The short answer
Choose FIREplanner if you want a fast, free sanity check with nothing to sign up for. Enter your pots, a real growth rate and a target spend, and you have an answer. Its Retirement Living Standards presets — minimum, moderate or comfortable, single or couple, with a London variant — are a genuinely nice touch, and more than WealthR offers.
Choose WealthR if you want the answer to stay current without re-typing it, the UK tax done properly rather than simplified, and a stress test — which FIREplanner says plainly it does not do.
They are not really competitors. One is a calculator you visit; the other is a record you keep. The honest question is which job you are trying to do today.
Side by side
| Feature | WealthR | FIREplanner.uk |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | An account that tracks your real figures and plans from them | A single-page illustration tool |
| Built for | ✓ UK-first — the whole app is keyed to UK rules | ✓ UK-first — SIPP, ISA, GIA, DB and State Pension |
| Price | Free tier forever; Pro £5.99/mo or £39.99/yr | ✓ Free, with no paid tier |
| Account needed | Yes — that is how your figures persist | ✓ No — open it and start typing |
| Time to a first answer | A few minutes, once your balances are in | ✓ Under a minute |
| Keeps your figures between visits | ✓ Monthly snapshots, so the plan updates itself | ✕ Re-enter each time |
| Retirement Living Standards | ~ Uses the PLSA moderate figure as the default target | ✓ Minimum, moderate or comfortable · single or couple · London variant |
| Inflation | ✓ Handled for you — figures shown in today’s money or future pounds | ~ You net it off the growth rate yourself |
| Stress testing | ✓ Will it last? — headline chance free, 5,000 simulated paths, guardrails and what-ifs on Pro · plus a market-crash scenario | ✕ States plainly it is not a stress test, and suggests firecalc.com |
| UK income tax | ✓ 2026/27 bands, Scottish bands, the £100k–£125,140 taper, HICBC, Marriage Allowance, salary sacrifice, student loans | ~ Simplified — the site says so itself |
| Capital gains & dividend tax | ✓ Modelled, including on a general account in drawdown | ~ Named as something a GIA incurs, not modelled |
| Which pot to draw first | ✓ Drawdown planner (Pro) — the order across pensions, ISAs and savings, the tax it costs, and up to ten saved variants compared | ✕ Not modelled |
| The bridge to pension access age | ✓ Modelled year by year with the tax on each draw | ✓ Explicitly handled, with a bridge-failure warning |
| Defined benefit pensions | ✓ Scheme or career-average entry, lump sums, early-retirement reductions, escalation | ✓ A monthly figure with its own start age |
| State Pension | ✓ From your NI qualifying years, triple-lock uprating, uprates each April | ~ You enter the amount and start age |
| Couples | ✓ Household planning — both sets of pensions, two of every allowance, joint ownership | ~ Per person; the couple setting adjusts the spending figure only |
| Tracking what actually happened | ✓ Monthly net worth history, real returns against a benchmark, notes against each month | ✕ Projection only |
| UK inheritance tax | ✓ Estate tab — nil-rate bands, the April 2027 pension rule, gifts on a seven-year clock (Pro) | ✕ Out of scope |
| Free standalone UK calculators | ✓ 34 free on wealthr.co.uk/tools/ | ✕ The planner itself is the tool |
| Long-form guides | ✓ 7 Playbooks on Pro — read, download or listen | ~ Explanatory notes beside each field |
| Privacy | ✓ Manual entry, no bank linking, encrypted EU-region sync | ✓ Nothing to sign up for, so nothing stored |
| Built in | Edinburgh, UK | UK |
What each does well
Where FIREplanner is stronger
It costs nothing and asks nothing of you. No account, no email, no trial. That is a real advantage, and it is the reason to send someone there for a first look rather than anywhere else. It is also fast — a minute from opening the page to a credible answer, which no account-based tool can match.
