Maxifi vs Boldin: Which is the Better Retirement Planning Tool for You?

Boldin vs Maxifi: These are two of the most powerful financial planning tools available to regular people online. In fact, they rival the tools used by financial advisors. However, there are a few differences between Boldin and Maxifi.

boldin vs maxifi

Here is a guide to deciding which tool is best for you.

Comprehensive Planning

Both Maxifi and Boldin offer a ridiculous array of planning options. Almost any “what if” scenario can be modeled by either of the two tools.

A wide variety of rich analyses are available from each tool. And, the fundamental math powering each tool is strong.

Who is Behind the Tools

  • Maxifi was developed by an esteemed author and professor of economics.
  • Boldin was created by teams who built software for some of the biggest and most respected financial firms, including Charles Schwab, Dimensional Fund Advisors, and many others.

Differences Between Boldin and Maxifi

Consumption Smoothing (Maxifi) vs. Flexible Planning (Boldin)

The primary difference between the two tools is in how expenses are projected.

  • How Boldin Projects Your Future Expenses: With the Boldin Planner you are in full control over future spending. You can set different spending levels over time. So, you can plan for go-go years, slow-go years, and no-go years, any big expense like a trip or funding a college education, and more. And, you have multiple options for defining your withdrawals to meet or exceed your spending desires and plan to minimize taxes. Boldin believes that your spending is a reflection of what is important to you and the best way to express what you value most. Maxifi calls Boldin’s methods “outdated” but Boldin believes that it is a more flexible model that enables users to plan the life they really want. A few highlights from Boldin’s expense planning:
    • Full control over your expenses.
    • Set mandatory and discretionary spending levels to help understand your required retirement income levels and how much income you might want to guarantee.
    • Vary your spending over time to account for as many different life phases as you wish
    • Input variable expense levels as a whole or do a detailed budget in over 70 different categories
    • Account for big one-time expenses
    • Plan for how to optimize taxes, insurance, debt payments, and housing
  • How Maxifi Handles Your Future Expenses: Maxifi utilizes what they call an “economics-based” approach based on the “consumption smoothing” theory. It creates a plan intended to calculate the highest spending level your household income and assets can support. Maxifi assumes that households want their consumption (spending) to remain the same over time. Their ‘robo optimization’ features are also intended to keep your spending, taxes, and insurance premiums consistent. 
    • If you are so inclined, the benefit of this model is that you are always optimizing your plan against keeping your expenses stable.

What If Scenarios

Running a “what if” scenario is probably the most used feature of any powerful financial planning tool. Here is a run-down of the types of scenario planning that is offered by Boldin and Maxifi:

  • Boldin’s Scenarios: Boldin enables you to see “what ifs” in a variety of ways:
    • The second you change any of the 200+ variables in your plan, you can immediately see the change to your: out of savings age, the value of your estate at longevity, and your lifetime tax liability
    • You can also use a quick “what if” tool to see the impact of common scenarios
    • You can create their baseline plan and up to 10 variations on their baseline
    • The most powerful scenario feature in Boldin is that users can compare their plans side by side and see the impact of choices across 15+ financial metrics. You can select to compare any 2 or 3 of your scenarios at a time.
      • For example let’s say you have three scenarios: 1) Move to Florida, 2) Roth Conversions in Early Retirement, and 3) Pay Off Mortgage Next Year. When you compare these three scenarios, you might find that one plan gives you lower lifetime debt payments, but less wealth at longevity. And, another plan reduces your tax liability but reduces investment returns.
    • You can also compare your linear projections (optimistic, average, or pessimistic assumptions) side by side on any of your scenarios
    • Change your baseline plan to any of your alternate scenarios at any time
  • Maxifi’s Scenarios:
    • Maxifi enables a whopping 25 different scenarios
    • Compare three scenarios to each other at a time.
    • See the differences in your lifetime discretionary spending, plan inputs, and some metrics across your different plans

Retirement vs. Overall Financial Wellness

While both tools are designed to help you plan a secure retirement, they each have features that can help anyone with financial decisions at different phases of life.

