Know what every paycheck
does for your retirement
Planwize turns your salary, pay schedule, and 401(k) rates into a full-year plan — IRS limits, employer match, taxes, and long-term growth, all handled. Built for beginners and spreadsheet veterans alike.
Your year, paycheck by paycheck — green is money going to future-you.
The IRS caps what you can contribute each year. Planwize finds the rate that fills your limit on the final paycheck — not a dollar wasted, not a month early.
Employer match is free money — and surprisingly easy to forfeit. See exactly how much you're capturing, and what front-loading would cost you.
Every choice shows its tax savings today and its compounded value at retirement. Small % changes turn into six figures — see it happen.
Your numbers stay yours
- No account needed to try it. Everything runs in your browser; your data lives only on your device.
- With an account, your plan is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest (AES-256), and locked to your login — no one else can read your row, ever.
- Optional passphrase = zero-knowledge. Add one and your data is encrypted on your device before it's stored — not even the server can decrypt it.
- Never shared. Never sold. No ads. Delete your data anytime.
How it works
- Enter your pay info — salary, how often you're paid, your 401(k) rates. Takes about two minutes; every field has a plain-English explainer.
- Hit Calculate — Planwize checks your inputs and tells you if anything's missing.
- Explore — your paycheck-by-paycheck schedule, side-by-side strategy comparisons, tax savings, and the compounding curve to retirement.
About & security
What Planwize is, who's behind it, and exactly how your data is handled.
What makes Planwize different
- Paycheck-level precision. Most calculators give you a yearly number. Planwize models every single paycheck — weekly, biweekly, semimonthly, or monthly — so it catches things others miss, like exactly which pay period hits your IRS limit and how much employer match that costs you.
- Federal + state, not just federal. Approximate state income tax for all 50 states + DC, including quirks like Pennsylvania taxing pre-tax 401(k) contributions.
- Named, dated plan history. Run what-ifs, model a second job, or keep last year's numbers as a permanent record — not a single form that overwrites itself.
- Explains itself. An 18-term glossary and a coaching corner turn "the tool told me a number" into "I understand why."
- Zero-knowledge option. Add a passphrase and even Planwize's own database can't read your numbers. Most free tools don't offer this.
- No ads, no data resale, ever. If a paid tier exists, that's the entire business model — not your data.
Security architecture
Every connection uses TLS/HTTPS — from your browser to Planwize's servers, always encrypted.
Saved plans live in a database encrypted at rest (AES-256), access-controlled so a plan can only ever be read or written by the account that owns it — enforced by the database itself, not just application code.
Set a passphrase and your plan is encrypted in your browser (AES-256-GCM, PBKDF2, 210,000 iterations) before it ever leaves your device. The server stores only ciphertext it cannot decrypt. Trade-off: lose the passphrase and the data is unrecoverable — by design, nobody holds a spare key.
The entire tool works with no account at all — your numbers stay on your device until you decide otherwise.
No ad networks, no third-party trackers riding along with your financial data.
Your data, your control
Export everything you've entered, anytime, in plain JSON — or remove it.
Who's behind this
Planwize is an independent project, not a bank, brokerage, or registered investment advisor. It's a planning and education tool: it does arithmetic on the numbers you provide and explains published rules of thumb. It does not manage money, place trades, or give personalized investment or tax advice.
Disclaimer
Planwize is for guidance and reference only — not tax, legal, or investment advice. Figures are estimates based on simplified federal and approximate state assumptions and published IRS/SSA data, which may not reflect your full situation. Always confirm with a qualified tax professional, financial advisor, or your plan's official documents before making decisions.
Plans & reports
Every plan is a named, dated snapshot of your numbers — your what-if runs, one per job, and past years as history. Open one to explore it, or download its PDF report straight from here.
Inputs
Fill in what you know — every field starts with a simple example and has a explainer. Then hit Calculate below.
Almost there — a few things need attention
You
Pay
| From pay # | Annual salary |
|---|
Contribution rates
The % of each paycheck going into your 401(k). Rates apply from a pay period onward — add a row to model a mid-year change.
| From pay # | Pre-tax % | Roth % | After-tax % |
|---|
Employer money
Growth
IRS figures in effect ·
Your overview will appear here
Enter your pay info and hit Calculate — takes about two minutes.
Make every paycheck count
Your 401(k), planned paycheck by paycheck. New to this? Tap any to learn as you go.
The year, paycheck by paycheck
IRS limit used
Two-minute lessons
The ideas that quietly decide how much you retire with.
Coaching corner
Your paycheck schedule will appear here
Every pay of the year with contributions, taxes, and take-home.
Paychecks
Strategy comparisons will appear here
See tax savings, match capture, and take-home for different contribution rates, side by side.
Compare strategies
Edit the rates in any card — taxes, match capture, and take-home update live. Not sure what to compare? Start by matching the "Capture full match" card.
Take-home vs. retirement dollars
Your growth curve will appear here
Watch this year's plan compound into a retirement balance.