth conversion optimization, and 10,000 Monte Carlo scenarios. Compare features side by side.

Teapot vs FI Calc: Which Retirement Calculator Has Better Tax Planning?

Teapot vs FI Calc: Tax Planning, Couples Support, and Monte Carlo

![Teapot vs Boldin retirement planning comparison](/blog/teapot_boldin_normal.png)

## The Withdrawal Order Problem

A retiree we heard from had been using Boldin for two years. They liked it. The projections felt comprehensive. The Social Security optimizer was helpful. They felt like they had a real plan.

Then they sat down to actually figure out the withdrawal order for the year. They had $800,000 in a traditional account, $350,000 in a Roth, and $180,000 in a taxable account. They wanted to draw most of their spending from the taxable account this year — it had low embedded gains and would be nearly tax-free to sell — while pulling a modest amount from the traditional account to fill their lower bracket, leaving the Roth untouched to keep growing.

Boldin defaulted to taxable first. That part was right. But when they tried to blend in traditional account withdrawals at a specific amount while leaving Roth alone, the tool would not let them customize the sequence. One reviewer put it directly: if you want to blend tax-deferred and tax-free withdrawals in retirement, this software cannot handle that.

For a retiree whose biggest remaining tax lever is withdrawal sequencing, that gap matters.

## What Boldin Does Well

Boldin covers a wide territory. It models Social Security timing, spending throughout retirement, basic estate planning, and gives users access to advice-only financial advisors without sales pressure. The platform has an active user community and an extensive content library. For someone who wants a single place to track net worth, run broad retirement projections, and occasionally consult a fee-only advisor, Boldin delivers on that scope.

## Where the Tax Planning Falls Short

### Withdrawal Ordering Is Fixed

Boldin's withdrawal strategy defaults to drawing from taxable accounts first, and the tool does not support customizing a blended sequence across account types. For retirees managing Traditional, Roth, and taxable accounts simultaneously, this is a significant constraint. The order you draw from those accounts over 20 to 30 years can be worth tens of thousands of dollars in lifetime tax savings. A tool that locks you into a default order limits the accuracy of its own projections for anyone whose optimal strategy differs from that default.

### Taxable Account Tax Treatment Is Approximate

Boldin does not let you specify the tax treatment of individual investments in your taxable account. That means the tool cannot accurately model the tax impact of selling a specific position based on its embedded gain, holding period, or cost basis. Reviews note that this makes the tax calculation for taxable account withdrawals unreliable for anyone whose taxable account has positions with varied gain profiles.

### The Roth Conversion Explorer Has Gaps in Its Tax Stack

Boldin's Roth Conversion Explorer does automatically evaluate conversion strategies — it cycles through federal tax brackets and identifies which bracket-fill approach maximizes estate value or minimizes lifetime tax. That is a real capability. The gaps are in what the optimizer includes. Boldin's own documentation acknowledges that the Explorer does not model ACA subsidy loss when evaluating whether a conversion makes sense, does not factor in the 5-year Roth conversion rule, and does not account for early withdrawal penalties. For anyone still on ACA health insurance during a conversion year, or who needs to manage a 5-year seasoning window for penalty-free Roth access, those are material omissions. Teapot folds IRMAA, ACA subsidy cliffs, NIIT, and state brackets into the tax calculation for every conversion year automatically.

### The Setup Takes Time

Boldin is comprehensive in scope, and comprehensiveness requires comprehensive input. Users consistently report that the initial setup takes at least an hour and can feel overwhelming for someone who has not previously worked through a detailed financial plan.

## How the Two Tools Compare

| Feature | Boldin | Teapot |
|---|---|---|
| Retirement projections | Yes | Yes |
| Social Security optimization | Yes | Yes |
| Federal tax modeling | Yes, limited accuracy | Yes, real brackets |
| State tax modeling | Yes | All 50 states |
| IRMAA / ACA / NIIT / QBI cliff awareness | Partial | Built in every year |
| Account type differentiation (Traditional / Roth / Taxable) | Partial | Full, per account |
| Tax-efficient withdrawal ordering | Limited, defaults to taxable | Threshold-aware: taxable → traditional (to bracket/cliff limit) → Roth → traditional fallback |
| Roth conversion optimizer | Auto bracket-fill strategies; no ACA subsidy or 5-year rule modeling | Finds the optimal strategy for you by after-tax wealth |
| ACA subsidy in conversion analysis | Not modeled | Yes |
| 5-year Roth rule modeling | Not modeled | Yes |
| Couples support with separate accounts | Yes | Yes |
| Requires account linking | Optional, PlannerPlus | No |
| Setup time | 1 hour or more | Guided wizard, minutes |

## The Withdrawal Strategy Difference

The most significant practical gap between the two tools for retirees who are actively drawing down accounts is how withdrawal ordering is handled. Boldin limits how you can mix account types; Teapot does not offer arbitrary per-year mixes either, but it applies a transparent priority and full tax stack each year.