  • Financial Wellness Assessment from the Boldin Planner: The Boldin Planner offers you what is essentially a credit score for your entire financial life. They give you a red, yellow or green rating on how you are doing against 15+ different metrics that are core to your financial health (savings rates, retirement risks, debt, cash flow, taxes, housing wealth, estate plans, and more). And then, the tool provides personalized guidance on how to do better against each metric and as a whole. And, of course you can run any “what if” scenario to answer any question you might have about your money.
  • Maxifi: The support that Maxifi offers with regards to financial wellness is in running a scenario. (See above for a comparison of the two tools and how they rank for scenario comparisons.)

How Monte Carlo is Implemented

Monte Carlo analysis is a statistical method used to model and simulate a range of possible outcomes. It enables you to account for unknowns. Both Boldin and Maxifi have Monte Carlo analysis. Here is how it is implemented:

  • Boldin’s Monte Carlo Analysis: In addition to enabling you to see linear analysis for optimistic, average, and pessimistic assumptions, Boldin also offers a Monte Carlo analysis that runs 1,000 simulations. It randomizes values for a more realistic projection using your assumptions as the starting point. It then shows you a realistic range for your projected savings outcomes, showing the percent chance and range of possibility you have of running out of money before your longevity. For the analysis, you can vary:
    • Investment returns
    • General inflation
    • Medical inflation
    • Wage growth
  • Maxifi Monte Carlo Analysis: Maxifi’s Monte Carlo model is the “Living Standard Monte Carlo.”It analyzes how different investment strategies and spending behaviors might impact your future “living standard” by simulating various possible outcomes based on market fluctuations and other uncertainties, essentially showing you the probability of maintaining a desired lifestyle throughout retirement based on your current financial situation and chosen investment approach. You can run two different Monte Carlo reports:
    • Upside investing
    • Full risk investing

Social Security Optimization

Both Boldin and Maxifi can help you with determining a Social Security claiming strategy for people who are single and married. However, if you have an unusual situation like a dependent adult child or a much younger spouse, Maxifi may offer you a more detailed recommendation for when to claim.

Retirement Income Planning

Determining how you are going to turn your life’s work and savings into retirement income is a major part of retirement planning. On this subject, the Boldin Planner is more flexible.

  • Boldin Planner’s Retirement Income Modeling:
    • Boldin enables you to model a full variety of retirement income sources including Social Security, work, 3 types of pensions, current and future annuities, and investment income. And, within the next year, Boldin will allow users to select to fund expenses with investment income (interest and dividends).
    • Boldin allows you to either base your plan withdrawals upon spending needs, spending needs and up to a fixed percent withdrawal, or you can specify that you wish to spend the maximum while retaining a specified amount (or $0) in your estate.
    • You can opt for a traditional withdrawal order or customize the order of your accounts that are tapped for retirement withdrawals. Users like to compare these two options to see how to minimize taxes.
  • Maxifi Retirement Income Modeling: Here is how Maxifi compares:
    • For retirement income sources, Maxifi offers pensions, work, self-employment, Social Security, and annuitization settings for accounts.
    • Maxifi has a withdrawal optimization feature designed to increase your Lifetime Discretionary Spending

Life Insurance

Maxifi will make recommendations for life insurance coverage amounts. Boldin does not currently make life insurance recommendations.

Roth Conversions

Laurence Kotlikoff, the founder of Maxifi, wrote a spurious comparison of how Maxifi and Boldin handle Roth conversions. By most objective accounts, the article was full of misinformation and misrepresentations about Boldin and financial planning generally.

The bottom line is that both tools make recommendations in light of a user’s entire financial plan, including assumptions for future rates, taxation, and more. Both tools require an attempt to foretell the future.

