401(k) Calculator — Free Online Calculator

Current Age

1870

Retirement Age

4075

Annual Salary

$20,000$500,000

Your Contribution

030

Employer Match Up To

015

Employer Match Ratio

0100

Current 401(k) Balance

$0$2,000,000

Expected Annual Return

115

Balance growth to retirement

Y35 · Contributed 236.25KBalance 962.67K

Enter your salary and contribution rate to see your 401(k) grow.

Projected Balance at Retirement

Total Invested

Investment Growth

Total Employer Match

Your Monthly Contribution

Balance Breakdown

Contributions (incl. employer match) vs. investment growth

Contributions

Investment Growth

Projected Balance

This calculator computes your Projected Balance at Retirement, Total Invested, Investment Growth, Total Employer Match, Your Monthly Contribution from the values you enter.

Inputs

Current AgeRetirement AgeAnnual SalaryYour ContributionEmployer Match Up ToEmployer Match RatioCurrent 401(k) BalanceExpected Annual Return

Outputs

Projected Balance at RetirementTotal InvestedInvestment GrowthTotal Employer MatchYour Monthly Contribution

What is a 401(k)?

A 401(k) calculator projects how your workplace retirement account grows from today's balance to the day you plan to retire. It's built around one core idea: your contributions, plus whatever your employer kicks in, get invested and compound over years or decades, and the earlier that compounding starts, the more of your final balance comes from growth rather than money you actually set aside.

This calculator models eight inputs that matter most to that projection, your current age and target retirement age, your salary, how much of it you contribute, your employer's match structure, your existing 401(k) balance, and an assumed annual return. It's built for the way US employer-sponsored plans actually work, including the two-part match structure (a percentage-of-salary cap combined with a match ratio) that trips a lot of people up when they try to do this math by hand.

The result isn't just a single number. It separates your projected balance into what you contributed, what your employer contributed, and what the market added on top, which matters if you're trying to understand how much of your retirement security depends on your own saving discipline versus investment performance. For a broader view that includes Social Security and other accounts, pair this with the Retirement Calculator.

What Insights Does the 401(k) Calculator Give You?

Projected Balance at Retirement is the headline number, your total account value at your chosen retirement age, combining principal and growth. Treat it as a planning target, not a promise; it moves a lot depending on the return rate you assume.

Total Invested shows the sum of every contribution you personally made, without any growth or employer money mixed in. It's useful for answering "how much of this did I actually save?" as opposed to what the market did for you.

Total Employer Match isolates the free money, what your employer added over the whole projection period. Seeing this as a standalone dollar figure, rather than an abstract percentage, tends to be the number that convinces people not to skip the match.

Investment Growth is the balance minus everything that was contributed by anyone, pure compounding. In a 25- or 30-year projection, this is often the largest of the four components, which is the whole point of starting early.

Your Monthly Contribution converts your chosen contribution rate into an actual dollar figure at your current salary, so you can sanity-check it against your monthly budget before committing to it on paper.

Who Should Use This Calculator?

Anyone just starting a job with a 401(k) plan, before you pick a contribution rate on your enrollment form, running the numbers here shows what a 3% versus 6% election actually costs you in take-home pay and gets you in employer match.

People weighing a job change, especially where the new role's match structure differs from the old one, plug in both plans' match rules to see which one actually leaves you better off over the years remaining until retirement.

Anyone in their 40s or 50s who feels behind and wants to know what raising their contribution rate now, or using the $7,500 catch-up limit, would realistically do to their balance by retirement.

High earners approaching the IRS contribution ceiling, who need to know how much room they have left this year and whether it's worth maxing out before shifting extra savings into an IRA or taxable account.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Stopping contributions right at the match cap without checking if you can afford more. The match cap (Employer Match Up To) is a floor, not a ceiling, plenty of people treat 3% or 6% as the "right" amount to save simply because that's where the free money stops.

Using take-home pay instead of gross salary. Contribution percentages in a 401(k) are calculated against your gross salary, not what hits your bank account after taxes. Running the numbers on the wrong base understates both your contribution and your employer's match.

