What ASIC MoneySmart gets right for orientation — and where historical stress tests and multi-strategy modelling still differ.
MoneySmart retirement planner: a strong free first pass. You can enter a partner and different retirement ages, and include Age Pension under disclosed return, fee, and inflation assumptions. The market path is still a smooth assumed return. It is not SuperCalc Pro’s year-by-year phased household model (joint Centrelink phases while one partner still earns, historical sequences, multi-strategy stress tests).
SuperCalc Pro Advanced: year-by-year Age Pension (assets + income/deeming) on the household, full phased-retirement cashflows, historical sequences from 1928–2025, Monte Carlo, and four withdrawal strategies — not a single average-return line.
| Capability | MoneySmart retirement planner | SuperCalc Pro Advanced |
|---|---|---|
| Age Pension in a projection | Included under smooth return / fee / inflation assumptions (can change as balances draw down on that path) | Year-by-year assets + income tests, deeming, and taper on each simulated year |
| Couples / age-gap (phased) retirement | Partner fields and different retirement dates; not a full phased household engine (joint Centrelink phases, wages while one is retired, historical household stress) | One household timeline: both working → one retired → both retired / pension ages, with couple means tests on the shared base |
| Market path | Smooth / constant assumed returns by option (e.g. accumulation vs pension rates) | Historical year-by-year sequences (1928–2025) + Monte Carlo |
| Sequence risk (crash early in retirement) | Not shown as real historical start years | Pick real start years (e.g. 1929, 1969, 2008) and see income + pension |
| Withdrawal strategies | Spending / longevity settings on a smooth path (not multi-strategy historical comparison) | Fixed, Guardrails, Dynamic SWR, Floor–Ceiling — comparable on the same history |
| Price | Free | Free Advanced runs first (1 anonymous, then email unlocks another); unlimited $149/yr or $14.99/mo |
MoneySmart is an ASIC consumer tool and changes over time. Fund calculators also vary. The left column describes MoneySmart’s planner as a smooth-return orientation tool with partner inputs — not SuperCalc Pro’s phased household + historical stress engine, and not a claim about every fund site.
A Services Australia / free asset-test calculator (including ours) answers what Centrelink might pay this fortnight on today’s inputs. MoneySmart can project pension along a smooth balance path. Neither is the same as re-running assets, income/deeming, and taper each year while markets follow a harsh historical sequence.
MoneySmart lets you enter a partner and different retirement ages. That is not the same as SuperCalc Pro Advanced’s phased household model: one Centrelink unit across the gap years when only one partner is retired, the other’s wages still hit the income test, employer SG may still land on one account, and Age Pension may apply to only part of the household — then stress-tested on real market history.
Running a single-person planner twice and adding the incomes is worse again: couple rates and asset free areas are not double singles. Our September 2026 review treated MoneySmart as orientation on a deterministic path, not as SuperCalc’s rolling historical household MSI plus phased-couple engine.
Official planner: ASIC MoneySmart retirement planner.
Unlimited later: $149/yr or $14.99/mo — usually less than one advice hour for the same modelling.