# MaxiFi Planner

Consumption smoothing — solves for the spending level you can hold for life, after taxes.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/maxifi-planner · Retirement & FIRE Calculators*

## Facts

### At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | Economic Security Planning |
| Category | Retirement & FIRE Calculators |
| Job | retirement |
| Website | https://maxifi.com |
| Pricing model | subscription |
| Free tier | false |
| Open source | false |
| Licence | none |
| Self-hosted | false |
| Tested hands-on | false |
| Last updated | 2026-10-04 |

### Pricing

| Tier | USD | Period |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 14-Day Trial | 0 USD | one-time |
| Unlocked | 149 USD | year |
| Flight Check | 250 USD | one-time |

### Coverage

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Asset classes | stocks, bonds, real_estate |
| Markets | us |
| Works outside the US | false |
| Data latency | none |
| Platforms | web |
| AI features | none |

### Interfaces

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| API | false |
| Webhooks | false |
| Scripting | none |
| Python | false |
| Spreadsheet add-in | false |
| MCP server | false |
| Export | pdf, xlsx |

### Capabilities

Yes: none

No: charting, screening, scanning, backtesting, automation, live_trading, paper_trading, portfolio_tracking, broker_import, tax_reporting, alerts, news, options_analysis

*Verified: pricing 2026-10-04; capabilities 2026-10-04; coverage 2026-10-04.*

## What it is

MaxiFi Planner is a browser-based lifetime financial planner built on the economic model of
Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economist, and published by his company, Economic
Security Planning, Inc., founded in 1993, whose first-generation tool was the ESPlanner
desktop program. It is bought by people who want the spending number itself, not a probability.

The method is **consumption smoothing**, from the Modigliani–Brumberg life-cycle hypothesis:
a household wants its discretionary living standard to stay level over its life. Instead of
asking what you plan to spend, MaxiFi takes earnings, account balances, contributions,
pensions, Social Security covered earnings, housing costs and one-off receipts and expenses,
and solves for the highest annual discretionary spending those resources can sustain. Because
taxes depend on income, withdrawals depend on spending and benefits depend on claiming ages,
the vendor says it solves the circularity with iterative dynamic programming. Every result is
reported in today's dollars.

The output is a Base Plan — a lifetime balance sheet and year-by-year income, fixed and
discretionary spending, suggested saving and withdrawals by account type, net worth and taxes,
plus a life-insurance figure that would hold each survivor's living standard. Alternative
Profiles let you change one decision, such as a later retirement or a move to another state,
and read the difference as a change in annual spending.

On the paid tier, an optimisation layer searches thousands of scenarios: Social Security filing
dates for both spouses, retirement-account withdrawal start dates, Roth versus non-Roth
withdrawal order, and annual Roth conversion amounts. The Roth optimiser maximises lifetime
discretionary spending or the estate rather than minimising tax, and accounts for RMDs, taxation
of benefits, IRMAA premiums and cash-flow constraints.

**Living Standard Monte Carlo** replaces the usual success percentage with a range of living
standards. It runs in two modes. *Upside Investing* treats stocks as possibly worthless, sets a
spending floor from safe assets alone, and raises the floor as simulated equity gains are moved
into safe assets on the exit schedule you give it. *Full Risk Investing* spends from safe and
risky assets together and lets spending move with the simulated returns — more early spending,
with downside you see as a lower living standard in bad paths.

## Pricing

A 14-day trial builds the Base Plan and three alternative profiles, needs a credit card and
bills on day 15 unless cancelled. Unlocked is $149 a year, annual only, and adds everything
else: the optimisers, the Monte Carlo, budgeting, the real-estate, annuity, HSA and 529 modules,
25 profiles and export.
Refunds are discretionary: the fulfilment policy says one is generally given if requested in
writing within 30 days of purchase.

MaxiFi PRO is the advisor edition, required on the advisor's side to share a plan; its price
is not printed on the public pages. Paid sessions with staff economists and CFP professionals
start at $250 for a one-hour Flight Check — services, not tiers of the software.

## Data & coverage

US households only. Taxes are modelled as federal, state, FICA and Medicare IRMAA, with Social
Security benefits computed from your covered earnings and Medicare Part B premiums included; the
vendor's FAQ says the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act provisions are in. None of it has a
non-US mode.

