PockitaPockita
Empower alternatives

Empower alternatives. For actual budgeting.

By The Pockita teamUpdated Prices checked

Written by the team that makes Pockita, one of the picks below. Where another app is the better fit, we say so.

The short answer

Empower’s free dashboard is strong on investments and net worth but light on day-to-day budgeting. If budgeting is what you need, the switch depends on how much you want automated. Full sync plus investments: Monarch Money or Copilot Money. Sync for less: Quicken Simplifi. Quick phone logging with no bank connection: Pockita.

Try Pockita free for 7 days, then $9.99 a month. Or pay $39.99 once for lifetime access.

Why people look for an Empower alternative

Empower Personal Dashboard (formerly Personal Capital) is built around net worth and investments, and its budgeting is basic. Budgeting & Cash Flow is one of the eight tools Empower lists. NerdWallet calls the dashboard more of a net worth tracker than a budget app, and Rob Berger says you can set an overall monthly spending goal but not goals by category. Empower announced a new Budgeting tool in June 2026, and these reviews may not reflect it.

Empower also sells paid advice, and the free dashboard promotes it. Signing up requires a mobile number and has you agree to marketing calls and texts, which you can opt out of. The advisory fee is a tiered percentage of the assets Empower manages. Rob Berger writes that Empower uses the dashboard as a marketing tool, though it honored his request not to be called, and The Penny Hoarder says some users find the upsell pushy.

The tools are built around linked accounts. Empower says the more accounts you connect, the more powerful its tools are, and its help center says it links only US financial institutions and needs a valid US phone number to sign up. By hand, you can add transactions to cash and credit card accounts one at a time, but not to investment or manual accounts.

What Empower does well

Empower is good at what it is built for, and plenty of people should stay. If its free net worth and investment tools are why you use it, most alternatives will feel like a step down, and none of the four picks is free. Because Empower costs nothing, you can also keep it and add a budgeting app beside it.

  • Net worth tracking across bank, card, loan, mortgage and investment accounts, free
  • Portfolio analysis and a retirement planner, also free
  • Spending categorized automatically, next to net worth and investments

Empower and the alternatives at a glance

US list prices, checked 2026-10-11
Feature
Empower
Pockita
Monarch Money
Copilot Money
Quicken Simplifi
Monthly priceFree dashboard$9.99$14.99$13Not sold monthly on Quicken’s site
Pay upfrontNothing to pay$39.99 once (lifetime)$99.99 / year ($8.33 / mo)$95 / year ($7.92 / mo)$83.88 / year ($6.99 / mo)
Free planYes, the whole Personal Dashboard is freeNoNoNoNo
Free trialNot needed (free)7 days (monthly plan)7 days1 monthNone
Bank syncYesNo, manual entryYesYesYes
PlatformsiPhone, Android, WebiPhone, AndroidiPhone, Android, WebiPhone, Mac, WebiPhone, Android, Web
Shared budget, separate loginsNoNoYesNoYes
Speak a purchase, AI fills it inNoYesNoNoNo
AI featuresNone listedVoice add, chat, monthly reportAI assistantAI categorization, assistant (beta)AI chat
Budgeting styleNet worth and investment dashboardMonthly category budgetsTracking with flexible budgetsAutomatic tracking with smart categoriesSpending plan from income and bills

The picks

Pockita

Pick it if you want to log spending in seconds on your phone and never connect a bank.

Pockita is the pick if budgeting is what you came for and you would rather not link accounts. You set a monthly budget for each category, log spending by voice, receipt or a few taps, and get alerts as a budget nears its limit. It never connects to a bank, so there is no bank login to hand over, and you choose the currency you budget in, where Empower links only US institutions. You give up what Empower does best: net worth and investment tracking, retirement planning and automatic sync. There is also no free plan, no shared budgets, no web version and no importing your Empower data. Pockita is $9.99 a month after a 7-day free trial, or $39.99 once for lifetime access.

Monarch Money

Pick it if you want every account synced into one dashboard you share with a partner.

Monarch is the closest all-round match: it syncs your accounts and shows investments next to spending. Its help center describes portfolio performance, asset allocation and net worth from connected accounts and manual holdings. Monarch lets you choose category budgets or flex budgets (the default). Forecasting, fund analysis and gains and losses are on Plus, a higher tier billed annually that is available on desktop for now. It works on iPhone, Android and the web. It costs $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year after a 7-day free trial, and has no free plan.

Copilot Money

Pick it if everyone in your household uses Apple devices and you want automatic tracking with a polished design.

Copilot is the polished pick if you use Apple devices: it runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web, builds budgets that adapt to how you spend, and tracks investments with intra-day updates and market index benchmarks. Like Empower it works with US accounts only, and unlike Empower it has no Android app. It costs $13 a month or $95 a year after a 1-month free trial, and has no free plan.

Quicken Simplifi

Pick it if you want automatic bank sync at a low yearly price.