The Retirement Living Standards presets are better than ours. FIREplanner lets you pick minimum, moderate or comfortable, as a single person or a couple, with a London variant. WealthR uses the moderate figure as a default and leaves the rest to you. If you do not yet know what you want to spend in retirement, that picker is a genuinely useful way in.
And it is honest about its limits, which is rarer than it should be. The page says outright that it is an illustration of an average outcome and not a stress test, and points you to another tool for that. It also says taxes and pensions have been simplified. You always know what you are getting.
Where WealthR is stronger
The plan stays current. A one-page calculator is only true on the day you fill it in. WealthR keeps a monthly record of your balances, so the forecast moves as your life does, and you can see what actually happened against what you projected. That is the difference between an estimate and a plan.
The tax is computed, not simplified. Scottish bands, the 60% band between £100,000 and £125,140, the High Income Child Benefit Charge, Marriage Allowance, salary sacrifice, capital gains and the dividend allowance. In drawdown this matters more than people expect: the order you take money from pensions, ISAs and a general account changes the lifetime tax bill, and WealthR plans that order for you.
And it stress-tests. FIREplanner shows an average path, and says so. An average is the thing that does not happen to anybody. WealthR runs 5,000 simulated paths with UK tax and the State Pension in each one, and separately models a market crash in the first years of retirement, which is the risk that actually ruins early-retirement plans.
When to choose which
Choose FIREplanner if…
You want a number today, you do not want an account, and you are still at the stage of working out roughly whether the shape of your plan holds. It is also the better tool for playing with a spending figure you have not settled on, because the Living Standards presets give you somewhere to start.
Choose WealthR if…
You have a plan you intend to keep, you want the tax to be right rather than indicative, and you want to know what happens if the market falls the year you stop working — not just what happens on average. The free tier covers net worth, forecasting and the headline chance your money lasts; Pro is £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year.
Using both is a perfectly reasonable answer, and a common one.
FAQ
Is FIREplanner.uk any good?
Yes. It is a free, UK-specific illustration tool that does one job well: you enter your SIPP, ISA and GIA balances and monthly contributions, a real growth rate, a retirement age and a spending figure, and it shows whether the plan holds. It handles the things UK FIRE planners actually need — a defined benefit pension, the State Pension with its own start age, and the bridge between early retirement and pension access age. It is also honest about its limits: it says plainly that it is an illustration and not a stress test. If you want a fast answer with no sign-up, it is a good place to start.
What does WealthR do that FIREplanner does not?
Three things, and they all follow from WealthR being an account rather than a single page. It keeps your figures — you log your balances each month, so the plan updates itself instead of being re-typed. It computes the UK tax rather than simplifying it, including Scottish bands, the personal allowance taper, the High Income Child Benefit Charge and capital gains. And it stress-tests: a 5,000-path Monte Carlo and a market-crash scenario, where FIREplanner states it is not a stress test and points you to firecalc.com. WealthR also plans the order you draw from pots, which is where a lot of UK tax is won or lost.
Is WealthR free?
There is a free tier that stays free: net worth tracking, forecasts, the retirement and debt views, the budget, and the headline chance your money lasts. Pro is £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year and adds the Cash flow drawdown planner, the full Monte Carlo with guardrails, the Estate and inheritance tax tools and the Playbooks. There are also 34 free UK calculators on the site that need no account at all. FIREplanner is free with no account and no paid tier.
Can I use both?
Plenty of people do, and it is a sensible combination. FIREplanner is quick enough to answer a what-if in under a minute without logging in anywhere, which makes it a good scratchpad. WealthR is where the figures live between those what-ifs, and where the tax, the drawdown order and the stress testing get done properly. They are not really substitutes for one another.
FIREplanner details taken from fireplanner.uk as of 9 November 2026. Features and behaviour may have changed since — check the tool itself before relying on anything here. We have no affiliation with FIREplanner, and nothing on this page is financial advice or a personal recommendation.