Managing personal finances often feels like a fragmented chore. Between checking accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and investment portfolios scattered across multiple institutions, getting a cohesive picture of one’s financial health can be daunting. Empower, formerly known as Personal Capital, addresses this challenge by providing a unified financial tool designed to manage 100% of an individual’s finances from a single dashboard. Having been utilized by long-term users for years, the platform has established itself as a premier destination for automated financial tracking, comprehensive investment analysis, and retirement planning.

Quick Take

Empower delivers a complete view of your finances in one place by automatically syncing checking, savings, credit card, loan, investment accounts such as 401(k)s and IRAs, and even mortgage accounts. This synchronization provides a real-time snapshot of an individual’s net worth and overall financial health. The platform offers core functionalities including cash flow and net worth tracking, investment tracking, and retirement planning. Its specialized investment tracking suite features asset allocation monitoring, investment fee analysis, and an in-depth investment checkup. Best of all, these robust financial dashboard tools are provided completely free of charge.

Market reception for the service has been largely positive, reflected in high user ratings across mobile marketplaces. The application holds a strong 4.8 out of 5 stars rating based on hundreds of thousands of reviews on the Apple App Store, alongside a solid 4 out of 5 stars rating from tens of thousands of reviews on Google Play.

Getting Started with Empower

The initial step in utilizing the platform involves signing up for a free account and subsequently connecting all relevant financial accounts. While Empower is perhaps best known for its advanced investment tracking and portfolio analysis capabilities, users frequently connect traditional bank accounts, credit cards, installment loans, mortgages, and even primary residences. When adding real estate, Empower automatically integrates current property valuations pulled directly from Zillow.

Linking Your Accounts

Users can link virtually any financial account that features online access, requiring only the standard username and password credentials for each respective institution. To initiate the connection, individuals search for the name of their financial institution within the designated link interface accessed via the dashboard. Users have the flexibility to search by the name of the financial institution or by its specific web address URL. In the rare scenario that a particular financial institution cannot be automatically linked, the platform allows users to enter account data manually.

Connecting all available accounts serves a vital purpose. Beyond merely monitoring investments, aggregating accounts enables individuals to track their comprehensive net worth, monthly budgets, daily cash flow, and upcoming bills. While users must connect at least one initial account to begin, subsequent accounts can be added manually. However, failing to link all primary investment and banking accounts diminishes the depth and accuracy of the platform’s advanced investment tracking features.

Settings and Profile

Once accounts are successfully linked, completing the settings and profile configuration is critical for maximizing the utility of the platform. The settings menu grants users full control over automated email subscriptions, allowing them to receive daily or weekly updates summarizing income, spending, and investment performance. Users can also configure preferences regarding whether investment income and dividends should be factored into overall cash flow calculations, and designate specific accounts to exclude from the platform’s automated financial advice.

Security configurations are likewise housed within the settings menu. The platform incorporates vital security features, including multi-factor authentication and automated alerts triggered whenever a login attempt originates from a foreign country. Furthermore, Empower maintains a transparent registry of all authorized devices that have accessed the account, displaying the timestamp of the last recorded sign-on so users can routinely prune outdated devices.

The profile section captures essential demographic and financial data regarding the user and any spouse, including baseline savings, primary income sources, and long-term investment objectives. These foundational inputs power the platform’s sophisticated planning tools, most notably the complimentary retirement planner.

Dashboard

After linking all relevant accounts, Empower aggregates the data into a centralized dashboard designed to deliver an immediate, high-level snapshot of the user’s entire financial ecosystem. The main interface presents key metrics concerning net worth, monthly budgeting parameters, ongoing cash flow, portfolio allocations, and steady progress toward long-term retirement and emergency savings benchmarks.

Net Worth

Tracking net worth remains a cornerstone of financial freedom. While traditional methods involve maintaining meticulous manual spreadsheets, automated tracking through platforms like Empower streamlines the process. By continuously syncing all connected assets and liabilities, the net worth module updates automatically, presenting users with a clear historical trajectory of their financial standing over time.

Empower Banking

The platform’s banking functionalities, particularly the cash flow and budgeting modules, offer robust visibility into daily financial habits. The cash flow tool explicitly highlights monthly investment income generated through interest and dividends, while the budgeting suite categorizes expenditures to illustrate precisely where money is being spent.

Cash Flow

The cash flow feature displays both income and expenses at an individual transaction level, with expenses automatically sorted into standard categories. Users can drill down into specific income or expense streams to examine granular details. Furthermore, the ability to filter reports by specific accounts allows professionals to isolate business checking and credit card transactions or examine pure investment yields, making it simple to review dividends and interest earned across a portfolio.

