# Pralana Gold

A US retirement model in an Excel workbook — taxes, Roth conversions, Monte Carlo.

*https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-gold · Retirement & FIRE Calculators*

## Facts

### At a glance

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Vendor | Pralana |
| Category | Retirement & FIRE Calculators |
| Job | retirement |
| Website | https://pralanaretirementcalculator.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 |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Pralana Gold Subscription | 99 USD | year |

### Coverage

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

### Interfaces

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

### Capabilities

Yes: backtesting

No: charting, screening, scanning, 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

Pralana Gold is the Excel edition of the Pralana Retirement Calculator, a macro-driven workbook
that models a US household year by year from now to the end of its life expectancy. Stuart
Matthews, a retired defence-industry engineer, began it in January 2011; the vendor is Pralana
Consulting LLC. It is bought by do-it-yourself planners who want to see and check every line of
a tax-aware projection rather than accept a score.

Income streams — employment with self-employment and QBI flags, pensions, annuities, Social
Security, windfalls — and expense streams — property with cost basis and loans, children and
college, healthcare, charitable giving including QCDs — are each modelled with their own rules.
Accounts are cash, taxable, tax-deferred and tax-free, plus HSAs, 529 plans and inherited
traditional and Roth IRAs, with RMDs to SECURE 2.0. Federal, state, FICA and NIIT taxes are
calculated, as are Medicare Part B and Part D IRMAA surcharges and ACA subsidies from MAGI and
the second-lowest-cost silver plan premium.

Portfolio returns come from user-defined asset classes. You set either asset location directly,
or a portfolio-wide allocation plus a preference for which account holds what, and the model
tries to keep the allocation through conversions and market swings, with location as the
secondary goal.

Analysis runs three ways. A **deterministic** projection compares alternatives on fixed
assumptions. A **Monte Carlo** runs 1,000 traditional or bootstrap simulations and reports
distribution bands, success rate and mean final savings. A **historical** analysis replays the
plan from each start year since 1928 — more than 75 sequences — showing the best and worst start
years, and can project one chosen historical start year in full.

On top sit the optimisers: Social Security start ages for both spouses judged by final effective
savings — the vendor's phrase is "maximum lifetime savings" — rather than lifetime benefits,
withdrawal order across pre-, early and late retirement, Roth conversions capped by tax bracket,
capital-gains bracket, IRMAA tier or ACA poverty-line multiple, with an optimised mode that
picks the bracket limits "to maximize your long-term savings balance", and an earliest
retirement date at 90% Monte Carlo confidence. Non-essential spending can be handed to a
variable strategy — fixed percentage, floor and ceiling, Guyton-Klinger, CAPE rules, an
actuarial method. The consumption-smoothing option reports the additional annual spending the
plan can support; run deterministically that figure has roughly a 50% chance of success, so the
model can instead combine smoothing with Monte Carlo and historical runs and give the spending
level at 90% probability.

## Pricing

Gold is a $99-a-year subscription with a $30 sign-up fee, so $129 in the first year, paid
through Stripe. The terms of service state that fees are non-refundable unless the vendor
agrees case by case. The subscription buys updates; the purchase page says use of the tool is
indefinite. The terms still describe Gold as a one-time-fee product, a leftover from when each
year's version was bought outright.

Pralana Bronze, a simpler free Excel model, is still downloadable, but the vendor says it will
be discontinued and replaced by a free trial of Pralana Online. Gold has no trial of its own.

## Data & coverage

US households only: federal and state income tax, Social Security, Medicare and the ACA are the
model's spine. Historical returns and inflation run from 1928; everything else is your own
assumption — returns and standard deviations per asset class, inflation, life expectancy. No
market data and no security-level holdings.

## Integrations

None outward. The workbook prints PDF reports, imports its own data from the prior year's
version, and can be imported into Pralana Online at a discount for Gold subscribers. There is no
account linking, no API and no add-in: it is a file you open in Excel.

## Limitations

- **Needs Microsoft Excel** on Windows or Mac. Not Numbers, Sheets or LibreOffice.
- **US-only.**
- **Excel's quirks are the product's quirks.** The change log records iterative-calculation
  settings that gave inconsistent results and were disabled during withdrawal-order
  optimisation, and printable-report run-time errors on some systems. PRC2026.2 (4 June 2026)
  also corrected consumption smoothing, which gave erroneous results with iterative
  calculation enabled — check the version before trusting an older smoothing result.
- **Steep input burden.** The detail that makes it checkable is also hours of data entry, and
  the user manual runs as a separate document.
- **No refunds** by default under the terms.
- **No account linking.** Balances are typed in and go stale until you update them.

## Alternatives

[Pralana Online](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-online) is the same vendor's web version, at the same price, for anyone who would rather
not run Excel. [Boldin](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/boldin) and [ProjectionLab](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/projectionlab) are browser
planners with account linking and less tax depth. [MaxiFi Planner](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/maxifi-planner)
starts from consumption smoothing rather than adding it as an option. For free
historical-sequence testing without taxes, [FI Calc](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/ficalc) and
[cFIREsim](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/cfiresim).

## FAQ

### What is the difference between Pralana Gold and Pralana Online?

Gold is a downloadable Excel workbook; Online is a web app rebuilt from the Gold design since 2022. Both cost $99 a year after a $30 sign-up fee. Online adds an integrated manual, tax-form mock-ups, a Metric MRI view of how each number was derived, a family plan and advisor tiers. Gold runs offline in your own Excel and keeps working after the subscription lapses.

### Is Pralana Gold still being updated?

Yes. The vendor's change log shows PRC2026.1.0 released on 4 February 2026 with 2026 tax law, and point releases through PRC2026.2.2 on 17 September 2026, which changed the actuarial spending strategy and the Maryland state tax table.

### What happens if I stop paying for Pralana Gold?

The purchase page says the subscription entitles you to indefinite use of the tool, with updates only while the subscription is active. A lapsed copy keeps running, but its tax tables stop moving with the law.

### Does Pralana Gold work on a Mac?

Yes, inside Microsoft Excel — Excel 2011 or later on macOS 10.5 or later. The vendor notes older Excel builds on Apple-silicon Macs had run-time errors that Microsoft resolved by Office 365 version 16.73. It does not run in Numbers, Google Sheets or LibreOffice, because the model depends on Excel macros.

## Also from Pralana

- [Pralana Online](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/pralana-online.md)

## 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.
- [MaxiFi Planner](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/maxifi-planner.md) — Consumption smoothing — solves for the spending level you can hold for life, after taxes.
- [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.
- [cFIREsim](https://stockmarketstack.com/tools/cfiresim.md) — Run a withdrawal plan against every market cycle since 1871 and count how many survived.

## 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.