Assuming a flat 7% return every single year. The 7% figure is a long-run average, not a guaranteed annual result, some years will be negative, some will be well above 7%. Don't build a retirement plan that only works if markets never have a bad decade.

Forgetting a vesting schedule exists. If you're modeling a job change, remember that unvested employer contributions can be forfeited if you leave too soon, the "Total Employer Match" this calculator shows assumes you keep all of it, which may not hold for a shorter time horizon.

Ignoring the difference between nominal and real dollars. A seven-figure balance sounds impressive 30 years out, but it won't buy what seven figures buys today. Cross-check big projections against the Inflation Calculator before treating the number as a finish line.

How to use this 401(k) calculator

Set your Current Age and Retirement Age using the sliders, these define how many years the projection compounds over, so even a small change here has an outsized effect on the result.
Enter your Annual Salary in the salary field. This is the base your contribution percentage and employer match percentage are both calculated from.
Set Your Contribution as a percentage of salary using the slider, this is what you personally elect to defer from each paycheck.
Set Employer Match Up To and Employer Match Ratio to match your plan's actual rules. If your employer matches 50% of contributions up to 6% of salary, that's Employer Match Up To = 6% and Employer Match Ratio = 50%.
Enter your Current 401(k) Balance, if you have one already, leave it at zero if you're starting fresh.
Adjust Expected Annual Return to model different market scenarios, try 5%, 7%, and 9% back to back to see the spread rather than relying on one assumption.
Read the five result fields, Projected Balance, Total Invested, Total Employer Match, Investment Growth, and Monthly Contribution, to see both your final number and where it actually came from.

Show formula & methodology ↓Show less ↑

Formula & Methodology

The calculator uses the future value of an ordinary annuity, applied monthly:

FV = PV × (1 + r)ⁿ + PMT × [((1 + r)ⁿ − 1) ÷ r]

Where:
- PV, your current 401(k) balance
- PMT, your total monthly contribution (yours plus employer match, combined)
- r, your expected annual return, converted to a monthly rate
- n, the number of months between now and your retirement age
- FV, your projected balance at retirement

Worked example: A 30-year-old earning $75,000, contributing 6% ($4,500/year, or $375/month), with a 100% employer match up to 3% of salary ($2,250/year, or $187.50/month), starting from a $0 balance and assuming a 7% annual return, retiring at 65:

- Combined monthly contribution (PMT) = $375 + $187.50 = $562.50
- n = 35 years × 12 = 420 months
- Monthly rate (r) = 7% ÷ 12 ≈ 0.5833%

FV = 0 × (1.005833)⁴²⁰ + 562.50 × [((1.005833)⁴²⁰ − 1) ÷ 0.005833] ≈ $941,000

Of that roughly $941,000, total contributions (employee + employer) come to about $236,250, meaning close to 75% of the final balance is investment growth, not money that was ever deposited. That's the compounding effect the calculator exists to show.

The model assumes a constant contribution rate, salary, and return every year, it doesn't account for raises, contribution changes, or the sequence in which good and bad market years actually occur. For deeper long-term modeling, the Compound Interest Calculator and Future Value Calculator use the same underlying math on a more general basis.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a 401(k) calculator?

It's a tool that projects what your workplace retirement account could be worth by the time you retire, based on your current balance, salary, contribution rate, employer match, and an assumed rate of return. You enter your numbers once and the calculator compounds your contributions, plus any employer match, month by month until your target retirement age. The output splits your final balance into what you actually put in versus what the market grew for you, which is the part most people never see clearly.

How much of my paycheck should go into my 401(k)?

At minimum, whatever it takes to get the full employer match, turning that down is leaving guaranteed money on the table. Beyond the match, 10–15% of gross salary (employer contributions included) is a common target for someone who started saving in their 20s or 30s. Start later and you'll need a higher rate to catch up. Run a few contribution rates through this calculator and you'll see how much difference even 2–3 extra percentage points makes over 30 years.

What does 'employer match' actually mean, and how is it calculated here?

