Empower review: our verdict

This Empower review covers the Empower Personal Dashboard, the free money-tracking tool that used to be called Personal Capital. It is best understood as a net worth and investment tracker that also does some budgeting, rather than a budgeting app that also shows investments. Link your bank accounts, cards, loans, mortgage and retirement accounts, and the dashboard shows everything in one place, tracks your net worth over time, analyzes your portfolio and lets you model retirement scenarios. The dashboard and tools cost nothing, and Empower says they stay free.

We rank Empower as the pick for tracking net worth, and the independent reviews support that: NerdWallet, CNBC Select, PCMag and longtime user Rob Berger all single out its investment and retirement tools. They are equally consistent about the weak spot. Budgeting is basic, with one overall monthly spending target rather than category budgets, and some users report flaky account connections and calls from Empower's advisers. If you want to plan every dollar, pair it with a dedicated budgeting app or choose one instead.

What it is and who it is for

Empower is a large U.S. retirement and wealth company; its site says it serves more than 20 million people. It took over Personal Capital and rebranded the free dashboard, and its transition page told existing users that the dashboard and features would remain free and that their app would become the Empower app. The dashboard is separate from Empower's paid advice: you can use it without buying anything.

The people who get the most from it are those with money spread across several institutions: a workplace 401(k), an old IRA, a brokerage account, a mortgage and a couple of cards. NerdWallet puts it plainly: it may suit you if you have built up multiple retirement or brokerage accounts over the years and want to see them together. If you have one checking account and want help sticking to a grocery budget, the dashboard's strengths will mostly go unused.

This review describes software features only. It is not financial, investment or tax advice, and nothing here is a recommendation to buy any investment or advisory service.

Key features

Account aggregation and net worth

Empower's tools page says you can connect IRAs, 401(k)s and other retirement plans, investment accounts, mortgages, loans, savings and checking accounts and credit cards, and that the more you connect, the more useful the insights become. CNBC Select describes the app opening on a net worth figure and chart with balances underneath, including health savings accounts. Rob Berger notes you can add your home with an estimated value pulled from Zillow and track cryptocurrency through manual entries.

Retirement planner

The retirement planner is the feature reviewers praise most. Empower describes it as a way to test-drive retirement at different ages, set up withdrawals and see what goals such as travel or college would need. Rob Berger walks through how you can add income events and spending goals, edit assumptions such as inflation, compare multiple scenarios and see a likelihood score for whether your savings last. PCMag, reviewing it as Personal Capital, said no other personal finance service it had reviewed offered such thorough retirement projections.

Investment checkup and fee analysis

Empower's dashboard analyzes your linked holdings, shows your asset allocation and compares it with a suggested allocation. NerdWallet and Rob Berger both describe a fee analysis that estimates what fund and account fees on linked retirement accounts may cost over time. Empower's current marketing pages describe portfolio performance, risk level and investment insights rather than naming that tool, so check that it is still available in your version of the app.

Budgeting and cash flow

Spending is categorized automatically by date, category or merchant, and you can set a monthly target and see whether you are over or under. NerdWallet explains the limitation clearly: you set a single monthly budget, not separate amounts per category. You can recategorize transactions and apply the change to similar ones. There is also a savings planner for retirement savings, an emergency fund and debt paydown, plus a bills view that tracks due dates for linked accounts.

Access to advisers

The dashboard links to Empower's fee-based advisory service. Empower's footnotes say its Personal Strategy advisory service is available to people who invest above a set threshold with the company, and that advisory services are provided by Empower Advisory Group, an SEC-registered investment adviser, with fees based on assets managed as set out in its Form ADV.

How much does Empower cost?

The Empower Personal Dashboard is free. Empower's own FAQ says the dashboard and financial tools are completely free and take a few minutes to set up, and NerdWallet confirms there is no paid version of the tool. Empower makes money from its other businesses, including fee-based investment management, a cash account and retirement accounts, so expect to see offers for those. Signing up requires an email address and a phone number.

Getting started

Empower's FAQ says setup takes a few minutes: you answer some questions, give an email address and phone number, then start linking accounts. Rob Berger explains that you must connect at least one account through the dashboard, after which you can add others manually if a link fails, and that filling in your profile, such as income, savings and a partner's details, matters because the retirement planner draws on it. In settings you can choose daily or weekly email summaries of spending and investments, decide whether investment income counts in cash flow, and switch on the security options described below. Expect to spend a little time each month correcting categories; Rob Berger says the automatic sorting is reasonably accurate but not perfect.

Is Empower safe?

