easyMcalc

Retirement withdrawal calculator

One arithmetic scenario, not a forecast and not financial or tax advice. How the payout is worked out

Monthly payouts, each taken before that month's interestMethod checked 11 September 2026

Monthly payout $1,746.73/ a month Full breakdown

Your savings
The payout runs the savings down to nothing at the end of this, so plan for longer than you expect to need.
Assumptions
An assumption about the investments, not a forecast. Money being spent is often held more cautiously than money being saved, so this is usually lower.
long-run consumer price inflation, 1 August 2026. Published by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index

What the savings pay

Monthly payout $1,746.73 / a month

Last full monthly payment
$3,584.63
Paid out in total
$921,696.60
Earned along the way
$421,702.52
Left at the end
$5.92

Figures are in money of the day each payment is made. A payment that rises with prices keeps its buying power; one that does not loses a little of it every year.

Save this result as an image

Format

The image is drawn in your browser. Nothing you entered is sent anywhere.

Where the payout comes from

A bar splitting $921,696.60 into 2 parts, each labelled with its share.

  • From your savings$499,994.0854%
  • From growth$421,702.5246%
Everything paid out, split into the savings themselves and what they earned while they waited to be spent.

Year by year

YearPaid outGrowthBalance
Year 1$20,960.76$19,911.01$498,950.25
Year 2$21,486.84$19,856.72$497,320.13
Year 3$22,026.12$19,778.47$495,072.48
Year 4$22,578.96$19,674.79$492,168.31
Year 5$23,145.72$19,544.02$488,566.61
Year 6$23,726.64$19,384.52$484,224.49
Year 7$24,322.20$19,194.58$479,096.87
Year 8$24,932.64$18,972.28$473,136.51
Year 9$25,558.44$18,715.72$466,293.79
Year 10$26,199.96$18,422.86$458,516.69
Year 11$26,857.56$18,091.60$449,750.73
Year 12$27,531.72$17,719.66$439,938.67
Year 13$28,222.80$17,304.75$429,020.62
Year 14$28,931.16$16,844.40$416,933.86
Year 15$29,657.28$16,336.04$403,612.62
Year 16$30,401.64$15,776.98$388,987.96
Year 17$31,164.72$15,164.43$372,987.67
Year 18$31,947$14,495.37$355,536.04
Year 19$32,748.84$13,766.78$336,553.98
Year 20$33,570.84$12,975.39$315,958.53
Year 21$34,413.48$12,117.82$293,662.87
Year 22$35,277.24$11,190.51$269,576.14
Year 23$36,162.72$10,189.77$243,603.19
Year 24$37,070.40$9,111.68$215,644.47
Year 25$38,000.88$7,952.19$185,595.78
Year 26$38,954.76$6,707.03$153,348.05
Year 27$39,932.52$5,371.79$118,787.32
Year 28$40,934.88$3,941.74$81,794.18
Year 29$41,962.32$2,412.03$42,243.89
Year 30$43,015.56$777.59$5.92

How to work out a monthly payout from retirement savings

Take the savings in the answer above: $500,000, earning 4% a year and paying out every month for 30 years, the payment rising 2.51% a year.

  1. Each month the payment comes out first, and what is left earns a month's interest: the balance times the annual rate, divided by twelve and rounded to two decimal places. $500,000 − $1,746.73 = $498,253.27 $498,253.27 × 4.00% ÷ 12 = $1,660.84 $498,253.27 + $1,660.84 = $499,914.11
  2. After every twelve payments the payment rises by 2.51%, so the second year pays: $1,746.73 × (1 + 2.51%) = $1,790.57 a month
  3. The payout is the largest monthly amount for which the savings still cover every one of the 360 payments. The calculator finds it by trying amounts and halving the gap down to a single cent, because the balance is rounded every month and the annuity formula would miss by a little.
  4. Over the whole period $921,696.60 is paid out and the savings earn $421,702.52 on the way, which leaves: $500,000 + $421,702.52 − $921,696.60 = $5.92

So the savings pay $1,746.73 a month to start, for 30 years.

