Do I need to sign up or create an account?

No. You can plan without an account — no signup, no email, no login. Open the planner and start modeling right away. An optional device-sync service is on the roadmap; it will be opt-in, and the planner will never require it.

Does it link to my bank?

No. retireclarity has no bank connections and no account aggregation. You enter your balances yourself, and nothing is pulled from your financial institutions.

Where is my plan stored?

In your browser. Your plan is saved in your browser's localStorage — it isn't sent to us. Clear your browser data and it is gone; there is no server-side copy for anyone to request, leak, or delete.

What about analytics?

retireclarity records privacy-respecting, cookieless usage counts — page views and a short, fixed list of feature-count events — through Umami. Those counts never include your plan data: no balances, income, expenses, or ages. You can switch them off in Settings.

The core planner is free and needs no account — build your plan, see your projections, and run the analysis. Some advanced features are paid, now and in the future; that is how retireclarity funds itself instead of selling your data. And nothing you use free today gets taken away.

Privacy-first retirement planner

A full retirement planner — multi-account projections, a Roth conversion optimizer, and Monte Carlo — that runs entirely in your browser. Planners this complete normally require an account and a server. This one doesn’t.

Most tools that can actually plan a retirement — every account, taxes, Social Security, required minimum distributions, Roth conversions, a real probability of success — ask you to make an account first and keep your numbers on their servers. The tools that stay on your device tend to be single-purpose calculators: a withdrawal-rate tester, a broke-or-dead odds chart. retireclarity is the uncommon overlap: the full planner, run locally.

Private by default. All modeling runs in your browser, your plan is stored in your browser — it isn’t sent to us — and no account is needed to plan.

What runs in your browser

The whole engine is client-side JavaScript. When you type a balance or change a retirement age, the recompute happens on your device — nothing round-trips a server. That covers:

Year-by-year projections across cash, brokerage, tax-deferred, and Roth accounts
The Roth conversion optimizer — the full bracket-, IRMAA-, and ACA-aware search
Monte Carlo over about a century of real market history
Federal and all 50 states income tax, RMDs, IRMAA surcharges, and ACA subsidies
Your net-worth history on the Progress tracker

There is no “send to server to calculate” step because there is no server doing the math. You can confirm it yourself: open your browser’s network tab and watch it while you edit your plan.

What that means concretely

No account. No signup, no email, no login to start planning.
No bank linking. You enter your balances yourself. There is no aggregation service reaching into your accounts.
Your plan stays in your browser. It is saved in localStorage on your device. Clear your browser data and it is gone — there is no server-side copy to leak or subpoena.
Analytics you can inspect and switch off. retireclarity records privacy-respecting, cookieless usage counts through Umami. Your plan data is never in them, and you can turn them off in Settings. See the privacy policy for the exact, itemized list.

An honest comparison

Three kinds of tool show up when you search for a private retirement planner. Here is where each genuinely stands — and where retireclarity fits.

Full planners with accounts

ProjectionLab, Boldin, Empower. Powerful and complete — but they require an account and keep your plan on their servers.

Full planning depth
Account required
Plan stored server-side

Local single-purpose calculators

ficalc.app, engaging-data’s Rich, Broke or Dead. Genuinely local and well made — but each answers one question, not the whole plan.

Runs in your browser
No account
Single-purpose only

retireclarity

The full planner, run locally. The depth of the first group with the local privacy of the second.

Full planning depth
No account to plan
Plan stays in your browser

Don’t take our word for any of this — every tool’s privacy policy is public. Reading how a “free” planner actually makes money is two minutes well spent.

See it work on a sample household, then swap in your own accounts, spending, and ages — private by default, all in your browser.

Open the planner

Common questions

Do I need to sign up or create an account?: No. You can plan without an account — no signup, no email, no login. Open the planner and start modeling right away. An optional device-sync service is on the roadmap; it will be opt-in, and the planner will never require it.
Does it link to my bank?: No. retireclarity has no bank connections and no account aggregation. You enter your balances yourself, and nothing is pulled from your financial institutions.
Where is my plan stored?: In your browser. Your plan is saved in your browser's localStorage — it isn't sent to us. Clear your browser data and it is gone; there is no server-side copy for anyone to request, leak, or delete.
What about analytics?: retireclarity records privacy-respecting, cookieless usage counts — page views and a short, fixed list of feature-count events — through Umami. Those counts never include your plan data: no balances, income, expenses, or ages. You can switch them off in Settings.
Is it really free?: The core planner is free and needs no account — build your plan, see your projections, and run the analysis. Some advanced features are paid, now and in the future; that is how retireclarity funds itself instead of selling your data. And nothing you use free today gets taken away.

More on the money side of that last one — what’s free, what’s paid, and how we make money without selling your data — in free to plan, forever.