IRA Calculator

It projects the same pre-tax contribution dollars three ways: a Traditional, SEP, or SIMPLE IRA (taxed once, at withdrawal), a Roth IRA (taxed up front, tax-free after that), and a regular taxable savings account (taxed every year on its growth). All three use the same rate of return, so the comparison isolates the effect of tax treatment and timing.

This calculator treats all three the same way mathematically — pre-tax contributions, tax-deferred growth, taxed at withdrawal — because that's how all three are taxed. The real-world differences are who can use them and how much they can contribute: a traditional IRA is opened individually, a SEP IRA is employer-funded and mainly used by self-employed people and small businesses, and a SIMPLE IRA is designed for small businesses with 100 or fewer employees and includes a required employer match or contribution.

Yes for the growth math, but this calculator doesn't cap your contribution at any account's limit. For 2026, the SEP IRA limit is the lesser of 25% of compensation or $72,000; the SIMPLE IRA employee deferral limit is $17,000 (plus a $4,000 catch-up at 50+, or $5,250 at ages 60–63). Both are set by the IRS and can change by plan type and year, so check your plan documents for the limit that applies to you.

For 2026, the IRA contribution limit is $7,500, or $8,600 if you're 50 or older. This limit applies to your combined Traditional and Roth IRA contributions for the year, not to SEP or SIMPLE IRAs, which have their own, separate limits (see the previous FAQ).

It depends mainly on whether your tax rate in retirement will be higher or lower than your tax rate today. If retirement is the lower-tax period, Traditional tends to come out ahead because the deferred tax is paid at a lower rate; if it's higher, Roth tends to win because the up-front tax was paid at today's lower rate. Run both tax-rate scenarios through this calculator to see the actual dollar gap for your numbers rather than relying on a rule of thumb.

Traditional, SEP, and Roth IRA withdrawals taken before age 59½ generally trigger a 10% additional tax on top of any ordinary income tax owed, with some exceptions (first home purchase, certain medical and education expenses, and others) — see IRS Topic 557 for the full list. SIMPLE IRAs are stricter during an account's first two years: that early-withdrawal penalty is 25% instead of 10%, dropping to the usual 10% after the two-year mark. This calculator doesn't model any of these penalties — it's a plan for accumulation, not a withdrawal calculator.

Inherited IRAs follow a different, more complex set of required-minimum-distribution rules than an account you contribute to yourself — the required payout schedule depends on your relationship to the original owner and when they died. This calculator doesn't model inherited-IRA RMD rules; see IRS Publication 590-B for how distributions from an inherited IRA actually work.

The Roth IRA calculator checks your actual eligibility: it applies the IRS income (MAGI) phase-out to tell you how much you're allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA, and the Traditional IRA deduction phase-out if you're covered by a workplace plan, then compares Roth against a deductible Traditional contribution. This calculator skips eligibility checking and instead runs a three-way comparison — Traditional/SEP/SIMPLE, Roth, and regular taxable savings — at whatever contribution amount you enter.

Because the comparison needs to be apples-to-apples in take-home-pay terms. The amount you enter is treated as pre-tax dollars going into a Traditional/SEP/SIMPLE account. Putting that same number of dollars into a Roth or a taxable account isn't realistic, since Roth and taxable contributions come from money you've already paid tax on — so both are shown contributing the after-tax equivalent of your entered amount instead.

No. It projects growth up to your retirement age only and doesn't model the required withdrawals the IRS mandates from Traditional, SEP, and SIMPLE IRAs starting at age 73 (Roth IRAs have no lifetime RMDs for the original owner). RMDs reduce a tax-deferred balance over time but don't change which account type comes out ahead in the accumulation phase this calculator shows.