Budgeting

Rather than functioning as a rigid, traditional zero-based budgeting application, Empower approaches budgeting by establishing an overarching monthly spending goal rather than micro-managing limits across dozens of individual categories. The system automatically imports and categorizes transactions from all linked accounts, allowing users to customize category names and manually adjust transactions as needed. In addition to standard categories, users can apply custom tags to transactions, enabling targeted tracking for specific projects or expenses without requiring the creation of permanent standalone categories.

Bills

By linking credit cards, mortgages, and various installment loans, the platform’s bills feature monitors upcoming due dates across connected accounts. This automated tracking helps individuals avoid missed or late payments while assisting with short-term financial planning throughout the month.

Empower Investing

Investment management represents the platform’s core strength. Once retirement and taxable accounts are connected, Empower tracks investments automatically, updating market prices throughout the trading day and keeping close tabs on underlying mutual fund expenses. It also evaluates asset allocation and provides a suite of analytical tools designed to assess portfolio health.

Holdings

The holdings overview delivers comprehensive data for every individual asset owned, detailing performance metrics, cost bases, and current valuations. This transparency allows investors to monitor market fluctuations and evaluate portfolio resilience across varying economic cycles, including periods of heightened market volatility.

Allocation

Empower evaluates existing investments and reports on overall stock and bond allocations, breaking down asset classes further into domestic and international equities, fixed income, and alternative investments. An interactive graphical interface allows users to explore the specific composition of each asset class with a single click. Notably, the asset allocation tool accounts for cash reserves held within individual money market accounts as well as uninvested cash positions embedded inside mutual funds.

Tracking Bitcoin and Crypto

Addressing the growing prominence of digital assets, Empower incorporates tracking capabilities for popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Crucially, investors are not required to connect their private crypto wallets or surrender sensitive security credentials. Instead, users can establish manual accounts by simply entering the token symbol, exchange, and holding amount. The platform is capable of tracking thousands of digital tokens across hundreds of global exchanges.

Empower Planning

While aggregating accounts provides valuable perspective, the platform’s dedicated planning tools elevate its utility into a comprehensive financial advisory suite.

Retirement Planner

The automated retirement planner leverages data from all connected investment accounts to evaluate retirement readiness through a robust yet accessible interface. The calculator projects future financial scenarios based on current savings rates, asset allocations, and projected retirement timelines. Users can construct multiple hypothetical scenarios and compare them side-by-side—testing variables such as traditional versus early retirement dates, the inclusion or exclusion of projected Social Security benefits, adjusted tax assumptions, inflation rates, and varying life expectancies.

Savings Planner

The savings planner integrates three distinct focus areas: retirement savings, emergency fund savings, and debt paydown. The retirement savings planner tracks annual contributions made to tax-advantaged accounts like 401(k)s and IRAs alongside taxable brokerage accounts, synchronizing directly with the primary retirement planner. The emergency fund planner aggregates linked bank accounts and recommends maintaining three to six months’ worth of expenses based on established budget parameters. Meanwhile, the debt paydown planner monitors liabilities such as auto loans, mortgages, and personal loans, alongside credit card balances that carry rolling interest charges.

Retirement Fee Analyzer

Investment fees exert a compounding drag on wealth over decades, making fee analysis a critical component of long-term financial health. Even seemingly nominal advisory or mutual fund fees can siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars from a portfolio over time. Empower calculates a weighted average expense ratio across all linked accounts, translating those basis points into projected dollar amounts lost to fees over future years, thereby underscoring the tangible impact of investment costs.

Investment Fee Checkup

The investment checkup tool evaluates current asset allocations against a model portfolio recommended by Empower based on the user’s age, time horizon, and risk tolerance. The platform contrasts actual holdings with historical performance projections, risk metrics, and target asset classes, providing clear guidance on which specific sectors require rebalancing.

Empower FAQs

Is Empower safe?

Empower utilizes AES-256 data encryption supported by multi-layer key management, which includes rotating user-specific cryptographic keys and salts. Internal personnel do not have access to user credentials, and the platform enforces strict device authentication protocols requiring identity confirmation via phone call, email, or text message before authorizing new devices.

Is Empower really free?

Yes. The core financial dashboard tools and tracking software are provided completely free of charge, though optional advisory services involve separate fee structures.

Will Empower call me?

Because the financial dashboard serves as a client acquisition tool for the firm’s wealth management services, representatives may initiate contact with users. However, users who prefer not to receive calls can easily request to be removed from outreach lists, a preference the company honors.

Do I have to invest with Empower to use the dashboard?

No. Users can utilize the entire suite of dashboard, budgeting, and tracking tools without engaging the firm’s paid investment advisory services.

How much does Empower cost?

The financial dashboard and self-directed planning tools are entirely free. For individuals who elect to use the optional professional investment advisory services, advisory fees begin at 0.89% annually for the first $1 million under management and scale downward to 0.49% for assets exceeding $10 million.