Teapot's withdrawal calculator tracks Traditional balances separately for each spouse. Each year it uses a threshold-aware draw priority — taxable first, then Traditional up to the point where the next federal bracket or IRMAA/ACA cliff would be crossed, then Roth for the remainder, with Traditional as a fallback if Roth is insufficient — and iterates until net spending after tax is met, with IRMAA lookback, ACA thresholds, RMDs, and state brackets applied in the projection. Taxable sales use one blended unrealized-gain ratio for the account (not security-by-security lots). The result is a year-by-year plan that shows where cash is drawn from, what the tax cost is, and how each threshold is being managed.

This matters because withdrawal sequencing and Roth conversion are not independent decisions. The amount you withdraw this year occupies bracket space that affects how much you can convert. The amount you convert changes your taxable income, which changes what you need to withdraw to meet spending after tax. Boldin addresses these as separate plan settings. Teapot solves them together: the threshold-aware withdrawal engine runs inside the same simulation loop as the conversion tax calculation, so bracket space is never double-counted between the two.

## The Roth Conversion Difference

Boldin's Roth Conversion Explorer is designed for "what if" analysis. You enter an amount, it shows the impact. Finding the right amount requires testing scenarios manually.

Teapot's approach is different. It simulates a predefined set of conversion strategies — for example no conversion, bracket-fill to each marginal rate, and frontload variants — with IRMAA, ACA, and other cliffs folded into taxes each year, then ranks outcomes by after-tax ending wealth. You see the year-by-year tax cost, cliff exposure, and account balance trajectory for each strategy. The best-scoring path is identified for you, not derived through manual iteration. Because withdrawal amounts are recalculated inside each strategy's simulation, the conversion ranking reflects the actual net cost after spending needs are met — not a hypothetical where withdrawals are held fixed.

## Who Each Tool Is Built For

Boldin is a reasonable fit for people who want a broad all-in-one platform covering budgeting, net worth tracking, Social Security optimization, and occasional advisor access — and whose primary questions are around projections and income timing rather than granular tax planning.

Teapot is a better fit for people who want tax-aware withdrawals with a clear account priority, an automatic Roth conversion comparison across predefined strategies with IRMAA and ACA in the tax layer, or couples planning with per-spouse account tracking and state brackets for all 50 states.

## The Bottom Line

Boldin covers a lot of ground, and many users find it sufficient for general retirement planning and Social Security timing. Where it falls short is in the precision of the tax planning layer — withdrawal ordering is constrained, and Roth conversion analysis requires manual iteration and is missing ACA subsidy and 5-year rule modeling.

Where Teapot differs: withdrawal ordering is threshold-aware rather than fixed, the optimal Roth conversion strategy is found for you automatically, and setup takes minutes rather than an hour.

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Our free withdrawal calculator shows the optimal withdrawal sequence across Traditional, Roth, and taxable accounts — with IRMAA, ACA cliff awareness, and all 50 state tax brackets built in for every year.
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## Disclaimer

This information is for education only. It is not personal tax, legal, or investment advice.

The free tools linked in this article are available to new users for 7 days at no cost. No credit card required to start.


Boldin defaults to taxable-first withdrawal and its Roth Conversion Explorer requires manual iteration without an optimizer. Teapot automatically finds the optimal Roth conversion strategy and models IRMAA, ACA subsidy, and withdrawal ordering across all account types.

Teapot vs Boldin: Which Has Better Roth Conversion and Withdrawal Planning?

Teapot vs Boldin: Tax Efficient Withdrawals and Roth Conversion Accuracy

![Teapot vs ProjectionLab retirement planner comparison](/blog/teapot_projectionlab_normal.png)

## A Weekend of Setup

A common story from ProjectionLab users goes something like this. They download the tool on a Saturday morning, having read that it is one of the most powerful DIY retirement planners available. That is true. They start entering data: income sources, expense categories, asset accounts by type, tax assumptions, Social Security estimates.

By Sunday afternoon they have most of it in. The results look impressive. The charts are detailed. The scenario modeling is genuinely deep. They also realize it took the better part of a weekend to get there, and they are not entirely sure they modeled the Roth conversion sequencing correctly for their situation as a couple.

This is not a knock on ProjectionLab. It is the tradeoff the tool makes explicitly. The depth is real. The setup cost is real. For some users that is exactly the right trade. For others it is not.

## What ProjectionLab Does Well

ProjectionLab's analytical engine is genuinely powerful. You can model tax bracket strategies, specify income and expense categories year by year, run Monte Carlo simulation, and build scenarios around IRMAA thresholds, ACA subsidy limits, and the NIIT cliff. A Tax Analytics heatmap shows how income falls across brackets by jurisdiction. It also includes a tax optimizer, capital gains harvesting in low-tax years, and a rule-based dynamic spending engine. The tax optimizer works by filling around income ceilings and brackets you specify in advance: you tell it the target, and it optimizes to stay under it.