Here is an attempt to compare the two tools fairly:

  • The Boldin Planner’s Roth Conversion Explorer: The Boldin Roth Conversion Explorer, part of the Boldin Planner, supports you in modeling Roth Conversion plans in the context of your entire financial situation – now and into the future. It allows you to choose between 4 different conversion strategies. Do you want to do conversions in order to: 
    • Maximize your estate value at your longevity
    • Minimize lifetime taxes
    • Convert to an income tax threshold
    • Convert to an IRMAA threshold
  • Maxifi’s Roth Conversion Functionality: MaxiFi’s Roth Optimizer tries to find the optimal Roth conversion plan. The developer says their Roth conversion recommendations “collectively minimize your lifetime taxes and maximize your lifetime spending to an acceptable level of precision.”
    • They suggest that it is easy to check each year’s tax calculations based on MaxiFi’s detailed outputs.
    • Before running the Optimizer, MaxiFi asks how much you’re willing to reduce your short-term spending in order to lower your lifetime taxes and raise your future and, thus, lifetime spending.
    • The details of how the Optimizer works are proprietary.

Taxes

Both tools offer robust tax planning functionality.

Costs

Boldin vs Maxifi on price? They are comparable.

  • Boldin’s Basic tool is free. PlannerPlus costs $120.
  • Maxifi’s Standard Planner is $109. Their Premium Planner costs $149.

Planning Support

Planning can be complicated and both tools offer users some support.

  • Support for the Boldin Planner: Boldin offers a wide variety of free and paid support for the tool:
    • A personalized digital coach alert will alert you to potential problems with your plan
    • Help center with hundreds of articles and videos (Free)
    • A weekly newsletter, access to a rich blog, and podcasts with compelling guests
    • In-app support is available for any planning question. It is open Monday through Friday and users can expect a same-day answer during the week. (Free)
    • Support groups on Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram
    • YouTube videos from the company and other influencers
    • Boldin offers both recorded and live classes. Live classes are typically available 5 days a week. (Free)
    • For just $250 you can meet with a planning coach who will make sure that your plan is set up correctly and show you how to answer any of your questions using the Planner.
    • For $2,100 you can collaborate with a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional from Boldin Advisors to get a professional opinion on your plan.
  • Support for Maxifi: Maxifi offers:
    • A help center
    • In-app messaging
    • Occasional live webinars
    • Substack articles
    • Plan review sessions with the founder

Look and Feel

The tools look and feel different from each other. You may prefer one style over the other. Take a look at both the Maxifi website and Boldin to see which appeals to you more. (Also, with Boldin, you can get started with their free Basic Planner or do a 14-day free trial of PlannerPlus before paying $120 for the tool.)

What Reviewers and Users Have to Say About Maxifi vs. Boldin

Hundreds of Boldin users and a few third-party reviewers have weighed in on Maxifi vs. Boldin. Here is what they have to say:

Rob Berger

Rob Berger is an author and influential YouTuber. Here is his review of the Maxifi. He is an active user of Boldin and has numerous other reviews of the Boldin Planner. (Boldin vs. Pralana and Boldin vs. Projection Lab). And, here is a working session of Rob using Boldin (formerly NewRetirement).

Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal took a look and compared Maxifi and the Boldin Planner.

Users

Here is what a couple of users have to say about the two tools:

