Empower (Private Capital) Evaluate: Execs And Cons

Empower (beforehand generally known as Private Capital) has been a number one cash administration instrument for the previous couple of years. They provide nice spending and funding monitoring, all without cost. In addition they just lately launched a web based financial savings account with a compelling yield.

My private love affair with Mint is now over.  It is nonetheless an important free cash administration instrument, however I’ve at all times had a adverse view about how Mint dealt with investments and now they shutting down anyway. It simply did not do sufficient for my investments to essentially assist me in my private funds.  nd since investing is such a giant a part of my funds, I at all times relied on Quicken as an alternative.

However in my continued quest to maneuver my funds to the cloud and searching for Quicken alternate options, I’ve discovered a free instrument that basically nails every part Mint does, PLUS investments.  It is known as Empower. 

See why we like this instrument in our Empower overview. Plus, find out about their upsells and their new compelling money account as properly. And see how they evaluate to the opposite prime cash and monetary tracker apps on the market.

What Is Empower?

Empower is each a budgeting app and monetary monitoring instrument, in addition to an funding supervisor. They’re most well-known for his or her monetary dashboard – the place you possibly can observe your spending, price range, monitor your funding portfolio, and extra. The very best half is that this instrument is presently free.

They’re additionally knowledgeable funding supervisor, the place you possibly can meet with a monetary planner and permit them to handle your portfolio for a charge. They successfully use their free dashboard as a lead generator for his or her funding administration providers.

Empower (which as beforehand generally known as Private Capital) was based in 2010, and was acquired by Empower Retirement in July 2020.

In 2023, Private Capital was rebranded as Empower. 

Empower was additionally named the most effective budgeting apps of 2025!

What Empower Has

The explanation I beloved Mint for thus lengthy is as a result of it mechanically updates and categorizes your transactions for you. You at all times get an up-to-date image of your spending, and you’ll see the place your cash goes.

Empower covers all of the bases.  Whenever you log-in, you are greeted with a dashboard that’s similar to Mint.  On the left facet, you possibly can see all of your accounts listed, in addition to your complete internet price on the prime.  Empower connects with all the identical banks and establishments as Mint, and in addition enables you to add asset accounts, like your home.  Then, you get to see a dashboard that features the next:

A foundation of your spending:

In addition they have an summary of how your portfolio is performing versus the whole market:

In addition they have a useful asset allocation instrument:

In addition they have useful budgeting and spending instruments. You possibly can see your money move every month, in addition to a breakdown of your spending classes.

You could find this within the “Budgeting” tab.

Associated: The Greatest Portfolio Evaluation Instruments

Investing Instruments

The very best a part of Empower are the investing instruments, that are easy, but way more highly effective than what Mint was providing.  Empower does funding administration proper, however specializing in a number of staple items:

• The Worth of Your Portfolio
• The Efficiency of Your Portfolio (as a complete and of every particular person funding)
• An Overview of Your Holdings
• An Evaluation of Your Allocation
• Good Transaction Administration

What at all times pissed off me about Mint (and typically Quicken) was the transaction administration.  To date, I’ve discovered Empower to be wonderful at appropriately managing all imported transactions from my brokerages.  For one asset, they did not get the image (as a result of reality it’s in a switch firm, not a brokerage), however I used to be manually in a position to enter the image.

How Does Empower Evaluate For Budgeting And Web Price Monitoring?

Empower provides each their free dashboard and internet price monitoring, as properly investing recommendation. We’ll cowl the investing recommendation under, however since most individuals merely use their free dashboard, we thought we would evaluate simply the dashboard first.

Empower’s dashboard is a good choice for these seeking to observe each spending and investing. Mint was an in depth runner up till it shutdown, in addition to Quicken (nevertheless, Quicken is a paid product). One other runner up is Monarch, which has been creating a variety of nice instruments to compete – however it’s additionally paid. YNAB is one other very fashionable choice, however it’s totally different in its method. See our full YNAB vs. Empower comparability right here.

For those who’re taking a look at merely internet price monitoring, Kubera is a strong choice.

The difficulty with “free” is that these corporations can’t maintain all the prices of operating such a software program with connections to the assorted platforms. It prices roughly $0.005 per 30 days, per account, for each connection. Contemplating somebody like myself has upwards of 20 connections (banks and brokerages), that is $0.10 per 30 days. Would not sound like a lot, however it could add up actually quick!

Therefore, Empower is without doubt one of the final of the free instruments – since you are literally the product. They are going to attempt to promote you on funding administration (see under).

For those who’re merely seeking to evaluate their free dashboard, listed here are among the choices. See the full checklist of Mint Options right here.

Investing Recommendation

To me, it’s at all times vital to understand how an organization providing a free service makes cash.  And Empower makes cash by selling their monetary advisers that will help you along with your portfolio. Their objective is to finally get you as an asset administration consumer – and when you cross $100,000 in belongings, you possibly can count on their advisors to start calling you and inspiring you to satisfy with them to overview your portfolio.

For those who determine to work with them, they do cost (fairly a bit) to handle your portfolio. Whereas their charges are all inclusive, you possibly can count on to start out paying 0.89% AUM (assets-under-management) you probably have lower than $1,000,000 invested with them.

They really name you totally different ranges primarily based on how a lot you’ve got invested:

• $100,000 to $200,000: Funding Providers Shopper
• $200,000 to $999,999: Wealth Administration Shopper
• Over $1,000,000: Personal Shopper

As you’ve got extra funds invested, your AUM goes down. When you hit “Personal Shopper” standing, you will begin saving just a little in AUM charges. Nevertheless, it’s tiered:

How Does Empower Wealth Administration Evaluate?

Truthfully, Empower’s Wealth Administration providers are dearer than different corporations. Whereas they’ve an important free dashboard, they funding providers are costly than different corporations. They are not a robo-advisor, however they’re additionally dearer than different companies who do direct human-assisted investing.

This is how they evaluate to a few of their principal opponents.

Empower Money

Empower just lately introduced Empower Money. It is a money administration account, and it acts like a excessive yield financial savings account. 

The Empower Money account yields 3.00 APY – which is a really compelling provide. The account can be FDIC insured, and since it is a money administration account, there are not any transaction limits on deposits or withdrawals. 

For those who’re a Empower Advisory consumer, you really can earn a better charge (0.10% extra) – 3.10% APY. 

Why Ought to You Belief Us?

I’ve deep expertise with utilizing “Private Monetary Managers” or PFMs like Empower. I began utilizing Quicken within the early 2000s to trace my private funds, and since then, I’ve used or examined virtually each budgeting app and funding monitoring app within the market.

I’ve spent over a whole lot of hours utilizing Empower for each testing and monitoring my very own funds – utilizing each the net model and app model on my iPhone.

Mix my private expertise with that of our wonderful crew of editors and testers, and we’ve over 100 years of mixed expertise utilizing, reviewing, and testing budgeting apps and instruments!

Who Is This For And Is It Price It?

Do not simply take my phrase for it – see for your self.  Identical to Mint, Empower is free.  It solely takes a matter of minutes to enter your financial institution logins and get your information dwell.  Empower even advertises it should take simply 29 seconds you probably have one account so as to add.

For those who’re not offered on Empower, try these Mint Options which may give you the results you want.

Spend 29 seconds proper now and take a look at Empower, after which go away your ideas under!  I might love to listen to what you consider this product.