For users who enjoy building detailed financial models and want to stress-test every variable in their plan, ProjectionLab offers a level of analytical depth that few tools at any price point match.

## Where the Friction Lives

### The Setup Is a Real Time Investment

The most consistent theme in ProjectionLab reviews is not a bug or a missing feature. It is the setup time. Reviewers describe an initial onboarding that requires entering all income sources, expense categories, asset accounts, tax assumptions, and Social Security estimates in detail before the tool produces meaningful output. One reviewer put it plainly: done properly, the initial setup takes several hours. The interface has many options, and reviewers consistently describe it as overwhelming at the start.

For users who want to get to a specific answer quickly the setup cost is a real barrier.

### You Need to Know What to Target

ProjectionLab's tax optimizer is powerful, but it works by asking you to define a ceiling. You set a target bracket, an IRMAA tier to stay under, or an income limit, and the tool optimizes around what you told it to target. That requires you to already know which threshold matters most in your situation and which year to focus on first.

Teapot takes the opposite approach. You enter your situation once and the tool runs a predefined set of conversion strategies automatically, with IRMAA, ACA, NIIT, and bracket effects built into the tax calculation for every year. The strategies are ranked by after-tax ending wealth and the strongest path is identified for you, without you needing to specify a target in advance.

There is also an interaction between withdrawal amounts and conversion amounts that target-setting does not fully resolve. The bracket headroom available for a conversion depends on how much was already drawn from Traditional to cover spending — and vice versa. Teapot solves these in the same simulation loop each year, so the two decisions inform each other rather than being optimized separately against a user-defined ceiling.

### All 50 States vs Federal-First

ProjectionLab's tax optimizer focuses on federal brackets and joint-filer income splitting. State-level tax-cliff modeling is not a headline feature. For retirees in high-tax states or those planning a future state move, the difference between federal-only modeling and a full 50-state tax engine is material — state income taxes can meaningfully shift the optimal conversion amount and timing in each year.

## How the Two Tools Compare

| Feature | ProjectionLab | Teapot |
|---|---|---|
| Monte Carlo simulation | Yes | Yes |
| Federal tax modeling | Yes, real brackets | Yes, real brackets |
| State tax modeling | Some coverage | All 50 states, per-year brackets |
| IRMAA / ACA / NIIT cliff awareness | Yes | Built in every year |
| Year-by-year projections | Yes | Yes |
| Roth conversion approach | Target-bracket optimizer (you set the ceiling) | Finds the optimal strategy for you by after-tax wealth |
| Setup time | Several hours | Guided wizard, minutes |
| Free tier saves your data | No | Yes |
| Requires account linking | No | No |


## Who Each Tool Is Built For

ProjectionLab fits users who want to model their entire financial picture in one place, enjoy the process of building and refining a detailed financial model, and are willing to invest setup time in exchange for broad scenario flexibility. It is particularly well suited to users who already understand their tax situation well enough to set meaningful optimization targets.

Teapot fits users who want to reach a specific answer quickly — the strongest Roth conversion strategy for their situation, a year-by-year withdrawal plan with state tax accuracy, projections that account for all 50 states without requiring additional research — without spending a weekend on data entry. It is also a stronger fit for couples who want per-spouse Roth conversion sequencing handled automatically rather than configured manually.

## The Bottom Line

ProjectionLab is one of the most powerful DIY retirement modeling tools available. Its tax optimizer is a genuine capability and the tool covers IRMAA, ACA, and NIIT. If building a comprehensive financial model is appealing and the setup time is not a barrier, it delivers real depth.

Teapot trades breadth for speed and a different optimization philosophy. Rather than asking you to set a target, it runs the full set of strategies and surfaces the best outcome. The all-50-state tax engine, the guided setup, and the automated strategy comparison are designed for users who want a clear recommendation without first needing to know what to ask for.

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Our free Roth conversion calculator runs a predefined set of strategies for your situation automatically, shows the year-by-year tax cost and cliff exposure for each across all 50 states, and highlights the strongest after-tax outcome without requiring you to set a target bracket first.
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## Disclaimer

This information is for education only. It is not personal tax, legal, or investment advice.

The free tools linked in this article are available to new users for 7 days at no cost. No credit card required to start.


Both tools offer comprehensive tax-aware retirement planning. ProjectionLab rewards a multi-hour build-out; Teapot emphasizes a guided wizard for Roth conversions, withdrawals, and IRMAA/ACA cliffs. Compare setup, couples sequencing, and features.

Teapot vs Competitors

Teapot vs FI Calc: Tax Planning, Couples Support, and Monte Carlo

Teapot vs Boldin: Tax Efficient Withdrawals and Roth Conversion Accuracy

Teapot vs ProjectionLab: Retirement Planning Without the Learning Curve