  • “I pay for both, and have used each Roth calculator with similar results, but will eventually keep just Boldin for its superior interface and graphics.” He continued, “Maxifi’s approach does have merit, emphasizing guaranteed income sources (eg SPIAs/QLACs and/or TIPS for those without sizable pensions) while “maximizing” “discretionary spending ” throughout retirement, the latter given the unpredictability of future non-fixed (non rent, mortgage, etc) expenses (which Boldin, like most planners, expects one to specify in advance) making predictability of retirement “income” (ie money available to be safely spent) the goal, as users can simply (and he would argue “naturally,” like they do while working) adjust their actual “discretionary spending” up or down depending on future circumstances. It also assumes one will “spend it all,” as it defaults to “safely” arrive at 0 at “the end” (the useful, and free, ORP tool shares this goal). This isn’t reckless, all analyses try to reassure that one won’t “run out of money” before death; arguably it’s overly confident to not build in a “buffer asset” though if your “funded ratio” (the percentage of fixed and regular expenses covered by guaranteed income, eg SS, pension/annuity, TIPS) is high, planning for zero, even if one specifies a legacy amount, need not include a sizable buffer. But, despite Larry’s arrogant and self-serving mischaracterization, Boldin can provide a similar “estimate” of “maximum discretionary spending” simply by not specifying a Legacy goal and choosing a Maximum Spending Withdrawal Strategy (rather than Spending Needs or Fixed Percentage). Likewise, in Maxifi one can set up a legacy goal (of whatever Boldin predicts your final estate value would be at your planned end date) as a Special Expense at plan’s end which (in addition to other specified Special Expenses, aka Boldin’s Like to Spend and One Time Expense items) necessarily reduces your yearly Maximum Discretionary Spending amounts to pretty close to what Boldin (and you, via your expenses inputs) has estimated as your overall Spending Needs. It’s a philosophical rather than mathematical difference that distinguishes Larry’s approach from Boldin’s, his competitive s**t stirring aside.”
  • I am a paying subscriber to both products and like them both. Lately I’ve spent more time in NR+[Boldin, formerly NewRetirement] than in MaxiFi – NR [Boldin] has added lots of functionality of late and MaxiFi has also, but I’ve not studied latest. Following is just my sense for how I use the software as an individual. MaxiFi is a BIG extension to ESIPlanner (I believe that to be the right name). At one time, I believe that was the highest rated Social Security Maximizer out there. MaxiFi feels like it is for making really large decisions with an aim towards specifically lifetime spendable income. So for example it handles very well moving states and changing jobs and effective tax rates etc., again using lifetime income as kind of a single metric to compare with. The other thing MaxiFi is big on is a smooth decumulation process with a philosophy of an equal burndown over time. You could enter known large future expenses (such as a wedding for example) and it accounts for that kind of large event. MaxiFi – at least to the extent I have used it – does not really drop into detail budgeting, but instead says “you can safely spend $XX/mo” and its up to you to trade travel and beater (car) vs Bugatti and stay close to home. MaxiFi has recently added some portfolio risk capabilities that help forecast what is’ the best choice for allocating your investments (from a riskiness perspective, NOT specific investments). I have not used this because I am fortunate enough to have an income stream such that I need very little from my tax-sheltered investments and once RMDs kick in that will likely force me to w/draw more than my cash flow would require (I AM self-insuring for LTC), thus I am in very low risk investments for a large part of my portfolio (but enough in the market to help shield me from ‘standard’ (vs hyper) inflation.NR+[Boldin] is much more finite, especially with recent additions in “Plus” for budgeting. You can get very granular in cash in/out flows, addressing mortgage/car payments, etc. Outyear expenses (Again say a wedding) can be accommodated by adjusting outflow for a time period in the future (large lump or maybe an increased flow for a period of time). Both tools allow you to select rates of return – I think NR+ makes recommendations based on history, MaxiFi starts with some based on Economics Theory (Kotlikoff’s personal history as a professor). I like the Monte Carlo in both tools but maybe more so in NR+ because I rely on the 25th percentile value to give me some guidance (in the sense of how I manage my money). There are more things about NR+ [Boldin] but its lower level detail. One thing I do not believe either tool is capable of right now (although I think in MaxiFi I could ‘fool’ it into the analysis): They do not allow you to model sequence of return risk (actually I suspect I could do that in NR+ [Boldin] too, now that I think about it). Nor do they directly allow for fluctuations in inflation or taxes (maybe you think inflation will go negative but taxes will go up 25% next year for 7 years, then back down). Again, I do not use any tool to assess stock market investments or portfolios… I still work with an independent Financial Planner to handle that and some other aspects of my life. Not sure all that helps: you really need to play in the tools and see what works for you. I dial/Zoom in to a lot of exchanges related to MaxiFi and there are a lot of excited users of it, but of course this FB Group is about NR [Boldin] and – as there should be – there are a lot of people excited about NR+ [Boldin] .

Maxifi vs Boldin: Both Are Great Tools

Comparing Maxifi vs Boldin is tricky. They are both powerful tools that can offer you insights into how to do better. We recommend you check out both websites.

With Boldin, you can get started with their free Basic Planner. Or, do a 14-day free trial of PlannerPlus before paying $120 for the tool.

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