Business Owners

The wealth gap calculator

What your retirement actually requires, set against what you are on track to have.

Desired income (today's $/yr) Social Security / pension ($/yr) Years until exit Years in retirement Assets outside the business Return on those assets (%) Net proceeds from the business Return in retirement (%) Inflation (%)

Wealth gap—

Capital needed at exit: —
Outside assets at exit: —
Business proceeds: —
Total available: —
Share riding on the business: —

How it works

What this is actually calculating.

The gap is the difference between the capital your intended lifestyle requires and the capital you are on course to hold. It combines what you have outside the business, what you expect the business to contribute, and what the income you want actually costs to fund.

For most owners this is the first time those figures sit in one place. The business is usually the largest item and the least certain, which is precisely why the number is worth calculating before a buyer is ever in the picture.

What moves the number

The parts that decide the answer.

The business is the uncertain term

Personal savings are knowable. Sale proceeds are an estimate wrapped in a market, a buyer and a tax bill. Treat the two differently when you read the result.

A gap found early is a plan

Ten years out, a gap is closed by growing enterprise value, saving outside the business, or adjusting the target. Two years out, the options narrow to one.

Closing it is not only about selling for more

Spending less, working two more years, or moving assets out of the business each close part of the gap without depending on a buyer.

Questions

Before you rely on it.

What if the gap is negative?

Then your projected assets exceed what the plan requires, and the conversation shifts to tax, timing and what the surplus is for.

Should I include the house?

Only if you genuinely intend to sell it and spend the proceeds. Otherwise it is not retirement capital.

How does this relate to the value gap?

This one tells you the shortfall. The value gap calculator translates that shortfall into what the business has to be worth.

Before you rely on it

About this calculator.

An illustration, not advice

This is an educational illustration, not investment, tax, or legal advice, and not a recommendation or projection of any particular result. It uses only the assumptions you enter.

Real returns are not this smooth

Where a return is involved it is treated as constant, which no real portfolio is. Actual results will differ, and a sequence of poor early returns can change an outcome substantially even when the average holds.

Nothing you type leaves your browser

Every calculation runs on your own machine. Nothing you enter is transmitted or stored, and none of it reaches me unless you ask for a PDF and give me your details.

Talk to your CPA and attorney before relying on any of it.See all twelve calculators

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September 3, 2026