How much can I spend?
One after-tax number you can spend each year, and how long your money lasts.
Free Canadian retirement planner
Know exactly what to withdraw, from which account, every year.
Smart Withdrawal plans your RRSP, TFSA and savings withdrawals around CPP, OAS, GIS, RRIF minimums and every tax bracket.
Free · no signup · no names or account numbers
The usual approach costs you
In our sample plan, the optimized order leaves $82,500 more than spending RRSPs last.
Sample plan: single, Ontario, age 66, $590k saved
Answers to the four big questions
Which account first?
A year-by-year order for your RRSP or RRIF, TFSA and non-registered savings.
When should I take CPP and OAS?
Start-age pairs ranked by your goal, with the best one applied in a click.
How do I avoid the OAS clawback and a big tax bill at death?
RRIF withdrawals timed to keep income under the clawback line and shrink the tax on your estate.
CPP at 60, 65 or 70?
Starting later pays more each month but starts later. Drag the sliders to see which start age has paid you the most by any age.
$0$1,500+
Not sure? $900 is about average. Your My Service Canada Account shows yours.
71100
Count it as
Every payment counted once, in today’s dollars.
- Start at 60$221,184$576/mo
- Start at 65$291,600$900/mo
- Start at 70$356,361$1,350/mo · most by 92
Starting at 70 catches up with starting at 65 at about age 80, and with 60 at about age 78. Starting at 65 catches up with 60 at about age 74.
- Start at 60
- Start at 65
- Start at 70
CPP alone, before tax, in today’s dollars. Delayed past 65, CPP keeps pace with wages (assumed 1.1% a year above inflation) until it starts, then rises with inflation. It leaves out OAS, GIS, tax and your savings, which can change the answer. Educational estimate, not advice.
How it works
Step 1: Answer 8 quick questions
Province, age, savings, income and what matters most. Drag a slider or type a rough number. About two minutes.
Step 2: See your plan
Which account pays each year, around CPP, OAS, GIS and RRIF minimums, with a plain reason for every move.
Step 3: Compare strategies
Max Spend, Max Estate and Min Tax side by side, each measured against the usual RRSP-last approach.
What you get, free
No signup, no email, no paywall.
- A full withdrawal planWhich account to draw from each year, around CPP, OAS, GIS, RRIF minimums and tax.
- An optimizerFor leaving the most or paying the least tax, it searches many withdrawal paths for the best one.
- Three goalsSpend the most, leave the most, or pay the least tax, side by side.
- A comparison with the usual approachHow your plan stacks up against drawing the RRSP last.
- A year-by-year tableEvery withdrawal, benefit, tax bill and account balance, by age.
- A share linkSend the plan to a partner or family member; your answers travel in the link itself.
- When to start CPP and OASStart-age pairs ranked by your goal, with the best one applied in a click.
- A market stress testHow the plan holds up in downturns like 2008, the 2000s and the 1970s, and how much less to spend or more to save to get through them.
Why people trust it
Tax math checked against 51 independent plans
Fed the same yearly withdrawals, our tax and benefit arithmetic matches an independent commercial planner to within 1% of lifetime tax on 46 of 51 test plans.
Anonymous by design
No names, email or account numbers. Nothing you enter identifies you.
A plain-language reason for every move
Each plan explains why money comes out of each account, with your own numbers.
Built for Canadian rules
Ontario, BC and Alberta. CPP, OAS, GIS, RRIF minimums and TFSA rules, with 2026 tax brackets.
Who built this
Smart Withdrawal is a side project by a Canadian actuary with more than ten years of experience in insurance.
Retirement income is an optimization problem. Which account you draw from, when you start CPP and OAS, how you stay under the OAS clawback and how much tax is left at death all affect each other, yet most tools follow one fixed rule. I built a spreadsheet model that searched for the best order instead. Later, with the help of AI coding tools, I rebuilt it in Python and put it online so anyone can use it.
It’s free, it doesn’t know who you are, and its tax arithmetic is checked against an independent commercial planner. If you find a mistake, I want to hear about it: hello@smartwithdrawal.ca.
Questions
What does it cost?
Nothing. It’s free and there’s no signup.
Which provinces?
Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, for singles and couples.
What does it handle?
RRSP and RRIF, TFSA, non-registered savings, salary, workplace defined-benefit pensions, CPP, OAS and GIS.
How accurate is it?
The tax and benefit arithmetic has been checked against an independent commercial planner (see above). The plan itself is only as good as its assumptions: it uses steady yearly returns, not market swings, and 2026 tax rules indexed to inflation.
Is this financial advice?
No. It’s an educational estimate. Talk to a licensed professional before acting on it.
Is my data stored?
Your numbers are used only to calculate your plan and are never stored with anything that identifies you. Saved plans stay in your own browser.