Lifetime ISA calculator — the bonus, and the honest penalty

Save up to £4,000 a year and the government adds 25% — free money for a first home or for age 60. The catch most pages soften: withdraw for anything else and the 25% charge takes back more than the bonus — 6.25% of your own money. This calculator prices both, on the same constants the Hundred Summers app's projection uses. Your figures never leave your browser.

Where the LISA fits

The LISA occupies a precise niche: first-home buyers who will spend under £450,000 (a cap frozen since 2017 while prices rose — check your market), and self-employed savers with no employer pension, for whom the 25% bonus is the only match they'll ever get. For employed basic-rate savers it's a strong second wrapper after pension matching is captured; for higher-rate earners, pension relief at 40%+ comes first.

The projection here uses the same limits the Hundred Summers app enforces — £4,000 a year, bonus while under 50, access at 60 — so what you see is what a plan would actually do. Compare routes with the ISA vs pension calculator, and put the result inside a whole retirement picture with the how-much-to-retire calculator.