Projection Lab is built by and for spreadsheet people — and we mean that as a compliment. Its scenario modeling is detailed, thoughtful, and deeply customizable. The limitation isn't depth, it's connectivity: every number is manually entered. Rikdom connects your projections to your actual accounts, budgets, and transactions so your model updates itself.
Two philosophies
Projection Lab is a sophisticated financial model. Rikdom is a financial operating system. They solve adjacent problems — here's the distinction:
"If you love modeling edge cases — Roth conversion ladders with specific marginal tax brackets across 30 years — Projection Lab may have more granular controls. Rikdom's advantage is that it stays current without you lifting a finger."
— The honest trade-offBeyond projections
Most Projection Lab users also use a separate tool for budgeting and a separate tool for investment tracking. Rikdom consolidates all three.
Banks, brokerages, and real assets update automatically. Your net worth and projection inputs are always current — no manual entry required.
YNAB-style envelope budgeting built in. Your actual spending informs your projections — no more guessing at your annual expenses.
Projection Lab models future taxes. Rikdom also helps you reduce them today by scanning for harvestable losses and tracking wash sale windows.
Ask questions across your budgets, investments, and projections. "What if I increase my 401k contribution by 5%?" gets answered with your real data.
| Capability | Projection Lab | Rikdom |
|---|---|---|
| Projections | ||
| Monte Carlo simulations | ✓ | ✓ |
| Scenario comparison | ✓ | ✓ |
| Detailed tax modeling (Roth, SS) | ✓ | Basic |
| Live data integration | — | ✓ |
| Day-to-Day Management | ||
| Automatic account sync | — | ✓ |
| Zero-based budgeting | — | ✓ |
| Transaction categorization | — | ✓ |
| Net worth dashboard | Manual | ✓ |
| Optimization | ||
| Tax-loss harvesting detection | — | ✓ |
| Smart rebalancing alerts | — | ✓ |
| AI-powered insights | — | ✓ |
| Community benchmarks | — | ✓ |
| Retirement Planning | ||
| Roth conversion analysis | ✓ | ✓ |
| Social Security optimization | ✓ | ✓ |
| Withdrawal strategy modeling | Basic | ✓ |
| Monthly report (PDF) | — | ✓ |
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes — incl. Monte Carlo | — |
| Annual cost | $0 Basic · $129 Premium | $140 |
Beyond projections, Rikdom's Community Benchmarks show where you stand relative to your income peers — savings rate, emergency fund depth, and six other metrics. Differentially private, anonymous, and gated behind a minimum contributor threshold.
Contributions vs. market
ProjectionLab asks you for the numbers, which is the whole point: no connections to set up and no credentials to hand over. It does mean the answer to "how much did I actually add last year" is whatever you remembered to enter. Rikdom reads it from the accounts instead. The payroll part is the one people miss, because a 401(k) deduction never passes through a bank feed, so the obvious arithmetic counts it as market growth. Rikdom pulls it out and keeps the employer match separate, since money your employer added isn't money you chose to save.
The math
Worth saying plainly, because most comparison pages would not: you can run a 10,000-path simulation in ProjectionLab without paying anything. If a projection is all you want, start there. The simulation isn't what separates us. The data underneath it is. ProjectionLab is a modelling tool you type into, by design; its pricing page lists no account connection at any tier, and its users like it that way. Rikdom projects from balances that arrive on their own, so the model is current when you open it rather than after you've updated it.
ProjectionLab pricing and tier details verified against projectionlab.com/pricing on 20 September 2026. Plans change; check their pricing page before deciding.