Empower

Empower (formerly Personal Capital) provides free personal finance tracking combining budgeting, net worth monitoring, investment portfolio analysis, and retirement planning in one dashboard.

What Makes Empower Stand Out

Free dashboard combining budgeting and investment portfolio analysis. Net worth tracking includes all accounts, investments, and property

Retirement planner shows trajectory to retirement goals

Pricing and Plans

Empower is completely free to use — no subscription or payment required, making it accessible to anyone who needs it.

Who Should Use Empower

Empower is best for teams and individuals who need budgeting apps capabilities and where free dashboard combining budgeting and investment portfolio analysis. It may not be the right fit when sales pressure for paid wealth management services.

Verdict

Empower delivers on its core promise as a budgeting apps tool. Empower (formerly Personal Capital) provides free personal finance tracking combining budgeting, net... For teams evaluating budgeting apps options, Empower is worth considering based on its specific strengths and how they align with your requirements.

Wealth Management Services

Empower's paid wealth management serves clients with $100,000+ investable assets — providing personalized investment management, financial planning, and advisor access at 0.49-0.89% annual fee. The free dashboard serves as the lead generation funnel for these paid services.

Empower vs. YNAB vs. Monarch Money

YNAB focuses on active budget management. Monarch Money is better for couples sharing finances. Empower is strongest for investors who want free portfolio analytics and retirement planning — the investment analysis depth exceeds what Mint or Monarch Money provided.

Cash Account

Empower's Cash Account (FDIC-insured through partner banks) provides competitive savings rates with no fees — enabling keeping cash alongside investment accounts in the same financial dashboard without requiring a separate high-yield savings account elsewhere.

Overall rating: 4.0 / 5

Empower (formerly Personal Capital) is the free personal finance dashboard and wealth management platform — providing net worth tracking, investment portfolio analysis, retirement planning, and budgeting for individuals with investable assets who want comprehensive financial visibility.

Free Financial Dashboard

Empower's free dashboard aggregates all financial accounts: checking, savings, investments (401k, IRA, taxable brokerage), mortgages, and credit cards — calculating real-time net worth and providing portfolio performance metrics that were previously accessible only to clients of financial advisors.

This comprehensive free dashboard is Empower's primary user acquisition strategy: people who use the free tools discover Empower's wealth management services (the actual revenue business) organically.

Investment Fee Analyzer

Empower's fee analyzer shows the actual expense ratios being paid across all investment accounts — calculating the lifetime cost of current fees versus low-cost alternatives. Many users discover they are paying 0.8-1.5% in annual fees on funds that have 0.1% alternatives, representing tens of thousands of dollars in cumulative fee drag.

Retirement Planner

Empower's retirement planner runs Monte Carlo simulation across current portfolio and savings rate — showing the probability distribution of reaching retirement goals. The tool accounts for Social Security timing, expected expenses, and asset allocation to provide more sophisticated retirement modeling than simple linear projection tools.

Overall rating: 4.0 / 5