ForHosting KIT · Developer Utilities

Four percent rule calculator

The four percent rule is the best-known safe withdrawal rate heuristic for retirement planning: withdraw about four percent of your portfolio in the first year, then adjust for inflation, and historically many balanced portfolios survived thirty-year horizons in US market studies.

● BetaFree · in your browser

Run — free How it works & API

Use it from WebAPIEmailTelegramApp soon

This four percent rule calculator turns that rule into two practical numbers. Enter a portfolio balance to estimate a sustainable annual and monthly withdrawal. Enter desired annual or monthly expenses to estimate the nest egg you need (the classic twenty-five-times multiplier at four percent). Supply both sides to see portfolio gap, coverage ratio, and whether the plan is funded under the chosen rate. You may override the default four percent with another withdrawal rate when you prefer a more conservative three percent plan or a more aggressive five percent trial. The engine is pure deterministic arithmetic with no market data fetch, no Monte Carlo paths, and no date-dependent shortcuts, so the same inputs always yield the same figures for worksheets, CI fixtures, and product calculators. Use it free in the browser or call the API at $0.002 per successful request.

How to use it

Enter your values in the form above. The tool checks them before calculating and shows the result on the same page.

Check your inputs

Use the labels and units shown next to each field. If something is missing or outside the allowed range, the page points to the field to fix.

Use it again or automate it

Use the browser tool for individual checks and the API when you need the same capability in an automated workflow.

What you can do with it

Get an answer now

Enter one set of values and see the result without building a spreadsheet or script.

Compare scenarios

Change one value at a time and rerun the calculation to understand what affects the result.

Automate repeated work

Use the API when the same calculation needs to run inside your product or workflow.

FAQ

How do I use this capability?

Complete the fields above and run it on this page. The form highlights anything that needs attention.

For developers — API access

Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.

API endpoint

POSThttps://api.kit.forhosting.com/finance/rule-of-4-percent

Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.

Call it from your stack

curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/finance/rule-of-4-percent \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"portfolio":1000000,"nest_egg":1}'

const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/finance/rule-of-4-percent", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    "Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json"
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "portfolio": 1000000,
    "nest_egg": 1
  })
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();

import os, requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/finance/rule-of-4-percent",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
    json={
    "portfolio": 1000000,
    "nest_egg": 1
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]

<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/finance/rule-of-4-percent", false, stream_context_create([
  "http" => [
    "method"  => "POST",
    "header"  => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
    "content" => '{"portfolio":1000000,"nest_egg":1}',
  ],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);

body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"portfolio":1000000,"nest_egg":1}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/finance/rule-of-4-percent", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)

Example request

{
  "portfolio": 1000000,
  "nest_egg": 1
}

Example response

{
  "task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
  "type": "finance.rule_of_4_percent",
  "status": "queued",
  "_links": {
    "result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
  }
}

The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.

Pricing

Per request$0.002

Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.

Errors

HTTP	Code	Meaning
`401`	`unauthorized`	Missing or invalid API key.
`402`	`insufficient_balance`	Your balance doesn't cover the task price.
`404`	`unknown_type`	That task type doesn't exist.
`429`	`rate_limited`	Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling.

Read the full KIT documentation →