Planning for retirement can feel overwhelming, especially as the landscape of financial tools continues to evolve. With 2025 just around the corner, it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re on track to meet your retirement goals. Luckily, there are numerous retirement planning tools available that can help you visualize your financial future, manage your investments, and make sure your money works for you well into your golden years. In this guide, we’ll cover the top retirement planning tools for 2025 to help you prepare for a financially secure and stress-free retirement.
Empower (formerly Personal Capital)
Empower (formerly Personal Capital) is one of the most comprehensive and powerful retirement planning tools available. It combines financial tracking, investment management, and retirement planning all in one platform, making it an essential tool for anyone serious about securing their financial future.
With Empower, you can track your income, spending, investments, and net worth in real-time, giving you a holistic view of your financial health. Specifically for retirement planning, Empower offers a Retirement Planner tool that analyzes your current savings, projects your future income, and helps you determine whether you’re on track to meet your retirement goals.
Some of the standout features of Empower include:
Retirement Forecasting Features
• Retirement Forecasting: The tool uses data from your linked accounts to project your future financial outlook based on different variables, like retirement age, income, and lifestyle goals.
Investment Fee Analyzer
• Investment Fee Analyzer: Empower shows you how much you’re paying in fees on your current investments and how reducing those fees can significantly improve your retirement savings over time.
• Portfolio Management: Empower provides a detailed analysis of your current portfolio, including asset allocation, diversification, and risk exposure. This feature ensures that you can easily adjust your investments to stay on track for retirement.
Whether you’re just starting to think about retirement or are already deep into the planning process, Empower offers the insights and tools to help you feel confident about your financial future. Best of all, the platform remains free to sign up and use most of its features, making it accessible to everyone, regardless of financial expertise.
Vanguard Retirement Planner
Vanguard’s Retirement Planner is an excellent option for those looking to manage their 401(k) or IRA accounts and ensure they’re on track for retirement. Vanguard offers a variety of tools that help you estimate your retirement income and plan contributions to maximize your retirement savings.
One of the key features of Vanguard’s Retirement Planner is its Retirement Nest Egg Calculator, which projects how long your savings will last based on your current investment and withdrawal strategies. The tool also offers risk assessments and personalized suggestions to help you make smarter investment decisions.
Vanguard is especially useful for individuals who already have Vanguard retirement accounts, as the tool integrates seamlessly with your portfolio. However, even if you use other brokerage services, the free tools available at Vanguard can still provide valuable insights into your financial future.
Fidelity Retirement
Fidelity Retirement Score is an easy-to-use tool that helps you assess how prepared you are for retirement. In just a few minutes, you can link your financial accounts and get a score between 0 and 150, indicating your retirement readiness. A score of 100 means you’re on track to maintain your lifestyle in retirement, while anything above that suggests you’re on track to exceed your goals.
What makes Fidelity’s Retirement Score especially appealing is the simplicity of the interface. It provides actionable insights, such as how to adjust your savings rate, and investment strategy, or when to retire to achieve your ideal retirement income.
Fidelity’s platform also allows you to explore “what if” scenarios, like retiring earlier or increasing savings, to see how these changes would affect your financial future. For those looking for a clear, data-driven snapshot of their retirement preparedness, Fidelity offers an excellent starting point.
Copilot
If you’re looking for a user-friendly and highly personalized financial tool, Copilot is an excellent alternative to traditional budgeting apps. Copilot allows you to manage your finances, track expenses, and set personalized financial goals—all while offering insights into how to improve your financial health. Designed to adapt to your unique financial situation, Copilot can be a valuable resource for anyone serious about staying on top of their financial future.
Key Features:
•Real-Time Financial Tracking: Copilot connects to your bank accounts and credit cards, offering real-time insights into your spending, income, and savings.
•Custom Categories & Budgets: Unlike more rigid tools, Copilot lets you create custom spending categories and budgets, tailored specifically to your lifestyle and financial goals.
•Proactive Insights: The app provides proactive financial insights, giving you personalized advice on how to cut costs, manage debt, or increase savings.
•Investment Monitoring: Copilot allows you to monitor your investments, helping you keep track of your portfolio and performance without needing to log in to separate platforms.
Whether you’re aiming to budget for retirement, save for a large purchase, or simply manage day-to-day expenses, Copilot offers a comprehensive yet flexible way to stay on top of your finances in 2025.
Whether you’re just starting to think about retirement or are well into the process, the tools mentioned above can help you stay on track and achieve your goals. From detailed financial planning tools like Personal Capital and Vanguard to budgeting apps like Copilot, there’s a solution for every stage of your retirement journey.
The most important step is getting started, so take control of your financial future today by exploring the best retirement planning tools of 2025. Your future self will thank you.
