Empower Review 2026: The Best Free Net Worth Tracker?

Empower — formerly known as Personal Capital — offers one of the most powerful free financial dashboards available in 2026. Net worth tracking, investment analysis, retirement planning, spending reports: all free, no credit card required.

The catch? Empower is also trying to sell you wealth management services. Here’s what the free tools actually do, what the paid service costs, and whether either is worth your time.

Empower at a Glance

What Is Empower?

Empower is a personal finance platform that was originally founded as Personal Capital in 2009. It was acquired by Empower Retirement in 2020 and rebranded in 2023. The core product is still the same: a free dashboard that connects all your financial accounts — checking, savings, credit cards, mortgages, investment accounts, retirement accounts — and gives you a complete picture of your finances in one place.

Unlike budgeting apps like Monarch Money or YNAB, Empower is primarily a wealth tracking tool, not a budgeting tool. It’s built for people who want to see their full financial picture — especially investments and net worth — not just manage monthly spending.

The Free Tools (This Is Why People Use It)

Net Worth Dashboard

Connect every account you own and Empower calculates your real net worth automatically. It updates daily and shows you a historical chart of how your net worth has changed over time. For anyone trying to build wealth — not just budget month-to-month — this view is genuinely motivating. Watching your net worth climb is a different psychological experience than watching your budget stay flat.

Investment Checkup

Empower analyzes your investment portfolio and compares your current asset allocation against recommended targets based on your age and risk tolerance. If you’re overweight in one sector or dangerously under-diversified, it flags it. This is genuinely useful analysis that many robo-advisors charge for.

Fee Analyzer

This is one of the most underrated free tools in personal finance. The Fee Analyzer scans your investment accounts and calculates how much you’re paying in fund fees (expense ratios) over time — including a projection of what those fees will cost you over 20–30 years. Most people are shocked. A 1% expense ratio on a $200,000 portfolio can cost $60,000+ over 20 years. Seeing that number makes it very easy to switch to lower-cost index funds.

Retirement Planner

Empower’s Retirement Planner lets you model different retirement scenarios — different savings rates, different retirement ages, different market return assumptions — and shows the probability of your current plan succeeding. It runs Monte Carlo simulations to stress-test your plan across thousands of market scenarios. Again: free. The kind of analysis that financial planners charge hundreds of dollars for.

Spending Tracker

Empower includes a basic spending tracker that categorizes transactions and shows monthly spending reports. It’s functional but not the focus of the platform — if detailed budgeting is your primary need, Monarch Money or YNAB are more capable tools. Empower’s spending tracker is a nice bonus, not a core selling point.

The Paid Service: Empower Personal Strategy

Empower also offers a paid wealth management service — human financial advisors who manage your investment portfolio for you. Here’s how it’s priced:

• $100,000–$250,000: 0.89% annually
• $250,000–$1,000,000: 0.79% annually
• $1,000,000+: 0.69% annually

These are reasonable fees for actively managed wealth management with human advisors — competitive with traditional financial planners. But they’re not cheap in absolute terms. On a $200,000 portfolio, you’re paying $1,780/year.

The paid service is not for most people reading this. If you’re just getting your finances in order, the free tools are more than enough. The paid service is for people with $100,000+ in investable assets who want a hands-off managed portfolio with advisor access.

What Empower Doesn’t Do Well

Active Budgeting

Empower’s budgeting tools are basic compared to Monarch Money or YNAB. There’s no cash flow forecasting, no envelope budgeting, no zero-based allocation. If your main goal is to actively manage your monthly budget — not just see where money went — Empower is the wrong primary tool. Use it alongside a budgeting app, not instead of one.

Advisor Calls

A known downside of using Empower’s free tools: they will call you. Once you sign up and especially once your connected account balances reach a certain threshold, Empower’s advisor team will reach out to discuss their paid wealth management services. It’s persistent. If you sign up, be prepared to decline their outreach a few times before it stops.

Who Should Use Empower?

Empower is right for you if:

• You want to track your net worth across all accounts in one place
• You have investment or retirement accounts and want to analyze your portfolio
• You want to see your real retirement probability and run planning scenarios
• You want all of this for free

Empower is not the right primary tool if:

• Your main goal is active monthly budgeting (use Monarch Money or YNAB)
• You’re in debt and need behavior change tools (use YNAB)
• You don’t have investment accounts yet (the core value is investment analysis)

Empower vs. Monarch Money

These apps serve complementary purposes, and many people use both:

• Empower: Free, best for net worth tracking, investment analysis, retirement planning
• Monarch Money: $8.33–$14.99/month, best for active budgeting, cash flow forecasting, couples

If you can only pick one: use Empower if investments and net worth are your focus. Use Monarch if you need to get your monthly budget under control first.

The Verdict

Empower’s free Personal Dashboard is one of the best free tools in personal finance, full stop. The net worth tracker, investment checkup, fee analyzer, and retirement planner together offer more value than many paid services. If you have any investment or retirement accounts, there’s no reason not to have Empower connected.

Just go in knowing what it is: a wealth tracking tool with upsell intent. Use the free features, decline the advisor calls, and pair it with a budgeting app if you need active monthly budget management.

Sign Up for Empower Free →

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Empower really free?

Yes. The Personal Dashboard — including net worth tracking, investment analysis, fee analyzer, and retirement planner — is completely free. No credit card required. Empower makes money by converting free users to its paid wealth management service.

Is Empower safe to connect my accounts to?

Yes. Empower uses bank-level 256-bit encryption and read-only access to your accounts — it can see your balances and transactions but cannot move money. It uses Plaid and Yodlee for secure connections, the same providers used by major banks and financial apps.

What happened to Personal Capital?

Personal Capital was acquired by Empower Retirement in 2020 and officially rebranded as Empower in 2023. The free dashboard tools are largely unchanged — same features, different name.

Will Empower call me?

Likely yes, especially once your connected balances are significant. Empower’s advisor team will reach out about their paid wealth management service. It’s a known friction point. Most users report that a clear “not interested” response reduces the frequency quickly.