About the Age Pension Estimator
A free, plain-English tool built from the official rates, by people who know how the assessment works.
Why this site exists
Most people approaching retirement have two questions about the Age Pension: will I get it, and how much. The official rules are public, but they are spread across many pages and written for assessors rather than for the people being assessed. This site puts the calculation in one place and shows the working.
The model
The calculation was built first as an Excel model by Julie Clune, a former Services Australia employee and long-time IT teacher, who wanted a tool that mirrored the way an assessment is actually done rather than a black box. The web versions on this site reproduce her model exactly: the same rates, the same deeming steps, the same two tests and the same "lower result wins" rule.
The website
The estimators and this site were built by DeCODE Digital, a web design and digital marketing agency in Perth, Western Australia. The estimators run entirely in your browser. Nothing you enter is sent to us or stored anywhere.
Where the numbers come from
Every rate, free area, cut-off and deeming threshold is taken from the Services Australia Guide to Australian Government Payments. We review the figures after each indexation (20 March, 1 July and 20 September) and show the edition in use at the top of each estimator.
What it is, and what it is not
This is an educational guide. It is not financial advice, it does not assess your eligibility, and it does not replace an assessment by Services Australia. If you are making decisions about superannuation, property or gifting, please speak with Services Australia's free Financial Information Service or a licensed financial adviser.
Meet Julie Clune
The model behind these estimators was built in Excel by Julie Clune, and it comes out of an unusual combination of experience: years inside Services Australia, and a career spent teaching.
Julie spent part of her working life at Services Australia, where the rules that govern the Age Pension are not theory but daily practice. She saw first hand how much sits between a person and a clear answer about their own entitlement: income tests, asset tests, thresholds that shift, taper rates that quietly change the outcome, and a guide that is accurate but rarely easy to read. Most people do not need a different set of rules. They need someone to show them how the existing rules apply to their own numbers.
That is where the teaching comes in. Julie is an experienced teacher with a long history in primary and secondary education, working across K-12 and elementary education, with particular strength in literacy, staff development and classroom management. She holds a Master's degree in Education from the University of South Australia. She also taught IT, which is what led her to build the model in Excel in the first place. Teaching literacy and teaching a spreadsheet turn out to draw on the same instinct: take something dense, break it into steps a person can follow, and never ask anyone to simply trust the answer.
That instinct shaped the estimators completely. Every rate and threshold is taken straight from the published guide, and every step of the working is shown, so nothing is hidden. You can follow the calculation line by line and see exactly where your number came from. If a figure looks wrong to you, you can find the step that produced it rather than being handed a total and left to wonder.
The Excel model was rebuilt for the web by DeCODE Digital in Perth, so the same calculations Julie built now run in your browser, on any device, with no spreadsheet to download and no formulas to break.
It is deliberately a guide, not advice. The estimators are here to help you understand how the Age Pension works and roughly where you sit, so you walk into a real conversation already informed. When you are ready to make decisions, Services Australia's free Financial Information Service or a licensed adviser can look at your full situation.
Ready to see your estimate?
It takes about two minutes, and you can change any figure as often as you like.