Empower (formerly Personal Capital) is probably the most frequently recommended free net worth tracker in any personal finance forum. It has genuine fans.
It also has real tradeoffs that most reviews gloss over, because most reviews have affiliate links.
Here's the honest version.
What Is Empower?
Empower acquired Personal Capital in 2020 for $825 million. The consumer-facing dashboard product kept the same functionality under the Empower brand. It syncs your financial accounts, shows your net worth, analyzes your investments, and projects your retirement readiness — all for free.
That "free" is worth unpacking, because not all acquisitions end the same way.
Compare it to what happened with Mint. Intuit acquired Mint in 2009 for ~$170 million. Mint was one of the most popular personal finance apps in the country — millions of connected accounts, genuine user loyalty. But Intuit's core business is TurboTax and QuickBooks. Mint never fit cleanly. The ad-based revenue model was weak, the product referral fees were modest, and Mint kept running as a loss-leader with no real conversion engine attached to it. In 2024, Intuit shut Mint down entirely. Fifteen years of user data, gone. Millions of users scrambling for alternatives overnight.
More than two years later, friends and followers still frequently mention that they miss Mint.
Empower is a somewhat different situation, but there are parallels. Empower's core business is managed wealth services — investment management starting around $100k minimum, at approximately 0.89% AUM per year. That fee on a $500k portfolio is $4,450 annually. On a $1M portfolio, $8,900. The math on a single conversion is substantial.
A net worth tracker that attracts users with $100k–$1M+ portfolios, monitors their account growth in real time, and systematically identifies them as prospects is not a charitable offering. It's a client acquisition machine. The free dashboard exists to attract and convert users into managed clients. You're the lead; the dashboard is the funnel.
This is precisely why Empower, unlike Mint, will likely remain free and functional: the conversion rate justifies the infrastructure cost. The product has a purpose. Personal Capital is the top of Empower's sales pipeline.
Understanding this doesn't make the free product bad. It means understanding what you're using and why it's free. And what that may entail.
What Empower Actually Does Well
Net worth tracking across all accounts
Empower connects to banks, brokerages, credit unions, loan servicers, and credit card companies — hundreds of institutions — via Plaid and direct data feeds. Once connected, you get a real-time view of your total assets and liabilities in one place.
This is genuinely useful if your financial life spans multiple institutions. Most people with significant savings have at least 3–5 accounts: a checking account, a high-yield savings account, a 401(k) through an employer, a Roth IRA, and possibly a taxable brokerage. Seeing all of that in one place without manual entry is a real convenience.
The fee analyzer
This is probably Empower's single most valuable free feature and the one most people underuse.
The fee analyzer looks at every mutual fund and ETF in your connected investment accounts and calculates how much you're paying in expense ratios — then projects what those fees cost you over your investment lifetime.
A 1% expense ratio on a $100k portfolio costs you roughly $1,000 per year directly — and substantially more in foregone compound growth over decades. Most people in employer 401(k) plans are paying more than they realize. Empower shows you exactly what it is and flags the high-fee funds.
This feature alone is worth connecting your accounts for, even if you don't use the rest of the dashboard.
Investment analysis and asset allocation
Empower shows your portfolio allocation across all connected accounts — equities, bonds, international, alternatives — and compares it to a suggested allocation based on your stated risk tolerance and time horizon. The analysis is not groundbreaking, but it's useful for seeing your full picture rather than managing each account in isolation.
Retirement planner
The retirement planning tool asks your income, savings rate, current savings, and target retirement age — then runs projections under different scenarios. It's more sophisticated than most free tools and gives you a sense of whether you're on track.
It's not a replacement for a serious retirement planning tool like Projection Lab, but for a free sanity check, it's solid.
The Real Tradeoffs
You're linking your bank accounts
Empower uses Plaid as its primary aggregation layer. Plaid holds your account credentials and maintains ongoing read access to your financial institutions. This isn't unique to Empower — it's how essentially all financial aggregation works — but it's worth naming clearly.
You are giving a third party continuous read access to your bank, brokerage, and loan accounts. Empower and Plaid have strong security practices. There hasn't been a major breach. The risk is real but statistical.
The more relevant concern for most people isn't breach risk — it's data usage. Empower's privacy policy allows them to use aggregated (de-identified) financial data for business purposes. Your specific account data isn't sold, but your behavioral patterns within the platform inform their sales targeting.
The upsell is persistent and by design
Once you connect your accounts, you'll receive emails and in-app prompts about Empower's managed wealth services. If your connected portfolio exceeds $100k, expect outreach from an Empower financial advisor — by phone, not just email.
