The 6 Best Personal Capital Alternatives in 2026 (Compared)
Personal Capital no longer exists under that name. It became Empower, and the free app is now called Empower Personal Dashboard. If you had a Personal Capital account, Empower's help center says you sign in at empower.com/epw and pick "Free financial tools" to reach your old dashboard. If the move has you looking around, this guide compares six Personal Capital (Empower) alternatives, with what each one charges and where each one falls short.
Full disclosure: we build FYN, one of the apps on this list. We have tried to be fair, and for some people the honest answer is to stay on Empower or pick a different app. For the side-by-side detail, see our FYN vs Empower comparison.
What Empower Personal Dashboard does well, and why people leave
The dashboard is free. It puts checking, savings, credit cards, loans, mortgages, investments, IRAs and 401(k)s into one net-worth view. Its Retirement Planner lets you test scenarios, and portfolio analysis shows your risk level and allocation. An optional daily email lists every transaction from the last 24 hours, and bill reminders cover linked cards, loans and mortgages. For a free net-worth and retirement view, that is a lot.
The gaps are mostly on the spending side. Budgeting is one monthly total: Empower's help center says it is not possible to set specific budgeting goals at this time. You can create at most 30 custom transaction categories. Investment performance and alternate Retirement Planner scenarios are available only on the website, not the iPad app. And the free dashboard sits alongside Empower's fee-based advisory service, Personal Strategy, which charges 0.89% a year on $100,000 to $999,999 managed, and you can enroll from the dashboard.
So the first question is which half of Empower you used. If it was net worth and retirement, you want an app with real investment tracking. If it was spending, you want a proper budget. The apps below lean one way or the other.
1. FYN: for everyday spending, receipts and AI access
FYN is a spending-first app. It categorizes every transaction itself and flags only the ones it might have gotten wrong, so there is no review queue. Your budget is built from your last 60 days of spending instead of a single monthly total. Receipt scanning pulls out line items, and you can forward email receipts too. On iPhone and Android, Apple Pay and Google Wallet purchases are logged as you pay.
When FYN sees a double charge, it asks the store first. On Pro, it drafts the dispute letter and tracks the bank's deadlines. Proactive alerts tell you when something looks off. You can ask questions in Ask FYN, the in-app AI chat, or connect the read-only MCP connector to Claude, ChatGPT (Plus and up) or Grok. You can revoke any app, and FYN keeps a log of what each AI app asked.
Pricing: a Free plan; Pro is $9.99/month and adds bank sync via Plaid (up to 15 accounts), price history from your receipts and dispute letters. See pricing. Runs on iPhone, Android and web. Honest limitation: FYN has no investment analysis to speak of, no credit score and no bill negotiation. If you used Personal Capital for your portfolio and retirement planning, FYN does not replace that, and Monarch or Simplifi below are stronger choices for investments.
2. Monarch Money: for planning, households and investments
Monarch is a full household planner. Free household members each get their own login and role. It connects through three aggregators (Plaid, MX and Finicity), fills your budget from a six-month average, and includes an AI assistant, AI insights and a weekly recap. Receipt scanning captures line items, and you can forward receipt emails. Monarch Plus adds forecasting and investment analysis, which makes it the closest match on this list for people who want Personal Capital's investment side plus a real budget. It also has an official MCP connector for Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini CLI and Cursor.
Pricing: Core is $14.99/month or $99.99/year; Plus is $199.99/year. Runs on iPhone, Android and web. Honest limitation: there is no free plan, and the investment analysis is on the pricier Plus tier. See FYN vs Monarch Money.
3. Quicken Simplifi: for a spending plan with investment tracking
Simplifi builds a Spending Plan for you: monthly income minus bills and subscriptions, updated as you spend. Projected cash flow forecasts your future balances. For ex-Personal Capital users, the important part is investment tracking with cost basis, performance analysis and real-time quotes. It also offers a free VantageScore 3.0 credit score for US residents, sharing with a partner or a financial advisor, and connections to more than 14,000 financial institutions on web, iPhone and Android.
Pricing: $6.99/month billed annually ($83.88/year); new members get $3.99/month for the first year. Honest limitation: there is no free plan, and the $3.99 rate is a first-year offer, with renewals at the then-current rate. Receipts are image attachments rather than line items. See FYN vs Quicken Simplifi.
4. Copilot Money: for a polished Apple experience
Copilot has polished iPhone, iPad, Mac and web apps, AI categorization and budget Rebalance suggestions. Alerts cover low balances, big expenses and card utilization, and there is a Monday recap. It has direct links for Fidelity, Capital One, Apple Card and Coinbase, and it itemizes Amazon orders on Apple devices.
Pricing: $13/month or $95/year, with a one-month trial and no free plan. Honest limitation: there is no Android app, and its Money Assistant and MCP connector are announced but still on a waitlist. See FYN vs Copilot.
5. YNAB: for hands-on, give-every-dollar-a-job budgeting
YNAB is the opposite of Empower's one-number budget. Its method has you give every dollar a job, with Targets and Auto-Assign (including Average Spent) for planned spending. YNAB Together puts up to six people on one subscription, each with a login. Direct Import works in North America and 18 European countries, on iPhone, Android, web and Apple Watch.
Pricing: $14.99/month or $109/year, after a 34-day free trial with no card; college students get a free year. Honest limitation: transactions are categorized by payee and you approve them, so it takes regular upkeep. It does not track investments in the way Empower does, and its ChatGPT app can't see your plan. See FYN vs YNAB.
6. PocketGuard: for a simple safe-to-spend number
PocketGuard's Leftover gives a near real-time figure of what is safe to spend after bills and goals. It supports zero-based, envelope, 50/30/20 and custom budgets with rollovers, includes a debt payoff planner with avalanche and snowball strategies, and Plus connects unlimited bank accounts using Plaid and Finicity. It runs on web, iPhone, Apple Watch and Android.
Pricing: $12.99/month, $74.99/year or $149.99 lifetime, after a 7-day trial. Honest limitation: there is no free plan, and bill lowering runs through partner Billshark, which PocketGuard says keeps roughly 40% of the first year's savings. See FYN vs PocketGuard.
Which Personal Capital alternative should you pick?
You mainly used Personal Capital for investments and retirement: staying on the free Empower dashboard is a reasonable answer. If you want to leave, Quicken Simplifi (investment tracking with cost basis and real-time quotes) or Monarch Plus (forecasting and investment analysis) are the strongest options here. FYN is not the right pick for this.
You want a real budget instead of one monthly total: YNAB if you want to assign every dollar yourself, Simplifi if you want a Spending Plan built from income and bills, PocketGuard if one safe-to-spend number is enough. You share finances with a partner: Monarch, YNAB Together or Simplifi's partner sharing. You are all-in on Apple devices: Copilot.
You want spending handled for you, with receipts and AI: FYN. It categorizes every transaction, builds the budget from your last 60 days, keeps receipt line items, follows up on double charges, and lets Claude, ChatGPT or Grok read your data read-only. You can also run it next to Empower: the dashboard for net worth and retirement, FYN for everyday spending. The Free plan is enough to see if it fits. Try FYN free.