Frequently asked questions

Allocatewise helps you model your financial future. You enter your income, savings, investments, property, and retirement goals, and the platform runs 1,000 simulations to show how likely you are to achieve those goals – and which portfolio allocation is designed to improve your chances.

The Pension Calculator and the Gilt Ladder Calculator on this website need no account at all and stay free.

Yes – you can create up to 10 profiles. This lets you model different scenarios side-by-side, for example an earlier retirement vs a later one, or a higher-risk vs a lower-risk portfolio strategy.

Individual stock and ETF holdings tend to have relatively little history. Allocatewise focuses on long term returns for which asset class returns are more indicative than individual holdings.

Our models are calibrated to a UK data panel and the latest UK gilt yield curves, and every output can be traced back to those inputs and the settings you chose. A general-purpose language model is not calibrated to any data, can state made-up facts or statistical errors with confidence, has limited access to current market data, and cannot show where its numbers came from. Allocatewise runs the same simulation on the same data every time, so two runs on the same inputs give the same answer and you can see exactly what changed when you change an input.

No. The one-week trial starts the moment you create an account – no payment details required. You'll only be asked for payment when the trial ends and you choose to continue.

When your trial ends, the planning app – dashboard, stress testing, goal-aligned allocation, portfolio construction and the gilt ladder – is paused until you subscribe. Your profiles and saved reports are kept, so you carry straight on when you subscribe, and our free tools that need no account remain open.

Yes. Cancel at any time from the billing portal, opened from Payment & Subscription in the app. For monthly plans, access continues until the end of the billing period. For annual plans, access continues until the end of the year you've paid for.

Yes. The annual plan is charged as a single payment of £99.99 at the start of each year. This works out to £8.33 per month – a 58% saving compared to monthly billing. See Pricing.

Nothing is deleted. Your profiles, saved reports and portfolios are kept exactly as they are. You need an active subscription to open them again, and they are waiting for you if you resubscribe. Data is only deleted if you explicitly request account deletion.

The platform uses a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to identify historical market regimes (e.g. low-inflation calm, high-inflation stress) and estimates how frequently markets transition between them. The yield curves in these scenarios are evolving according to a Nelson-Siegel type model with some additional calibration (NSS) for short term nominal yields. It runs up to 1,000 Monte Carlo paths, drawing correlated returns for every asset class, inflation, and interest rates simultaneously. Your cash flows – income, savings, retirement drawdown, goals – are applied month by month across each path. The full detail is in our methodology.

Nominal returns are in the pounds of each future year, without adjusting for inflation. Real returns strip out inflation so you can see purchasing-power growth.

A stress test replays your simulation but inserts a specific market shock – for example a 2008-style crash, a prolonged inflation spike, or a custom scenario you define. It shows how your goal success rate and portfolio value change if that shock happens, and whether your portfolio recovers.

Projections are based on historical relationships between asset returns, inflation, and interest rates. Past patterns do not guarantee future results. All figures are illustrative estimates, not predictions. Treat the goal success rate as a planning tool, not a financial promise.

The retirement income and goal amounts you enter are treated as what you want to spend, after tax.