This isn't a bug or an aggressive sales team operating outside the product's intent. It's the entire point. Empower knows your net worth, your asset allocation, your account balances at every institution, and roughly when you crossed the $100k threshold. They have more information about your financial picture than any cold-lead list could provide. The outreach is targeted because the data makes it targeted.
You can unsubscribe from emails and decline calls without losing access to the free dashboard. But the product will keep surfacing wealth management prompts in the UI as long as you're using it. That's the exchange. Use the tool with that understanding.
No crypto or alternative asset support to speak of
If you hold Bitcoin, own real estate, have equity in a private company, or hold any significant asset that isn't a standard bank or brokerage account, Empower can't pull it in automatically. You can add manual accounts, but the interface for doing so is clunky and doesn't update automatically.
For portfolios that include Bitcoin, business equity, or real estate, this is a meaningful gap.
The interface can feel overwhelming early on
Empower is built for someone who already has a complex financial picture and wants to manage it in one place. If you're in the early stages of building wealth — fewer accounts, smaller balances, more focused on building habits than analyzing allocations — the dashboard can feel like more than you need.
Who Should Use Empower
Use Empower if:
- You have $100k+ across multiple financial institutions and want one consolidated view
- You hold primarily traditional assets (bank accounts, index funds, 401k, Roth IRA) that connect cleanly via Plaid
- You want to run the fee analyzer on your 401(k) — even once
- You're comfortable with the bank-sync model and its tradeoffs
Don't use Empower if:
- You're not comfortable linking bank accounts to a third-party platform
- A significant portion of your assets is in Bitcoin, real estate, or private equity
- You're in the early wealth-building phase and want something simpler and more milestone-focused
- You want to track progress against specific wealth milestones rather than just see a balance sheet
Alternatives Worth Knowing
Wealth Potion — Free net worth tracker at app.wealthpotion.com. No bank link, no Plaid. You enter balances manually and track progress against milestones ($10k, $100k, $250k invested). Pairs with a Financial Freedom Calculator. Built for people in active wealth-building mode who want a progress frame, not just a balance aggregation.
Stifel Wealth Tracker — Only relevant if you're already a Stifel brokerage client. What it is and who it's for.
Projection Lab — Purpose-built for detailed FIRE planning and retirement projection. More sophisticated than Empower's planner but requires more setup. Paid product.
Spreadsheet — Still underrated. Full control, full privacy, zero friction. No visualization or milestone tracking, but nothing wrong with it if you'll maintain it.
FAQ
Is Empower actually free? The dashboard is free, yes. Empower's business is managed wealth services at ~0.89% AUM. The free tier exists to generate leads for that product. You can use it indefinitely without paying anything.
Is Empower safe to connect bank accounts to? Plaid — Empower's aggregation layer — is used by thousands of financial apps and has strong security practices. It hasn't had a major breach. The security risk is real but low in practice. The bigger consideration for most people is data usage policy and comfort with ongoing third-party account access.
Is Empower better than Mint was? They were solving different problems. Mint was primarily a spending tracker — transaction categorization, budget monitoring, where did the money go. Empower has always been net worth and investment analysis. If you want granular spending tracking, Empower isn't the right Mint replacement — Monarch Money or YNAB is.
What Empower does have that Mint never did: a clear reason to stay free. Mint got shut down in 2024 because Intuit — a tax and accounting software company — couldn't find a real business model for it after 15 years of trying. Empower has no such problem. The managed wealth service gives the free dashboard a permanent reason to exist. For net worth and investment use cases, Empower was better than Mint and, unlike Mint, it's not going anywhere.
Does Empower work with Bitcoin or crypto? Poorly. Manual accounts can be added, but there's no automatic price-tracking for Bitcoin holdings, and the interface for alternative assets is underdeveloped. For portfolios with significant Bitcoin or real estate, a manual tracker like Wealth Potion handles these more naturally.
Will I get calls from Empower's advisors? Almost certainly, if your connected portfolio is over $100k. They'll email and possibly call. You can unsubscribe from emails and decline calls without losing access to the free dashboard.
The Bottom Line
Empower is a genuinely good free product for a specific user: someone with a multi-institution traditional portfolio who wants consolidated visibility and doesn't mind the bank-sync model.
The fee analyzer alone is worth signing up for if you have employer-sponsored retirement accounts — run it once, see what you're actually paying, then keep the account or not.
For active wealth builders who want milestone-based progress tracking without bank access — or who hold Bitcoin, real estate, or other non-standard assets — Wealth Potion is the better fit.
Track your net worth against real milestones, no bank link required — Wealth Potion is free to join.