ProjectionLab alternatives: what a free tool does differently

ProjectionLab is a comprehensive financial-life planner: free to try, $129 a year to unlock saved plans, tax modelling and scenario comparison. zeroleft is free throughout and does one thing ProjectionLab wasn't built specifically for — turn the Die With Zero argument into a number, with the book's own floor and gift-timing rules built in rather than configured. If you need the deeper, general-purpose planner, ProjectionLab is the better tool. If your question is narrower — how much can I spend so I land near zero, not zero forever preserved — keep reading.

What ProjectionLab actually does

ProjectionLab is a whole-financial-life modeller: income, accounts, goals, withdrawal strategies, and — on its paid tier — tax estimation across federal, state and capital gains, including Roth conversion and required-minimum-distribution handling. The free Basic tier runs ad-hoc projections and Monte Carlo simulation but doesn't save your plan between sessions. Premium, at $129/year, adds unlimited saved plans, the tax analytics above, side-by-side scenario comparison and PDF reports; there's a $1,199 one-time lifetime option, and a $549/year Pro tier built for financial advisors managing client plans. It's a serious, general tool — built to answer almost any financial-planning question you bring to it, not one in particular.

Where zeroleft is the narrower tool

Be clear about the trade before the pitch:

• No tax model, on any tier, because there's only one tier. Drawdown order and tax efficiency are out of scope entirely — treat zeroleft's output as the shape of a plan, not a withdrawal schedule.
• One person. The data model has room for a partner; the arithmetic doesn't use it yet. ProjectionLab's paid tier handles joint and multi-goal households.
• One kind of goal. zeroleft doesn't have ProjectionLab's library of configurable goal types and side-by-side scenario comparisons — it solves the die-with-zero spend-down question and nothing else.
• No account linking or bank sync. Every number is entered by hand, same as ProjectionLab's own Basic tier.

If any of the first three matter to you, ProjectionLab's $129/year is likely worth it.

Where zeroleft doesn't charge for what ProjectionLab does

The one that matters most: ProjectionLab's free tier doesn't save your plan — you rebuild the projection each session unless you pay. zeroleft's saved plans, year-by-year projection and Monte Carlo stress test are free, full stop, stored per account on a small EU-hosted server, because there's no premium tier gating them.

The one question zeroleft is built around

You can build a spend-down goal in ProjectionLab yourself, from its general goal templates. zeroleft starts from that goal instead of arriving at it: it solves for the largest flat, real amount you can add to your spending, on top of living costs, such that liquid assets land at roughly zero by your planning horizon — while a survival-threshold floor stops the solve from spending you into a corner along the way. We cover how that number is actually calculated separately. Gifts to people are checked against the book's suggested window of ages 26–35 for the recipient, and each experience you place is weighed against an enjoyment-ability curve for the age you'll be when you do it — the book's own mechanics, as named, built-in features rather than something you configure from a blank template.

Run zeroleft's own sample plan through the solver — a 35-year-old with $380,000 invested and $1.86 million projected as the peak of the curve at 59 — and the free output is a specific number: $34,275 a year of extra spending on top of living costs, with the plan landing near zero by 90 and the survival threshold held back the whole way. No paywall between that number and the plan that produced it.

Which one to pick

• Pick ProjectionLab if you need tax modelling, a joint-household plan, or a general tool for financial questions beyond the die-with-zero spend-down — and you don't mind paying for it.
• Pick zeroleft if the question you actually have is "how much can I spend and still land near zero by my horizon", you want the book's own mechanics built in rather than configured, and you'd rather it stayed free.
• Use both, reasonably: zeroleft for the die-with-zero number and the FIRE comparison it implies; ProjectionLab's paid tier if you then need to model exactly how that spending interacts with your actual tax situation. Different ways of turning a portfolio into income are compared here too.

Run your own number

zeroleft finds the largest flat amount you can add to your spending and still land near zero by your horizon, keeps a survival-threshold floor back, and stress-tests that number against thousands of market paths — free, with no saved-plan paywall to hit later.

zeroleft is a planning aid, not financial advice, and has no tax model. It is an independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by Bill Perkins, the publisher, or ProjectionLab.