• Your salary: income tax and National Insurance at UK rates are estimated to work out your take-home pay, and so how much you save.
• Pension tax relief: 20% is added to what you pay into a SIPP or personal pension. Workplace contributions are taken as already including their relief. Higher- and additional-rate relief is not added to the pension – it is assumed you claim it back through Self Assessment.
• Pension income: withdrawals, the State Pension and final salary pensions are taxed at 2026/27 income tax bands (Scottish bands if you choose them), frozen until April 2031 and rising with inflation after. A quarter of each withdrawal is tax-free – or, if you choose, 25% is taken in one go at an age you set, up to £268,275.
• ISAs are tax-free, with the yearly allowances applied.
• Capital Gains Tax applies to a General Investment Account: each tax year's gains above the £3,000 annual exempt amount are taxed at 18% within the basic-rate band and 24% above it, stacked on that year's taxable income, and the bill is paid the following April. Losses are set against gains and carried forward. The account is held as one pool at its average cost, as your broker's book cost is, so switching funds inside it realises no gain here. What your investments cost is your answer – the book cost of each holding, or one total for the account – or, if you have not said, what they are worth today, so only growth from today is taxed. A couple each have the exempt amount. Gilts held directly, ISAs and pensions pay none.
• Property: selling a second home or a let property pays Capital Gains Tax at the same rates, on the gain over what you paid for it (or over today's value if you have not said), paid when it is sold and squared up at the year end. A couple's property is split half each. Your main home pays none.
• Interest and dividends outside ISAs and pensions are taxed as income: interest on cash, gilt coupons and what a General Investment Account pays out, at a long-run yield for each asset class. Savings income has a £1,000 allowance (£500 for higher-rate taxpayers) and, on a low income, a £5,000 starting rate, then 20% / 40% / 45% (22% / 42% / 47% from April 2027); dividends have a £500 allowance, then 10.75% / 35.75% / 39.35%. The income is reinvested and adds to what the account cost.
• Switching mix: moving into a different mix in the allocator or the Portfolio Builder pays Capital Gains Tax on what it sells in a General Investment Account – ISAs and pensions are sold first – against each holding's book cost, with the first year's bill.
• Rent is taxed as income on top of your other income: rent less letting costs, or less the £1,000 property allowance when that is more, at 20% / 40% / 45% (22% / 42% / 47% from April 2027). Mortgage interest is not deducted – it earns a tax credit at the basic rate instead. A lodger in your own home pays tax only above the £7,500 rent-a-room allowance. A couple's rent is split half each.
• Not modelled: private residence and lettings relief, and finance costs carried forward to later years. These are approximations; your after-tax position may differ from the figures shown.

Account rules and tax on pension income and investments need your age; without it everything is treated as one pot with no tax. These are deliberate simplifications, not personal tax advice – your own circumstances may differ.

Yes, but keep the screen on until it finishes. An optimisation can take a few minutes, and if your phone locks or you switch to another app while it is running, the browser pauses the connection and the run is interrupted – you'll need to start it again. For longer runs, a laptop or desktop is the most reliable option.

No. Allocatewise is a financial planning and modelling tool. It is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Nothing on this platform constitutes regulated financial advice, a personal recommendation, or an invitation to invest. You should seek advice from a qualified financial adviser before making any investment decisions.

No. All projections, goal success rates, and allocation outputs are probabilistic estimates based on historical data. They are not predictions or guarantees of future performance. The value of investments can go down as well as up, and you may get back less than you invest.

You are. Allocatewise provides a tool to support your thinking – it does not make decisions on your behalf. Any investment decision you make based on output from this platform is your own responsibility. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.

No. Allocatewise is a read-only modelling platform. You enter data manually or via CSV upload. We have no connection to any brokerage, bank, or investment platform. We cannot execute trades, move money, or access any external accounts.

Authentication data is stored in Google Firebase Authentication (US, with EU–US Data Privacy Framework protections). Profile and portfolio data is stored in Google Firestore in the EU (Belgium and the Netherlands), which UK data protection law recognises as adequate. Simulation computation runs on Google Cloud Run in the europe-west2 region (London), so your data does not leave the UK during processing.

No. Your portfolio data is never shared with third parties for marketing or analytics purposes. The only data that leaves Allocatewise systems is ticker symbols and instrument names sent to OpenAI for automatic asset classification – no financial amounts, names, or identifiers are included in those requests.

Yes. Go to Account in the app's sidebar and choose Delete Account: this permanently removes your login, profiles, saved reports and portfolio constructions straight away, and cancels any active subscription. You can also request deletion by emailing info@allocatewise.com, and we will delete your account and all its data within 30 days of the request.

You have the right to access, correct and erase the personal data we hold about you, to object to or restrict processing, to data portability, and to request human review of any automated output. Email info@allocatewise.com to exercise any of them. The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.