Short answer: ProjectionLab and a live net-worth tracker do different jobs, and many people use both. If your goal is deep future planning — Roth conversions, withdrawal strategies, tax scenarios — keep ProjectionLab. If your goal is to see what you are worth right now without hand-entering every balance, that is what a tracker like Ascend is for.
ProjectionLab earns its reputation. Its scenario modeling and visualizations are genuinely best-in-class — Monte Carlo simulations, Roth conversion and withdrawal strategies, tax optimization, and a compare mode for testing decisions side by side. It is privacy-first by design: it does not require you to link any accounts, and you can even keep your data in your browser rather than the cloud. The free Basic tier is unusually capable, and Premium is $129/year.
When ProjectionLab is the right call
ProjectionLab is the better pick when...
- You want to rigorously model the future — early retirement, Coast FIRE, tax and withdrawal strategies.
- You specifically prefer not to link bank or brokerage accounts for privacy reasons.
- You are comfortable entering and periodically updating balances by hand.
- Deep what-if planning matters more to you than a live, always-current number.
Where a ProjectionLab alternative makes more sense
The gap is not planning depth — it is the day-to-day tracking. ProjectionLab does not connect to your banks, brokerages, or 401(k), and it has no crypto support at all; every balance is manual entry (a few third-party plugins can pull numbers in from budgeting apps, but that is extra setup). That is fine for a planning session every few months. It is not what you want if the question is simply "what am I worth today, across everything?" — because the numbers are only as current as the last time you typed them in.
If keeping balances current by hand is the friction, an auto-syncing tracker solves exactly that — and covers the one asset class ProjectionLab does not touch: crypto.
What to look for in a live tracker to pair with, or use instead of, ProjectionLab
- Automatic syncing — read-only connections to brokerages, banks, and 401(k)s so balances stay current on their own.
- Real crypto coverage — on-chain balances across multiple chains, read keylessly by public wallet address, plus DeFi.
- A projection of its own — a Monte Carlo retirement projection so the live number connects to the long-term picture.
- A real free tier and clear privacy — read-only access, no data selling, full export and delete.
ProjectionLab vs Ascend at a glance
ProjectionLab
Free, Premium $129/year. A best-in-class retirement planner — deep scenario modeling, tax and withdrawal strategies — with no account linking and no crypto. Balances are entered by hand.
Ascend
Free tier, Pro at $99/year. A live net-worth tracker that auto-syncs brokerages, banks, 401(k)s, real estate, and keyless crypto across 10 chains — plus a Monte Carlo retirement projection.
Being honest about it: Ascend is not a replacement for ProjectionLab's deep planning engine. If tax-optimized withdrawal modeling is your reason for using ProjectionLab, keep it. What Ascend replaces is the manual data entry — it keeps your real net worth current automatically, including crypto ProjectionLab does not track, and gives you a Monte Carlo projection so the live number ties into the long view. For a lot of people the ideal setup is a live tracker for today and a planner for the decades ahead.
Bottom line: if you want the deepest planning sandbox, ProjectionLab is excellent — keep it. If you are tired of typing in balances and want a live, auto-synced net-worth number that includes crypto, Ascend is built for that, starting free and $99/year if you upgrade. Many people use both.
ProjectionLab pricing and features verified July 6, 2026 against ProjectionLab's official pricing page (Basic $0/year, Premium $129/year; no account aggregation or crypto — balances are entered manually). Prices change — confirm before you buy. See the full net worth tracker comparison.