Enter your salary, contribution rate, and employer match formula to project your 401k balance at retirement, with your contributions, employer match, and investment growth shown separately.
Your employer's match formula has two parts: the match rate (how many cents they contribute per dollar you contribute) and the match cap (the maximum percentage of salary they will match on). Combined monthly contributions compound at your expected annual return over the investment period.
The match is essentially part of your salary. If you are not contributing enough to capture the full match, you are leaving compensation on the table. On an $80,000 salary with a 4% match cap, the full match is worth $3,200/year (or $267/month) in free money added to your retirement account. Most projections use 6-7% as a realistic long-run return for a diversified portfolio; use the return rate input to stress-test your projection between 5% and 10%.
Both options grow tax-deferred inside your account. The difference is when you pay taxes: traditional defers taxes until withdrawal, Roth taxes contributions upfront so withdrawals are tax-free.
| Traditional 401k | Roth 401k | |
|---|---|---|
| Contributions | Pre-tax (lowers taxable income now) | After-tax (no upfront deduction) |
| Withdrawals in retirement | Taxed as ordinary income | Tax-free (qualified withdrawals) |
| Best for | Expect lower bracket in retirement | Expect higher bracket in retirement |
| RMDs required? | Yes, starting at age 73 | Yes (Roth IRA has no RMD) |
| Employer match | Always deposited pre-tax | Always deposited pre-tax |
If you are early in your career and in a lower tax bracket, locking in tax-free growth with a Roth often wins. Note that employer match is always deposited as pre-tax money regardless of which type you choose, so a Roth 401k account will have a mix of after-tax employee contributions and pre-tax employer contributions. Use our Roth vs Traditional 401k Calculator to run a side-by-side comparison with your specific income and tax assumptions.
Traditional 401k contributions reduce your federal taxable income dollar-for-dollar. The result is that contributing to your 401k costs less in take-home pay than the contribution amount, because the government effectively shares part of the cost through reduced taxes.
Raising your contribution from 4% to 6% on an $80,000 salary costs $1,600/year in gross terms, but only about $1,100 in actual take-home pay reduction after federal and state tax savings. Before increasing contributions, it is worth checking whether high-rate debt should come first. A debt snowball calculator can show you how fast credit card debt can be eliminated before redirecting more into retirement savings.
Withdrawing from a 401k before age 59.5 triggers a 10% early withdrawal penalty on top of ordinary income taxes. The combination often wipes out 30-40% of the withdrawal amount before you receive it.
| Withdrawal | 10% Penalty | 22% Fed Tax | You Receive |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $1,000 | $2,200 | $6,800 |
| $20,000 | $2,000 | $4,400 | $13,600 |
| $50,000 | $5,000 | $11,000 | $34,000 |
| $100,000 | $10,000 | $22,000 | $68,000 |
When leaving a job, cashing out your 401k is usually the worst option. Rolling the balance to a traditional IRA or your new employer's plan avoids both the penalty and the immediate tax hit. If you are under 59.5 and considering a rollover to a Roth IRA, check your Roth IRA contribution limit first since income limits apply to Roth IRA eligibility.
Assumptions: $80,000 salary, 100% employer match up to 4% of salary, 7% annual return, 30-year timeframe. The employer match caps at 4% regardless of how much you contribute beyond that.
| Your Contribution | Your Annual | Employer Match | Balance at 30 Years |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3% | $2,400 | $2,400 | ~$491,000 |
| 6% | $4,800 | $3,200 | ~$818,000 |
| 10% | $8,000 | $3,200 | ~$1,146,000 |
| 15% | $12,000 | $3,200 | ~$1,555,000 |
Going from 3% to 6% nearly doubles the final balance because you also capture an extra $800/year in employer match. Going from 6% to 10% adds another $328,000 over 30 years, but the employer match stays flat since the 4% cap is already reached. Every percentage point you contribute above the match cap still compounds significantly over a 30-year horizon.
Researches and verifies the formulas, methodology, and source data behind each calculator on CalculatorFlux. All tools are built and checked against the cited references before publication.