OnTrajectory is a Baltimore-based financial technology company that’s dedicated to helping you get a hold of your financial future. Described as a “personal financial GPS,” it offers an advanced financial planning software, whereby customers' input income and expense data lets the product predict where they will be in 10, 20, 30 or more years. With easy-to-read graphs, it tracks whether you’re on track with your goals and aspirations.
The software can be easily tweaked to account for expected changes in income, such as Social Security or an inherited IRA, and in expenses, such as taxes, mortgage or rent payments, among a plethora of other such variables. Further, the software allows you to model changes in income or expenses, results of your taxable and tax-advantaged accounts. For example, if you’re wondering how buying a car will affect your finances in the long term, OnTrajectory can give you an answer that is as reliable as the information you provide the software.
Best for
People who want help managing their own finances; Long-term planners; Financial advisors and educators
Drawbacks
OnTrajectory offers a great set of tools to help you plan your financial future, however, it doesn't manage your finances for you. It's up to you to input your information and keep track of how your finances are doing.
Pricing: How Much Does OnTrajectory Cost?
| Option Name | Management Fee | Minimum Balance | Features |
|---|---|---|---|
OnTrajectory offers a 14-day free trial (no credit card required). After that customers subscribe to what's known as PowerPlan, that costs $5 per month if paid yearly ($60 annually) or $9 per month if paid monthly. With the plan, you get unlimited access to all the tools that OnTrajectory offers. This includes savings plans, goal tracking and no limitations on the number of scenarios that you can track.
OnTrajectory also offers interactive tutorials to all registered users, and there is a general help guide to assist you in using the software.
OnTrajectory's Strategy
OnTrajectory was created to use the convenience of technology to help track and achieve your financial goals. It’s just a series of tools and simulations, so it doesn’t directly manage your finances for you. It gives you a chance to look at your overall financial situation and determine things you need to do in order to reach your financial goals.
The tools help track your finances regardless of where you are in life. It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting to build income or if planning for retirement. You have to manually input all of your financial information. That includes things like account balances, interest rates and expenses. Because it doesn’t connect to a bank account, all your private information is safeguarded.
Once you input your financial information, the tools offer information about your financial trajectory. You can track how your finances grow and shrink according to different actions, like taking a job with a lower salary or buying a house.
The tools from OnTrajectory are meant to help you get a firmer grasp on your financial situation. You can track your finances with hypothetical scenarios and goals to figure out what you need to do to reach that point.
Key Features
OnTrajectory’s software offers a diverse range of tools. They’re useful for any retail investor or saver. Employers who want their employees to be able to benefit from the program can arrange with OnTrajectory to have it made available as an employee benefit.
The company also has a special program for financial advisors and educators. Financial advisors can use the service to model financial plans and a virtually infinite array of scenarios for their clients. It makes financial planning easier and more convenient, with the user having an accurate gauge of where their future is heading.
If you’re an educator, you can use OnTrajectory to teach your students about financial changes over time. With the service providing accurate economic trajectories, you can create custom scenarios to demonstrate and teach about key financial concepts. This option is available to educational institutions, public libraries and charitable organizations.
Who OnTrajectory Is for
You don't need to be a software engineer or chartered financial analyst to make thorough use of this software. You just need a PC. While OnTrajectory is targeted toward young people planning for their long-term financial future, it’s useful for anyone. Regardless of where you are with your finances, these tools provide an idea of how your financial future will look. Whether you’re planning for retirement or a big purchase, or are just contemplating the financial consequences of moving to an area with lower taxes, OnTrajectory allows you to anticipate with striking precision what you'll experience financially. Anytime one of the variables changes, it can be input into the software, which instantly makes the appropriate adjustment in your outlook.
Long-term planners will benefit the most from the service. You’re able to craft different financial scenarios, whether it’s family planning or home buying. Since it gives you an overall view of your finances, you can figure out what your future will look like and how you can get there.
If you want hands-on, direct control of your finances, OnTrajectory may not be the most useful service. However, it can still help as a starting point that leads to working with a financial advisor or better managing your own funds.
How OnTrajectory Works
You start by answering four simple questions. This includes information about your savings, annual income and monthly savings. This helps OnTrajectory get a sense of where your money is taking you. Then you can enter more detailed information about your finances, like account balances, interest rates, expenses, assets and liabilities. You don’t need to enter any private bank information – everything is entered manually so your information is protected. Giving more detailed information leads to more accurate results and projections.
After creating an account, you will have access to interactive tools and you can tailor them further to your financial situation and future. You can create hypothetical scenarios to get an idea of how your finances will be affected in different situations. You can also create savings plans and goals. For example, you may want to see how buying a car will affect your financial future. Maybe you’re considering marrying or starting a family. Or you could set a retirement age to figure out how much you need to have saved in order to retire by that age. The accurate projections give you a sense of how to plan ahead.
For each financial aspect, like income, investments, assets or expenses, OnTrajectory’s projections are detailed on easy-to-read graphs. With your information stored under one account, you’re able to get a comprehensive overview of your finances.
What's the Catch?
Though OnTrajectory is useful for planning for the future, it doesn’t actually control your finances for you. This can be a benefit in some ways, since you have more control and won’t have to provide your private information. But with all the different projections, you have to make sure you stay on top of your finances to keep those projections accurate. It’s more of a support tool for you if you’re working with a financial advisor or starting to manage your finances yourself.
In addition, the accuracy of the tools is based on your manual inputs. Small details, like tax and inflation rates, matter in the long-run. Having to manually input everything can be time-consuming.
Competition: How OnTrajectory Stacks up
Since OnTrajectory is a start-up, there’s a lot of room for it to grow. Its affordable and accurate tools have already helped people start managing their finances. You can plan far into the future, outlining the steps needed to reach your goals.
ESPlanner is another financial technology company. Though more expensive than OnTrajectory, ESPlanner focuses on calculating your household’s living standard and figures out how to raise it. It looks at the standard through time to determine financial actions that should be taken to reach goals. It’s a similar service to OnTrajectory, but at a higher price and different focus.
| Robo-Advisor | Fees | Min. Balance | Human Advisor |
 |
$9/month, $60/year | N/A | No |
 |
$149 for first year, $70 annually after that | N/A | No (Access to experts and consultants is an additional service that comes at an extra fee) |
Bottom Line: Should You Use OnTrajectory?
OnTrajectory is a useful financial planning tool. You get an overview of what your financial future looks like in the long term and you can plan ahead with that information. You can also create what-if scenarios to get a glimpse of what your financial future looks like if you make certain financial moves, like moving or buying a car.
It’s a helpful tool for financial planning, but that’s about it. It’s up to you to take the information given and apply it to your actions. This can be hard if you have no financial planning experience. But it’ll be useful regardless to get a look into where your financial future is heading.