The same savings, asked two ways

Somebody with a retirement account usually has one of two questions. The first is how much it can pay each month if it has to last a given number of years, which is what people mean by the monthly payout of an IRA or a 401(k). The second is the other way round: at the income they have in mind, how long the money lasts. This page answers either, on the same monthly schedule, and the table under the answer shows every year of it.

Each month the payment is taken first and what is left earns for the rest of the month, which is the order spending actually happens in. When a month cannot pay the whole amount the schedule pays what is there and stops, so the page can tell you the month the money runs out rather than carry a negative balance to the end of the table.

Why the payout is not a percentage rule

Rules of thumb express a payout as a share of the starting balance. They are a useful first guess and a poor answer, because the payout a pot can sustain depends on three things the rule fixes in advance: how long it has to last, what the money earns while it waits, and whether the payment has to keep up with prices. Change any of the three and the right share moves a long way.

The page works the other way: it takes the three as inputs and searches for the largest monthly amount that still covers every payment to the end of the period. The result runs the balance down to nothing on the last day, which is exactly what a payout for a fixed period means, and it is why the period you enter should be longer than you expect to need.

A payment that keeps up with prices costs more than it looks

The payment rises once a year by the rate you set, prefilled with what consumer prices have done over the long run. That keeps the payout's buying power level, which is what makes it an income rather than a slowly shrinking allowance. It also means the first payment has to be lower than a flat one would be, because the later ones are larger. Set the rise to nothing to see the flat payment instead, and compare what the last year of each would buy.

What the answer leaves out

The payout is before tax. In the United States, withdrawals from a traditional IRA or 401(k) are generally taxed as income, while qualified withdrawals from a Roth account are generally not, so the same payout can leave very different amounts in your hand. Traditional accounts also require minimum withdrawals from a certain age, which this page does not model.

The largest gap is the order in which returns arrive. The page uses one fixed return every year, and real markets do not. A run of poor years just as withdrawals begin does more damage than the same average return spread evenly, because money is being sold low to pay the bills. A single-rate projection cannot show that, and it is the main reason to treat any payout figure as a starting point rather than a promise.

Common questions

How much can I withdraw from my IRA each month?

It depends on the balance, the return you expect while you are drawing on it, how many years it has to last and whether the payments rise with prices. Enter those and the page gives the largest monthly amount that lasts the whole period. It is the amount before tax, and it does not include any required minimum withdrawal.

What is the four per cent rule?

A rule of thumb from research published in the mid-nineteen-nineties: take four per cent of the savings in the first year, raise the amount with prices every year after, and a portfolio of shares and bonds lasted at least thirty years in the historical United States record. It describes the past of one market, not a guarantee, and it assumes a thirty-year retirement. This page lets you test any payout against the period and the return you choose.

Is the payout before or after tax?

Before. What reaches you depends on the kind of account and on your other income, and the tax on a withdrawal is not something this page works out.

What happens if the savings run out?

The schedule pays whatever is left in the month the balance can no longer cover a whole payment, and the page tells you that month. Nothing after it is shown as income, because there is none.

Is anything I type stored?

No. The calculation happens on the server as part of rendering the page, nothing is written down, and the access log for this site drops the query string so the figures you enter are never recorded.

Sources

Nothing here is set by an authority: a withdrawal plan is arithmetic on assumptions you choose. What these documents pin down is the regulated measure this tool does not compute:

How the payout is worked out

The savings pay out on a monthly grid. Each month the payment is taken first and what is left earns the annual rate divided by twelve, rounded to two decimal places. After every twelve payments the payment rises by the rate you set. The payout that lasts a number of years is the largest monthly amount for which the balance still covers every payment, found by halving the gap between an amount that lasts and one that does not.

It leaves out tax on withdrawals, required minimum distributions, fees in retirement, the order you draw from several accounts, and the risk that matters most: a bad run of returns in the first years does more damage than the same average spread evenly, and one fixed rate cannot say so.