Empower, formerly known as Personal Capital, has established itself as one of the most powerful free financial dashboards available. Combining wealth management services with free financial tracking tools, Empower bridges the gap between DIY investors who want visibility into their finances and those who want professional portfolio management. In 2026, the platform continues to evolve with enhanced features and a growing user base.
Free Financial Dashboard
Empower’s free dashboard is the primary reason most people sign up, and it is genuinely excellent. Link all your financial accounts including bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, mortgages, and retirement plans to get a comprehensive view of your entire financial picture in one place. The dashboard updates automatically, tracks your net worth over time, and categorizes your spending. Unlike basic budgeting apps, Empower gives equal weight to investment tracking and cash flow management.
Investment Checkup Tool
The Investment Checkup is one of Empower’s standout free features. It analyzes your current portfolio allocation across all linked accounts and compares it to an ideal target allocation based on your age and risk tolerance. The tool highlights whether you are overweight or underweight in specific asset classes, shows your exposure to individual sectors, and flags potential issues like excessive fees or concentrated stock positions. This level of analysis typically costs hundreds of dollars from a financial advisor.
Retirement Planner
The Retirement Planner uses Monte Carlo simulations to project whether your current savings rate and investment strategy will support your desired retirement lifestyle. You can adjust variables including retirement age, spending levels, Social Security estimates, and major planned expenses. The tool runs thousands of scenarios to give you a probability-based assessment rather than a single linear projection. It is one of the most sophisticated free retirement planning tools available.
Fee Analyzer
Hidden investment fees can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. Empower’s Fee Analyzer examines all your linked investment accounts and calculates exactly how much you are paying in expense ratios, advisory fees, and other costs. It projects how those fees will compound over time and shows the total impact on your retirement savings. This feature alone can be worth thousands of dollars in savings if it motivates you to switch to lower-cost funds.
Wealth Management Services
For accounts of $100,000 or more, Empower offers professional wealth management with dedicated financial advisors. The service charges an annual advisory fee starting at 0.89 percent for accounts under $1 million, decreasing for larger balances. Advisors build personalized portfolios using individual stocks, ETFs, and smart weighting strategies. The service includes tax optimization through tax-loss harvesting and asset location, retirement income planning, and insurance and estate planning guidance. It is more expensive than robo-advisors but less costly than traditional financial advisors.
Cash Management
Empower’s cash management account offers a competitive yield on uninvested cash held within the platform. While it is not a full-featured bank account, it provides a convenient place to hold emergency funds or cash allocations within your overall portfolio strategy. The account is FDIC insured through partner banks and offers easy transfers to and from linked accounts.
Drawbacks
Empower’s free tools are designed to funnel users toward the paid wealth management service, and you will receive calls from advisors after linking large investment accounts. The budgeting features, while functional, are not as detailed or customizable as dedicated budgeting apps like YNAB. The mobile app can sometimes be slow to sync accounts, and some users report connectivity issues with certain financial institutions. The wealth management minimum of $100,000 puts professional advice out of reach for newer investors.
Who Should Use Empower?
Empower is ideal for people with multiple financial accounts who want a single dashboard to track everything. It is particularly valuable for people with investment portfolios who want to understand their asset allocation, fees, and retirement readiness without paying for a financial advisor. If you have over $100,000 in investable assets and want professional management at a reasonable fee, the paid wealth management service is also worth considering.
The Bottom Line
Empower’s free financial dashboard remains one of the best tools available for understanding your complete financial picture. The investment analysis tools alone make it worth signing up, even if you never use the paid services. For anyone serious about building and tracking wealth in 2026, Empower should be part of your financial toolkit.