Income Lab vs eMoney 2027: Which Fits Your Firm Best

Income Lab vs eMoney: the short answer

Income Lab vs eMoney is mostly a choice between a retirement-income specialist and a broader planning platform, and public pricing makes the specialist easier to budget for first. Pick Income Lab if your firm's core deliverable is a retirement-income plan and you want list prices before any sales call. Pick eMoney if you need goals-based, cash-flow and client-portal planning across many client situations and you can run a quote-based buying process.

TL;DR: Income Lab publishes its plan prices and eMoney does not, so the cost question has a clear answer for one of them and a sales-call answer for the other.

A plain definition first: a retirement-income planning tool models how much a household can spend each year once taxes, withdrawals and Social Security timing are considered together. Both products do some of that work, but they differ in how far the income analysis goes and how much of the rest of planning they cover.

Before you compare features, confirm who owns and sells each product. Income Lab's pricing page is published under the Income Laboratory name, and eMoney's pricing page identifies the company as eMoney Advisor, LLC. The most recent ownership report we could open says Fidelity took a majority stake in eMoney, according to Financial Planning (2015). We found no later reporting that changes that, so ask eMoney to confirm current ownership in writing before you sign anything.

Key Takeaways

• Income Lab's Core and Pro plans center on retirement-income planning, tax sequencing and Social Security, and its free trial gives full Pro access.

• eMoney lists four tiers, Plus, Pro, Premier and Enterprise, with no public dollar figures, so budgeting requires a sales conversation.

• Published prices let you model Income Lab's annual cost before a demo, while eMoney's cost depends on tier, seat count and firm size.

• Independent adoption data points to wider use of eMoney, but survey share rankings move with each survey and year.

• Connecting either tool to your CRM is a separate project that needs API or export access, a named owner and a human review step.

• Income Lab's comparison article is written by the vendor, so check its claims against each vendor's own pages before you rely on them.

What each product is for

Income Lab is built around retirement-income distribution. Its pages describe guardrails-based retirement income planning, Tax Lab, a Roth conversion optimizer and Social Security claiming in its base plan, with AI meeting tools, an estate planning suite and account aggregation added in Pro. The company's own comparison article argues that its approach gives a specific spending amount rather than a probability of success. It also uses a 2008 backtest to claim guardrails cut income by 3% where Guyton-Klinger cut it by 28%, according to Income Laboratory (2026). Read that as the vendor's argument, because we did not reproduce the backtest.

eMoney describes its offer through four tiers. Plus covers goals-based planning with CoPlanner and a client portal, Pro covers cash-flow planning, Premier combines goals-based and cash-flow planning in one platform, and Enterprise targets large organizations that need APIs and aggregation tools. Income Lab's comparison article also says eMoney covers trusts, charitable vehicles, stock options and multi-state tax. We did not verify those scope claims on eMoney's own pages, so treat them as one vendor's framing of a competitor.

The one independent usage signal we could open for eMoney is adoption. eMoney adoption in 2025 study: 31.1% according to Kitces (2025). The same study put RightCapital at 25.4%, a gap of nearly six points, and the material we opened contains no Income Lab figure. Usage share tells you what peers run, not whether a tool fits your client mix.

How we evaluated these tools

We weighted six criteria to match the decisions a small firm owner or operations lead actually makes. They are how deep the retirement-income output goes, whether the product covers the rest of planning, how visible the price is, how rollout and contract terms work, what the integrations cover, and how much independent evidence supports the vendor's claims. The weights and scores are our analysis, not vendor data. Each score rests only on the public pages cited in this guide, and a 5 means the public record is strong on that criterion, not that the product is better overall.

Survey rankings are unstable, which is why independent evidence carries 15% of the weight. 2024 survey shares: eMoney 29%, MoneyGuidePro Elite 33% according to InvestmentNews (2024). The same survey placed MoneyGuidePro Elite first, so a product can look strong or weak depending on which survey and year you read. We did not find the 2026 T3 tables. Income Lab's own pages claim category leadership in that data, and we treat the claim as unverified.

Feature matrix: what the public pages show

eMoney's pricing page names tiers rather than listing features, so its column is thinner. That is a gap in public information, not a verdict on the product.

