What ProjectionLab does brilliantly.
ProjectionLab has earned its following in the FIRE community. These strengths are real, and some of them Foundera doesn't match today.
Milestone-driven planning.
Life events chain to milestones instead of hard-coded dates — retire "when the portfolio crosses the number," move states when you retire, sell the house when you move. Elegant and genuinely flexible.
Serious simulation.
Monte Carlo plus historical backtesting with era modifiers — you can replay a plan through actual market history, not just a statistical curve, and stress-test assumptions in a clean Compare → What-If flow.
Honest tax estimation.
Federal plus state (and Canadian provincial) estimates, short- vs long-term capital gains, Medicare/IRMAA, and TCJA-expiration handling. For a planner in this class, it's a thoughtful tax model.
A real privacy stance.
No bank linking, by design — you enter your finances manually and nothing aggregates your accounts. We admire this; it's the same instinct behind Foundera's local mode.
Broader than the US.
RRSP, TFSA and UK pension account types, relocation between US states or Canadian provinces. If you're outside the US, ProjectionLab fits where Foundera's US-statute engine doesn't.
Free to start, easy to leave.
A free Basic tier, a 7-day Pro trial, an active Discord community and an advisor directory. Cancelling drops you back to free without deleting your data.
A great planner, with no actuals underneath.
ProjectionLab deliberately does not do budgeting. There is no transaction ledger, no categories, no rules — you type in what you believe you spend, and you update balances by hand when you remember to. That's a defensible design choice. But a plan is a hypothesis about your own behavior, and spending assumptions that are off by a few hundred dollars a month compound quietly across a 40-year projection. Plans drift without actuals.
Foundera closes that loop. The Budget workspace is a real transaction ledger — rules, splits, rollover envelopes, recurring detection — and every entry feeds the same lifetime engine the planner uses. Your FI date responds to what you actually did this month, not to what you estimated last January.
Two smaller differences cut each way. ProjectionLab stores plans in the cloud (Google Firebase) with saving tied to your subscription; Foundera works fully offline with no account, and your plan is a file you own. On taxes, ProjectionLab's estimation is good — Foundera goes further into the statute: AMT, NIIT, QBI, FICA and self-employment tax, taxable-Social-Security phase-ins, and federal + state estate tax. But ProjectionLab covers Canada and the UK, and Foundera doesn't.
The fair table.
| Foundera | ProjectionLab | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifetime projection engine | Yes — year-by-year to age 90+, deterministic + probabilistic | Yes — excellent: milestones, chained events, what-if compare |
| Statutory tax depth | Yes — federal brackets, LTCG stacking, FICA, AMT, NIIT, QBI, taxable Social Security, per-state, estate tax | Good estimation — federal + state/province, LTCG, Medicare/IRMAA, TCJA expiration |
| Monte Carlo analysis | Yes — Normal, Historical & Block-Bootstrap samplers + a backtest sweep | Yes — plus historical backtesting with era modifiers |
| Transaction budgeting | Yes — rules, splits, tags, rollover budgets, recurring detection, CSV import | No — planning inputs only, no transaction ledger |
| Plan ↔ actuals calibration | Yes — actuals re-run the lifetime plan automatically | Manual — you re-enter balances; spending never flows in |
| Privacy & local-first | Yes — works fully offline with no account; optional encrypted cloud sync | Strong stance — no bank linking by design; plans stored in the cloud (Firebase) |
| Try without an account | Yes — full local mode, no sign-up | Free Basic tier + 7-day Pro trial |
| Live bank sync | Coming soon (Plaid, paid tier) — manual entry & CSV import today | No — manual by design |
| Price / year | $0 free · Plus $90 · Pro $180 | ≈$120 (Pro, annual; Premium tier higher) |
Prices as of July 2026 and subject to change — ProjectionLab's is approximate (annual Pro; monthly and Premium options differ), so check projectionlab.com before deciding. Competitor details compiled from ProjectionLab's public help center and product pages (researched June 2026).
Who should pick which.
Pick ProjectionLab if…
- You already budget elsewhere (or genuinely don't want to) and want the best standalone scenario modeler.
- You're in Canada or the UK — Foundera's tax engine is US-only, and that should decide it.
- You want historical-era backtesting with fine-grained control, and a polished community around it.
- You work with an advisor who wants a shareable, presentation-ready plan.
If that's you, ProjectionLab is a lovely piece of software. Genuinely.
Pick Foundera if…
- You want the plan and the actuals in one loop — a budget that quietly recalibrates a 40-year projection.
- You want statutory US tax depth: AMT, NIIT, QBI, capital-gains stacking, per-state income tax, estate tax.
- You want a planner that works fully offline, with no account — your plan is a file you own.
- You want to start free and stay under $100/yr — Plus is $90.