How much does a $300,000 annuity really pay per month?

Published answers run from $1,338 to $5,715 a month. Almost none of that gap is disagreement

The short answer: for a 65-year-old man buying an immediate annuity that pays for life and stops at his death, four separate publishers put $300,000 at between $1,875 and $1,942 a month on figures dated 2025 and 2026. That is a spread of about 3.6%, which for this kind of question is close agreement.

The much wider range you will see quoted is real, but it is not uncertainty. It is what happens when a figure is printed without the four things that determine it: how old you are, whether payments continue to anyone after you die, whether they start now or in twenty years, and what day the quote was run. Change those and the same $300,000 honestly produces anything from about $1,338 to $5,715. Nobody is lying. They are answering different questions under the same headline.

What four publishers print for the same $300,000

Read the last row again. It is the largest number on page one of this search, it is not wrong, and it is answering a completely different question: what $300,000 turns into if you leave it alone for twenty-five years first. Set that row aside, and the four figures for a 65-year-old man on a single life agree within $67 a month, which is 3.6% between the lowest and the highest.

The six things that actually move the number

Each of these is shown with figures from the publishers above, so you can see the size of each effect rather than take our word for it.

1. Your age. The largest single factor. On the Cannex figures CBS published, a man goes from $1,771 a month at 60 to $3,143 at 80 on the same $300,000. You are not earning more; the insurer expects to pay you for fewer years.
2. Whether it is one life or two. On those same figures, a 65-year-old man alone is quoted $1,942 while a joint contract covering a couple is quoted $1,684. Continuing payments to a surviving spouse costs roughly 13% of the monthly cheque.
3. Sex. Annuity.org quotes $1,875 for a man of 65 and $1,770 for a woman of the same age, because women live longer on average and the payments are expected to run longer.
4. What happens when you die. This is the one people skip. SmartAsset's own figures for a 65-year-old man, same $300,000, same day: $1,916 for life only, $1,893 with ten years of payments guaranteed, $1,827 with a cash refund, $1,728 with twenty years guaranteed. Life only pays the most because it can pay your heirs nothing at all.
5. Whether payments start now or later. The $5,715 row above is this factor by itself.
6. The day the quote was run. Payout rates move with interest rates. Two of the figures in the table trace to the same data provider, Cannex, roughly a year apart: $1,942 in the June 2025 article, $1,875 on the April 2026 rate table. Same source, same question, a $67 difference from the calendar alone. Any figure on any page, including this one, is a snapshot.

What a monthly figure never tells you

A payout quote describes one thing: the size of the cheque. Several things that decide whether the contract is a good idea sit outside it entirely.

The better question: what gap are you filling?

“What does $300,000 pay” is the wrong starting point, because it begins with a product and works backwards. The number that decides whether any of this makes sense is the gap between the bills that must be paid every month for life and the income you already have for life.

For scale: after the 2.8% cost-of-living adjustment for 2026, the Social Security Administration's 2026 COLA fact sheet puts the average monthly benefit for all retired workers at $2,071, and $3,208 for an aged couple both receiving benefits. Set that against your own must-pay column, and the shortfall, if there is one, is the only figure an annuity should ever be sized to. Our retirement income calculator does that subtraction with your numbers and applies California's treatment of retirement income.

Balance requires one more figure alongside those benefit amounts. The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report projects that the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund reserves deplete in the fourth quarter of 2032, one quarter earlier than the previous report, after which 78% of scheduled benefits would be payable absent a change in the law. Any plan that assumes today's benefit continues untouched for thirty years is assuming something the Trustees do not.

If the gap turns out to be modest, a portion of $300,000 might close it while the rest stays liquid. If Social Security and a pension already cover the essentials, there is no gap and no reason to give up access to anything. Our immediate income annuity page explains how that contract type works, and our annuities overview sets out the disadvantages first.

How to get a figure that means something

1. Write down your own inputs first: your age, your spouse's age, whether payments must continue to them, and the date you want income to start.
2. Ask for the quote in writing, with the carrier named and the quote's expiry date on it. A rate you cannot date is not a rate.
3. Ask for the same $300,000 priced three ways: life only, life with a period certain, and joint. The difference between them is what protecting somebody else costs, in dollars a month.
4. Ask what it pays your heirs under each option, in writing, before you compare monthly figures at all.
5. Compare like with like. A bigger number from a different age, a different payout option or a deferred start is not a better deal. It is a different question.

We do not publish our own payout figures on this site, for the same reason this page spends its length on assumptions: without your age, your structure and today's carrier rates, any number we printed would be decoration.

Questions people ask

Reviewed by Roberto Morales, California Insurance License #0G97165. Next Wave Options is licensed for life and annuity products only and does not provide investment, tax or legal advice.