What it costs

Income Laboratory publishes its prices. Core costs $199 a month, or $1,990 billed annually, and Pro costs $299 a month, or $2,990 billed annually. Monthly billing for the same plans comes to $2,388 and $3,588 a year, and annual billing includes two months free. Support staff seats cost $80 a month, or $800 a year when billed annually. The free trial lasts 14 days, gives full Pro access and requires a credit card, according to Income Laboratory (2026). We model one Pro plan per advisor because the page prices support staff as seats that can be added to either plan, so confirm that with the vendor.

Table 3 applies those list prices to a hypothetical firm of three advisors and two support seats.

eMoney does not publish dollar figures. Its pricing page lists the four tiers and says pricing depends on the organization's needs, so every eMoney entry in Table 4 is quote-based and this guide carries no eMoney number.

Pricing checked November 13, 2026. Income Lab figures are list prices from its own page, and eMoney entries stay quote-based until a written quote is available.

A worked example for a three-advisor firm

Take a hypothetical firm with three advisors and two support staff that wants a Pro plan for each advisor, using the list prices cited above. Annual billing comes to $8,970 for the three Pro plans and $1,600 for the two seats, or $10,570 a year, while monthly billing for the same seats would cost $12,684, so annual billing saves $2,114 a year. Intake is the other cost. If 10 new households a month each need 45 minutes of data re-keying from the CRM into the planning tool, that is 7.5 hours a month or 90 hours a year. If a configured handoff triggered by a HubSpot ASSOCIATION_ADDED event removed half that re-keying, the firm would reclaim 45 hours a year, but that outcome is an assumption to test, not a measured result.

Income Lab: best fit, limits and rollout

Income Lab suits a firm whose core deliverable is the retirement-income conversation: how much a client can spend, how withdrawals and Roth conversions interact, and when Social Security should start. Its published Core and Pro pricing makes it the easier option to budget first, and its trial lets your team test the output on a real client file before committing.

The estate planning suite, AI Scribe and Penny sit in Pro, so an estate-heavy or meeting-heavy practice should budget for Pro rather than Core. Enterprise features such as SSO and volume licensing are handled through sales. Income Lab's comparison article also says the product does not analyze life, disability or long-term care insurance. That is the vendor's own description of a gap, so check it against your needs.

Channel terms can change the answer. XYPN says Income Lab is an included financial planning option for its members, starting September 29, 2026, and lists three tiers: Core Starter, Core Unlimited and Pro Unlimited, according to XYPN (2026). The post does not say which tier partner members receive or what membership costs, so plan names and features may differ between channels.

For rollout, the free trial gives full Pro access and requires a card on file. It converts to paid Pro unless you switch to Core in account settings before it ends.

eMoney Advisor: best fit, limits and rollout

eMoney suits a firm that needs one platform covering goals-based planning, cash-flow work, a client portal and CoPlanner plan building across many client situations. The tier structure lets you start at a lower level and move up, although the public pages do not state upgrade prices.

Without public prices, you cannot compare eMoney's cost against Income Lab's on paper, so a written quote is the first deliverable to request. Enterprise is aimed at large organizations, and the FAQ says firm timing depends on organization size and the number of subscriptions, so a firm-wide rollout can take longer to schedule than a single seat.

Access after signing for individuals: 24 to 48 hours according to eMoney Advisor (2026). That window covers individual advisors, support staff and office managers after the user agreement and payment. Firm or Enterprise timing varies. Seat additions, removals and upgrades go through an email request to support, daily live training webinars are included with the advisor license, and custom training and paid workshops cost extra.

Who this is for

Choose Income Lab if your clients mostly need retirement-income and withdrawal planning, you want prices before a sales call, and you are comfortable starting a trial with a card on file.

Red flags: you need SSO or volume licensing, which are quote-based; you are an XYPN member and have not confirmed your tier; your work is estate-heavy and would need Pro rather than Core.

Choose eMoney if you need one platform for goals-based, cash-flow, portal and CoPlanner plan-building work across many client situations, and you can run a quote-based purchase.

Red flags: you need a published price before any demo; you need the whole firm live on a fixed date, since firm timing depends on size; you expect seat changes to happen in the app rather than through an email request to support.