Simplifi keeps bank sync and investments for less: $83.88 a year, billed yearly on Quicken’s site, against $95 for Copilot and $99.99 for Monarch. Its product page lists a portfolio view with cost basis, performance analysis and real-time quotes, and a retirement planner. The spending plan starts from your income and subtracts your bills and subscriptions. It works on iPhone, Android and the web, and its help center lists Personal Capital (Empower) as a source for importing a transactions CSV file on the web app. There is no free plan and no free trial, but Quicken refunds a subscription bought directly from it within 30 days.

Try Pockita free for 7 days.

Log spending by voice in seconds, with no bank connection and every feature included.

Start your 7-day free trial

$9.99 / month, cancel anytime. Or $39.99 once, forever.

Switching from Empower to Pockita

  1. Export your transactions from Empower, so you keep a record. On the web, open Overview, then Transactions, and click the CSV button next to the Search transactions box. The file covers the date range and account types you have selected. On iPhone you can also export your Net Worth page as a PDF. Pockita starts fresh rather than importing it, so the file is only your own copy.
  2. Decide what to keep. Empower is free and Pockita does not track investments or your full net worth, so you can keep Empower for those and use Pockita for day-to-day spending. Then pick a start date, ideally the first of a month, and log forward from there.
  3. Set monthly limits for the 8 to 15 categories you actually look at, and add recurring transactions such as rent and subscriptions yourself. Pockita does not connect to a bank, so you log purchases by voice, receipt or a few taps.
  4. Run both apps for a week and compare the totals. Empower is free, so there is no subscription to cancel. If you want the dashboard gone, log in to Empower and submit a support ticket asking it to delete the dashboard, and its support team will confirm once it has been removed. To change which emails Empower sends, open Settings and edit the Empower Communications section.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best Empower alternative for budgeting?

It depends on how much you want automated. For full sync plus investments, Monarch Money or Copilot Money. For sync for less, Quicken Simplifi, billed yearly on Quicken’s site. For quick phone logging with no bank connection, Pockita, which has no bank sync, no investment tracking, no shared budgets and no web version. Staying can be the better call: Empower is free, so you can keep it for net worth and investments and add a budgeting app beside it. Reviews differ on how far Empower’s own budgets go. NerdWallet and Rob Berger describe one overall monthly target, The Penny Hoarder says you can set monthly category budgets but calls the layer less granular than YNAB or Monarch, and Empower’s help article on its Budgeting Widget says that “at this time it is not possible to set specific budgeting goals”. Monarch Money offers category budgeting or flex budgeting.

Is there a free alternative to Empower?

Empower itself is free: it says the dashboard and its financial tools cost nothing. None of the four picks is free. Pockita is $9.99 a month after a 7-day free trial, or $39.99 once for lifetime access. Monarch Money is $14.99 a month or $99.99 a year after a 7-day free trial, Copilot Money is $13 a month or $95 a year after a 1-month free trial, and Quicken Simplifi is $83.88 a year, billed yearly on Quicken’s site, with no free trial. Free budgeting apps exist if you will enter transactions by hand: EveryDollar has a free version with manual entry, and Goodbudget has a free plan with 20 envelopes, 1 account and 2 devices. Bank sync is a paid feature on both. For net worth and investments, The Penny Hoarder calls Empower the top free option for people who want their bank and investment accounts in one view.

Which Empower alternative tracks investments too?

Three of the four. Monarch Money shows portfolio performance, asset allocation and net worth from connected accounts and manual holdings, and keeps forecasting, fund analysis and gains and losses for Plus, a higher tier billed annually that is available on desktop for now. Copilot Money tracks investments with intra-day updates and market index benchmarks. Quicken Simplifi lists a portfolio view with cost basis, performance analysis and real-time quotes, plus a retirement planner. Pockita does not track investments. Empower’s portfolio analysis and retirement planner are free, and none of the four picks is free, so if those tools are why you use Empower, keeping it is a fair option.

Is there an Empower alternative that does not need my bank login?

Pockita never connects to a bank, so there is no bank login to hand over: you add spending by voice, receipt or a few taps. Empower is built around linked accounts. It links only US financial institutions and needs a US phone number to sign up, you can add transactions by hand only to cash and credit card accounts, one at a time, and a manual account holds a value that you update yourself. Monarch Money and Quicken Simplifi connect to your banks too, but both also let you add accounts by hand. Copilot Money needs at least one linked bank account, though it also allows manual accounts. Pockita also lets you choose the currency you budget in, which matters if you are outside the US.

Why do people leave Empower?

Three reasons come up. Its budgeting is basic next to dedicated apps: NerdWallet and Rob Berger describe one overall monthly target rather than limits for each category, though The Penny Hoarder says you can set monthly category budgets. Empower announced a new Budgeting tool in June 2026, and these reviews may not reflect it. The free dashboard is also a way into paid advice: signing up means agreeing to marketing calls and texts, which you can opt out of, and The Penny Hoarder says some users find the upsell pushy. And it runs on linked accounts, US ones only. You do not have to choose: because Empower is free, you can keep it for net worth and investments and add a budgeting app beside it.

Sources

Leaving Empower? Start with the calm one.

Log spending by voice in seconds, with no bank connection and every feature included.

Start your 7-day free trial

$9.99 / month, cancel anytime. Or $39.99 once, forever.