There is no market data. The FAQ says plainly that MaxiFi is not an asset-allocation tool or a
fund analyser: accounts carry an assumed rate of return, and the Monte Carlo draws returns
around your stock and safe-asset assumptions.

## Integrations

Output leaves as a PDF or Excel report, and an advisor on MaxiFi PRO can receive a shared plan.
The published feature list names no account aggregation, no API and no import from other
planners; everything is entered by hand.

## Limitations

- **US-only.** Federal and state tax, FICA, IRMAA and Social Security are the model's spine.
- **No free tier.** The 14-day trial needs a card and withholds the optimisers and the Monte
  Carlo; billing is annual only, with refunds at the vendor's discretion.
- **The answer is a spending level, not a verdict.** Smoothing assumes you want a flat living
  standard; a household that deliberately front-loads travel or wants a large bequest has to
  express that through settings, and the headline number moves with every return and inflation
  assumption you type.
- **The vendor states the Roth objective two ways.** The Roth optimiser page says MaxiFi finds
  the conversions that "maximize your lifetime spending" where other tools minimise tax, yet the
  same page promises to "minimize your lifetime taxes", and the how-MaxiFi-compares page says its
  Social Security and Roth optimisations "minimize lifetime taxes". The learning-centre articles
  name spending, or the estate; read the result as that.
- **No account linking.** Balances go stale until you re-enter them.
- **Not a portfolio tool.** Asset classes are not modelled at security or fund level.

## Alternatives

[Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/boldin) and [ProjectionLab](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/projectionlab) give the conventional
success-probability view with account linking. For the claiming-age question alone, the free
[Open Social Security](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/open-social-security) runs a present-value comparison with no
account. [Pralana Gold](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-gold), an Excel model, also has a consumption-smoothing
option, inside a deterministic, Monte Carlo and historical-sequence engine.

## FAQ

### How is MaxiFi different from a retirement calculator that gives a success percentage?

It inverts the question. A conventional planner asks how much you want to spend and reports the share of simulations in which the money lasts; MaxiFi takes your income, assets, taxes and benefits and solves for the highest discretionary spending it can hold steady across your life, in today's dollars. Its Monte Carlo then reports a range of living standards rather than a probability of going broke.

### Is there a free version of MaxiFi?

No permanent one. There is a 14-day trial with limited features that requires a credit card and converts to the $149 annual plan on day 15 unless cancelled. The optimizers and the Monte Carlo are not in the trial.

### What is the difference between MaxiFi Planner and Maximize My Social Security?

Both are from Economic Security Planning. Maximize My Social Security is a focused claiming-strategy tool with longer benefit comparison reports; MaxiFi Planner runs the same kind of Social Security optimisation inside a full lifetime plan, so a later claiming age is weighed against the income gap it opens before benefits start.

### Does MaxiFi link to my brokerage accounts?

Its published feature list names no account linking or aggregation. Balances, contributions and pensions are entered by hand, and the budget tracker is filled in manually or exported to Excel.

## Also worth comparing

- [Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/boldin.md) — A year-by-year US retirement model — accounts, taxes, Social Security, Medicare, housing.
- [FIREproof](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/fireproof.md) — The cFIREsim author's second simulator, with the taxes and accounts the first one lacks.
- [Pralana Gold](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-gold.md) — A US retirement model in an Excel workbook — taxes, Roth conversions, Monte Carlo.
- [Pralana Online](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-online.md) — The Pralana retirement model in a browser, with tax-form mock-ups and advisor seats.
- [ProjectionLab](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/projectionlab.md) — Model a whole financial life as milestones and cash flows, then run it against history.
- [WealthTrace](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/wealthtrace.md) — A US retirement planner with linked accounts, Monte Carlo guardrails and Roth scenarios.

## Head to head

- [MaxiFi Planner vs Pralana Gold vs Boldin: a spending level or a chance of success](https://stockmarketstack.com/compare/maxifi-planner-vs-pralana-gold-vs-boldin.md) — One solves for what you can spend, one scores a budget you supply, one does both in Excel. Their optimisers also chase different goals.