An employer match is money your company adds to your 401(k) on top of what you contribute, usually up to a cap. A typical setup is 100% match up to 3% of salary, so on a $75,000 salary, contributing 3% ($2,250) gets you another $2,250 from your employer, free. This calculator uses two inputs to model it: Employer Match Up To (the salary percentage cap) and Employer Match Ratio (what fraction of your contribution they match within that cap), so you can replicate a partial match like 50 cents per dollar as well as a full one.

Is the projected balance in today's dollars or future dollars?

Future dollars, the number isn't adjusted for inflation. A $1.2 million balance at retirement in 30 years will buy noticeably less than $1.2 million buys today, so treat the projection as a nominal savings target rather than a guarantee of purchasing power. If you want a rough real-dollar comparison, our Inflation Calculator can show what that future balance is worth in today's terms at a given inflation rate.

How is the projected 401(k) balance calculated?

The math is a future-value-of-an-annuity formula: your current balance grows at the assumed return, and each month's contribution (yours plus the employer match) is added and compounded forward from that point until retirement. It assumes a constant monthly contribution and a flat annual return, no raises, no market swings, no changes in contribution rate. That's a simplification real life won't match exactly, but it's the standard way to model long-run retirement growth.

What return rate should I actually use?

7% is the widely used benchmark for a stock-heavy portfolio's long-run real return after inflation, based on historical S&P 500 performance. Before inflation, that same portfolio has averaged closer to 10%. If your 401(k) is more conservative, a mix of bonds and stocks, 5–6% is more realistic. Try the calculator at a couple of different rates rather than trusting one number; actual year-to-year returns swing far more than any average suggests.

What's the 2024 contribution limit for a 401(k)?

The IRS caps employee contributions at $23,000 for 2024, with an extra $7,500 catch-up allowed once you turn 50, $30,500 total. That limit is on your own contributions only; employer match doesn't count against it. The combined employee-plus-employer ceiling is $69,000 ($76,500 for those 50 and up), which matters mostly for high earners with generous employer contributions.

Traditional 401(k) or Roth 401(k), does it change what this calculator shows?

No, the balance projection is the same either way, since both grow tax-deferred until withdrawal. What differs is what happens at withdrawal: a traditional 401(k) is taxed as ordinary income when you take money out, while a Roth 401(k) was funded with after-tax dollars and comes out tax-free. If you expect a higher tax bracket in retirement than now, the Roth math tends to favor you, but that's a separate decision from how much to save.

What happens to my 401(k) balance if I switch jobs?

Your own contributions are always 100% yours, no matter when you leave. Employer match money might be subject to a vesting schedule, some companies vest it immediately, others phase it in over 3 to 6 years, and leaving early can mean forfeiting the unvested portion. When you go, you can roll the whole balance into an IRA or your new employer's plan tax-free, which is usually the better move over cashing out and eating a 10% early-withdrawal penalty.

Can I take money out of my 401(k) before I retire?

You can, but it's expensive: withdrawals before age 59½ are taxed as ordinary income plus a 10% penalty on top, with narrow exceptions for things like disability or certain medical costs. A 401(k) loan is usually the less painful option if you need cash, you borrow from your own balance and pay yourself back with interest, though the money you borrowed stops growing while it's out.

How much should I have saved by a given age?

A rough rule of thumb: 1× your salary saved by 30, 3× by 40, 6× by 50, and around 10× by retirement age, assuming you're aiming to replace roughly 80% of your pre-retirement income. These are ballpark benchmarks, not a verdict, plug your actual current balance and contribution plan into this calculator to see where you're really headed rather than comparing yourself to an average that may not fit your situation.

How does a 401(k) stack up against an IRA?

The 401(k)'s big edge is the employer match plus a much higher contribution ceiling, $23,000 versus an IRA's $7,000 for 2024. An IRA's edge is investment choice: you pick your own brokerage and funds instead of being limited to your employer's plan menu. Most advisors suggest contributing enough to your 401(k) to capture the full match first, then filling an IRA, then coming back to the 401(k) if you can save more.

Planning this?

This calculator is step 1 of 5 in our US Retirement Planner.

See the full journey →

Also known as

401k retirement calculator401(k) savings calculatoremployer match calculatorretirement savings calculator401k growth calculator