Account-based pension calculator

Estimate how an account-based pension could support your retirement income over time. Compare drawdown choices, fees and investment returns to see how long the balance may last.

What this native cut captures

Annual minimum pension drawdown rules applied by age band
Baseline versus comparison retirement-income strategies with different fee and return assumptions
Balance-runout timing and today’s-dollars purchasing-power visibility for retirement income planning

Your pension inputs

Enter the balance available when your account-based pension starts, then compare your preferred income strategy with an alternative set of income, fees and return assumptions.

Pension start age

Starting account-based pension balance

Upfront lump sum withdrawal

Projection years

Baseline target annual income

Baseline investment return (% p.a.)

Baseline percentage fees (% p.a.)

Baseline admin fee (annual)

Baseline adviser fee (annual)

Inflation in retirement (% p.a.)

Comparison target annual income

Comparison investment return (% p.a.)

Comparison percentage fees (% p.a.)

Comparison admin fee (annual)

Comparison adviser fee (annual)

Comparison upfront fee or exit cost

Superannuation calculator

Results

The summary below compares two account-based pension strategies over the same retirement period, while enforcing the annual minimum pension drawdown rules.

Baseline balance at end of projection $0

Baseline balance-runout age 87

Comparison balance at end of projection $0

Starting at age 67 with $450,000 in pension phase, the baseline strategy pays a target income of $30,000 in year one and ends the selected period with $0.

First native cut: this page focuses on the account-based pension drawdown phase. The imported calculator’s pre-retirement path depended on an external projection API, so accumulation before pension commencement remains covered by the separate native superannuation calculator.

Strategy comparison

Totals across the full projection window

Line item	Baseline	Comparison
Target annual income (year one)	$30,000	$34,000
Investment return	6.5%	5.5%
Percentage fees	0.8%	1.1%
Annual fixed fees	$74	$1,620
Total income paid	$727,250	$564,543
Total investment earnings	$318,203	$174,244
Total fees paid	$41,691	$90,184
Ending balance	$0	$0
Ending balance in today's dollars	$0	$0
Balance-runout age	87	81

Final six yearly snapshots

Baseline strategy

Year	Age	Actual income paid	Fees paid	Ending balance
20	87	$599	$121	$0
21	88	$0	$121	$0
22	89	$0	$124	$0
23	90	$0	$127	$0
24	91	$0	$131	$0
25	92	$0	$134	$0

What to watch

Retirement drawdown math can support later-life refinance, equity-release and retirement-cashflow guidance elsewhere in the app.
Minimum annual pension rules are now explicit and reusable instead of buried in a third-party calculator flow.
Comparing fee and return assumptions creates a reusable pattern for pension product comparison and retirement runway education.

How these estimates work

The minimum drawdown rates are applied annually based on age bands used by the imported calculator.
Retirement income is indexed by the retirement inflation assumption so the projection aims to preserve purchasing power over time.
Only the account-based pension balance is modelled in this first cut. Government Age Pension and other external income sources are not included.
This first cut uses a local deterministic projection model rather than the external Towers Watson API used by the imported calculator.