My Runway and Moneysmart’s retirement planner compared
Moneysmart’s retirement planner, from ASIC, estimates your income in retirement from super, the Age Pension and other assets. My Runway projects a household’s whole financial life year by year, before retirement and after, with income tax, loans, property, super and the Age Pension applied, and finds the year each goal is affordable. This page sets out what each does, from each one’s own site.
What My Runway does that Moneysmart’s planner leaves out
- Income tax and the Medicare levy for each person, every year, before retirement and after
- Loans, offset accounts and their repayments
- Buying a home or an investment property, with stamp duty and a loan, and selling one
- Land tax and HELP repayments
- Capital gains tax on what you sell
- A couple where one retires before the other
Side by side
| What | My Runway | Moneysmart’s retirement planner |
|---|---|---|
| What it answers | The year each goal (a home, an investment property, retirement) is affordable, and how long the money lasts | Your estimated retirement income, against a target |
| Income tax | Every year, for each person: income tax, the Medicare levy and surcharge, and offsets | Contributions tax inside super; no income tax applied to retirement income, and other tax assumed paid outside super |
| Property | Buying a home or an investment property, with stamp duty, costs and a loan; rent; land tax; selling | An investment property’s value, growth and rent; selling it to fund retirement isn’t considered |
| Debts | Loans, offset accounts and their repayments | Not considered |
| Stamp duty, land tax and HELP | Yes | Not among its inputs |
| Capital gains tax | The CGT discount, and the changes from 1 July 2027 | Not applied to drawdowns from other investments |
| A couple | A plan is one or two people, each with their own tax and retirement year | Include a partner; the income a couple needs while one has retired and the other hasn’t isn’t considered |
| Super | Contributions and their caps, Division 293, preservation age, the transfer balance cap and minimum pension drawdowns | Employer, salary sacrifice and after-tax contributions within the caps, the co-contribution, the low-income super tax offset, the transfer balance cap, minimum drawdowns, and fees and insurance premiums |
| The Age Pension | The income and assets tests, every year | The income and assets tests, as a simplified estimate, for a single person or a couple, owning a home or not |
| Returns | Steady growth rates, shown and yours to change | Steady returns by investment risk level, from actuarial advice to ASIC, yours to change |
| Signing in | An email address; the plan is saved to your account | None; you can download your results |
| Price | Free, or Plus at A$149 a year, GST included | Free |
Moneysmart’s retirement planner is described from its own site. A product changes; its own site has the current details. My Runway’s side matches the help centre and pricing.
What My Runway gives you
Who each is built for
My Runway
- A household that wants every year planned, before retirement and after, with a home or an investment property in it.
- A couple who retire in different years, each with their own tax.
- Someone who wants a plan to save, come back to and keep up to date.
Moneysmart’s retirement planner
- Someone who wants a quick, free estimate of retirement income, without an account; its notes say it is not suited to someone already drawing a retirement pension, or with a defined benefit.
The planner is free, needs no account and is published in five languages. It applies the government co-contribution, the low-income super tax offset and insurance premiums paid from super, which My Runway doesn’t model.
Checked against the official sources and calculators
Every rate My Runway applies comes from the body that sets it (the ATO, Services Australia or a state revenue office) and is stored with its source and the day it was checked. The app reproduces their published worked examples to the cent, and is compared with the official calculators across ranges of incomes, prices and balances. How we check our figures.
General information only, not financial advice, and not a recommendation of either. My Runway is a calculator: it applies the rules to the figures you give it.
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