Empower's cybersecurity page lists multifactor authentication, AES-256 encryption with user-specific keys, an annual SOC 2 Type II audit report and policies aligned with NIST security frameworks, and says data is stored in the U.S. Rob Berger describes settings for multifactor authentication, alerts when someone tries to log in from another country and a list of authorized devices you can prune. CNBC Select summarizes the security as data encryption, fraud protection and strong user authentication.

Privacy is a separate question from security. PCMag noted, when the product was Personal Capital, that the company could share some information with marketing partners but said it did not share sensitive financial details such as account numbers or transactions. Empower's current site says it does not share personal information for monetary gain, while acknowledging that its advertising cookies may count as a sale or share under some state laws. Expect marketing: Rob Berger says Empower uses the dashboard as a marketing tool and that he has been contacted by its advisers, who stopped when he asked.

What could be better

  • Basic budgeting. One overall monthly target and no category budgets, which NerdWallet, CNBC Select and Rob Berger all flag.
  • Connection reliability. NerdWallet's summary of Reddit discussion found frustration with account connections, and recent App Store reviews describe login loops and accounts that would not link.
  • Mobile lags the web. NerdWallet preferred the web version, and its Reddit summary found the app less reliable.
  • Sales contact. Linking larger portfolios can bring calls from advisers.
  • Merged logins can confuse. App Store reviewers who also hold an Empower workplace retirement account describe being routed to the wrong dashboard after the apps were combined.
  • No manual transactions. PCMag found you could not enter transactions by hand, so cash spending is hard to track.

Who should choose something else

Choose a dedicated budgeting app if your goal is to plan spending category by category, run zero-based budgets or share a budget with a partner; NerdWallet points to YNAB, EveryDollar and PocketGuard as apps that let you plan spending in specific categories. If you do not want to link bank and investment logins to a company that also sells advice, a spreadsheet or your bank's own tools may be enough. And if most of your money sits at one institution, its own dashboard may already show what you need.

What other reviewers found

  • NerdWallet called Empower more of a net worth tracker than a budget app, liked the free investment and fee analysis tools and noted that you can only set one overall monthly budget.
  • CNBC Select saw Empower as a combined budgeting and investing tool, best for people who want to see income, spending and portfolios together, while noting its budgeting is less complete than rivals.
  • PCMag, reviewing the dashboard when it was still Personal Capital, found it "light on personal finance tools but heavy on investment tracking and retirement planning."
  • Rob Berger, a former securities lawyer who has used the tool for years, ranked the fee analysis and retirement planner as its best features and recommended a separate app for category budgets.

Where they agree: every outlet says Empower's investment tracking and retirement planning are among the best available free, and that its budgeting is basic. Where they differ: on how much the budgeting matters. CNBC Select treats Empower as a credible all-round budgeting app, while NerdWallet and Rob Berger see it as a tracker to pair with a real budgeting tool. What that means for you: use Empower for the big picture of what you own and owe and where retirement savings stand; if day-to-day spending control is the goal, add or choose a category-based budgeting app.

Bottom line: is Empower worth it?

For a free tool, Empower is hard to beat if you have savings and debts spread across several accounts and want one place to watch your net worth and test retirement scenarios. Go in knowing that budgeting is minimal, that connections may need occasional fixing and that Empower will market its paid services to you. Turn on multifactor authentication and login alerts on day one.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Empower Personal Dashboard really free?

Yes. Empower's own FAQ says the dashboard and financial tools are completely free, and NerdWallet confirms there is no paid version of the tool. Empower earns money from separate services such as fee-based investment management and its cash and retirement accounts, so you may receive offers or calls about those, but you do not have to buy anything.

Is Empower good for budgeting?

It covers the basics: automatic categorization, cash flow charts and a single monthly spending target. NerdWallet, CNBC Select and Rob Berger all note that you cannot set separate budgets for each category. Empower works best as a net worth and investment tracker; pair it with a dedicated budgeting app if you want detailed spending plans.

Is it safe to link my accounts to Empower?

Empower says it uses multifactor authentication, AES-256 encryption with user-specific keys, an annual SOC 2 Type II audit and NIST-aligned security policies. You can add login alerts and review authorized devices. As with any aggregator, use a strong unique password, turn on every security option and review linked accounts periodically.

Will Empower advisers call me?

They may. Rob Berger says Empower uses the free dashboard as a marketing tool and that its advisers contacted him, stopping when he asked. Empower's paid advisory service is aimed at people with larger balances, so linking substantial investment accounts makes contact more likely. You can decline, and the dashboard stays free either way.

What happened to Personal Capital?

Personal Capital became part of Empower, and the free dashboard was renamed the Empower Personal Dashboard. Empower told existing users that the dashboard and its features would remain free, that their logins would carry over, and that the Personal Capital app would update to the Empower app automatically.

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