01 · Side by side
FIYR vs ProjectionLab at a glance
| Feature | FIYR | ProjectionLab |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $8/month, or $76.80/year ($6.40/month). One plan with every feature. | Basic free. Premium $129/year. Pro, for advisors, $549/year. |
| Free trial | 30 days with every feature. No charge until the trial ends. | 7 days on Premium. Converts on the 7th day unless you cancel. |
| Platforms | Web app for desktop and mobile browsers. | Web app, installable as a mobile PWA. No native app. |
| Budgeting style | Monthly category budgets, with reusable budget templates. | Not a budgeting app: you model a plan, you don’t track daily spending. |
| Bank sync | Plaid. Manual accounts and transactions too. | No built-in bank sync by design. Manual entry, with optional community plugins (Lunch Money, YNAB, Monarch) for linking. |
| Net worth | Yes: linked accounts plus manual assets (home, vehicles, crypto) and debts. | Projected inside the plan, from balances you enter and update. |
| FIRE / retirement projection | Yes, on every plan: your FIRE date with Monte Carlo odds, side-by-side scenarios, taxes by account type and life events, from your real spending and balances. | Its core strength: Monte Carlo simulation, tax settings by account type, multiple plans, estate and international planning, year-by-year detail. |
| Investments | Investment account balances through Plaid. No per-holding performance view. | Modeled in the plan with your own allocations. No linked holdings or live performance. |
| Shared / household | One login per account. Transactions can be tagged as yours, your partner’s or shared. | Individual or couple planning in one plan. Pro adds client profiles for advisors. |
| Import & export | CSV export of transactions. CSV import with column and category mapping. Imports a full ProjectionLab plan as a scenario. | Exports your whole plan to JSON anytime; reports export to PDF, CSV or JSON. |
02 · Why switch
Why people look for a ProjectionLab alternative
ProjectionLab is a genuinely good planner, and the reasons people look for an alternative are usually about everything around the plan rather than the modeling itself:
You don’t want to enter your finances by hand
ProjectionLab is built around manual entry; it doesn’t link your accounts by default, and the add-ons that do are community plugins you set up yourself. FIYR links your banks through Plaid, so your balances, spending and net worth stay current on their own, and the FIRE projection moves as they do.
You want the plan and the tracking in one place
ProjectionLab plans your future; it isn’t where you watch this month’s spending or categorize transactions. FIYR is both: budgets, transactions and net worth sit next to the FIRE projection, built from the same accounts, so what you actually spend feeds what the plan assumes.
You already built a plan and don’t want to start over
That’s the usual reason to stay. FIYR imports a ProjectionLab plan directly: export your data from ProjectionLab, bring it into FIYR, and it becomes a scenario you can keep editing next to a plan built from your live accounts. The switching cost is a few minutes, not a rebuild.
Price
ProjectionLab Premium is $129 a year. FIYR is $76.80 a year or $8 a month, with the projection, budgets, net worth and bank sync all on the one plan.
03 · The honest part
When ProjectionLab is the better choice
ProjectionLab is a serious, well-built tool, and for some people it is the better choice. Pick ProjectionLab if:
- You want the deepest planning. ProjectionLab goes further on pure modeling: estate planning, international planning, multiple side-by-side plans and year-by-year drill-down into every simulated year. FIYR’s projection is strong, but ProjectionLab is the specialist.
- You would rather not link your accounts. ProjectionLab is designed for manual entry and never requires linking anything, and it says it does not sell your planning data. If keeping your banks disconnected is the point, that design fits you; FIYR is built around Plaid.
- You are an advisor or coach. ProjectionLab’s Pro tier manages multiple client profiles. FIYR is built for your own finances, not a client book.
- You want a plugin ecosystem. ProjectionLab exposes a plugin API and community plugins for custom automations and data sources. FIYR does not.
- You want full plan portability. ProjectionLab exports your entire plan to JSON and its reports to PDF, CSV or JSON. FIYR exports transactions as CSV and imports a ProjectionLab plan, but does not yet export a whole plan.
04 · Moving over
How to switch from ProjectionLab to FIYR
You can bring your ProjectionLab plan with you. ProjectionLab exports your data as a file, and FIYR imports it as a scenario on the FIRE page.
- Export from ProjectionLab. In ProjectionLab, open Account Settings and export your data. Export is part of ProjectionLab Premium.
- Import it into FIYR. On the FIRE page, under Scenarios, use the import icon next to “+ Save this plan” and choose the file. Each ProjectionLab plan becomes a FIYR scenario, and the import tells you what came over, what was approximated and what wasn’t yet.
- Link your accounts for a live plan. Start a FIYR trial and connect your banks through Plaid. Now your imported plan sits next to one built from your real balances and spending, and you can compare them side by side.
- Add what Plaid can’t see. Enter your home, vehicles, crypto and any loans as manual assets and liabilities so your net worth and FIRE date reflect everything you own and owe.
ProjectionLab models some things FIYR approximates on import. The import report lists exactly what carried over and what did not, so you know what to check before you rely on it.
05 · Keep reading