Decision checklist:

1. Rank the three client deliverables your firm produces most often.

2. Ask both vendors to build a sample output for the same anonymized client profile.

3. Request eMoney's quote in writing, including seats, term, training and onboarding timing.

4. Confirm which Income Lab tier you would receive and whether the trial runs on Pro.

5. Confirm ownership, data handling and exit terms before you sign anything.

Common mistakes:

• Comparing Income Lab's published list price with an eMoney quote as if they were like for like.

• Treating a vendor-authored comparison as independent evidence.

• Assuming XYPN's tier names match the Core and Pro names on Income Lab's pricing page.

• Choosing a planning tool before deciding who owns the handoff from your CRM into the plan.

Building the handoff: DIY versus a managed design

Many small firms start with Zapier or n8n, and that is a defensible choice. Zapier automatically replays any Zap run with an errored status, and autoreplay is listed for Professional, Team and Enterprise plans, according to Zapier (current help article). A full Zap run can only be replayed once the Zap is turned on. In n8n, an error workflow must start with the Error Trigger node and is attached under Workflow Settings. It receives execution.id and execution.url only when the execution is saved in the database, according to n8n (current docs). Both tools can support run histories, retries, error branches and audit evidence once they are configured.

What they do not do is decide the design for you. Your team owns idempotency, so a repeated CRM event does not create two intake tasks. It also owns escalation when a handoff fails, access controls for client data, and maintenance when the planning tool changes its fields. A DIY build often underestimates those costs.

A managed alternative is what US Tech Automations describes on its homepage: map the process, design the workflow, build it on its platform, and keep a team monitoring and maintaining it. The homepage names Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sheets, HubSpot, QuickBooks and Stripe among its integrations and says "and more," but it does not list prerequisites in detail, so those must be confirmed during scoping.

A proposed, configurable workflow for the intake problem would start when HubSpot emits an ASSOCIATION_ADDED event, which HubSpot's webhook documentation lists among object subscription actions, according to HubSpot (current docs). That event would link a new household contact to an open planning deal. The workflow would then create an intake task, copy only the fields the firm has mapped and approved, and post a note to the record. The output is a queued task for an advisor, not a client-facing document. Prerequisites are HubSpot API or webhook access, a field map agreed in writing, and a named owner for exceptions. The human review point comes first: an advisor approves the intake before any data reaches the planning tool.

A second proposed step would bring the plan summary back into the CRM after the advisor finishes the plan. That step depends on an export or API from the planning tool, which the firm must confirm. eMoney's pricing page describes its Enterprise tier as emphasizing APIs and aggregation tools. We did not find a public API description on the Income Lab pages we opened, so this is the riskier step to scope. The advisor edits and approves the summary before anything is filed. The homepage's sample customer-support agent works the same way: "You approve, edit or reject each draft before it sends."

Frequently asked questions

Is Income Lab cheaper than eMoney?

Public pages cannot tell you which costs less for your firm, because Income Lab's list price is published and eMoney's is not. Get an eMoney quote in writing and compare seats, training and onboarding terms, not just the headline monthly figure.

Can a firm use both tools?

Yes. Income Lab's own comparison article says advisors typically run both during the transition, but that is the vendor's claim rather than independent data. Running both adds cost and a second data process, so decide which tool owns each client deliverable.

Does ownership change the decision?

It can, so ask eMoney to confirm current ownership in writing before you sign. The ownership reporting we could open is older than the rest of this guide's sources, and we found nothing newer.

Does XYPN membership change the answer?

It can. XYPN includes Income Lab for members, but the announcement does not say which tier you receive, so confirm the features before you assume Pro.

Should a small firm use US Tech Automations instead of a planning tool?

No. US Tech Automations does not replace a retirement-planning engine, so keep Income Lab or eMoney for the plan itself. A managed workflow is worth scoping only when the pain sits in the handoff between your CRM, your documents and your planning tool. It is the wrong choice when the problem is the spending or probability output you need in meetings, when your CRM's built-in automation already handles the single field copy, or when you have an in-house developer who will own monitoring and maintenance, in which case a Zapier or n8n flow may be the simpler route.

Conclusion

Income Lab is the clearer choice when retirement-income planning is the core deliverable and you want prices before a demo. eMoney is the broader platform, and it needs a quote before you can budget. Use the modeled costs above, get eMoney's quote in writing, and ask both vendors to build the same sample client. If the handoff between your CRM and the plan is where work stalls, see how US Tech Automations configures this and check the proposed design against your own review points.