Is Empower's Retirement Planner really free?

Yes. Empower's official tools page says the Personal Dashboard and financial tools are free. Empower separately offers wealth-management services, currently advertised from 0.89% of assets per year with a $100,000 minimum; verify both offers on Empower's site.

Is Empower the same as Personal Capital?

Yes — Empower acquired Personal Capital and rebranded the consumer tools. The free dashboard, fee analyzer, and Retirement Planner continue under the Empower name.

Which forecast is more detailed?

Empower documents a free Monte Carlo planner using your portfolio and major events you add. RetireGlide explicitly models taxes year by year — including brackets, Social Security taxation, RMDs, IRMAA, NIIT, and capital-gains stacking — and includes claiming-age and Roth-conversion explorers.

RetireGlide vs Empower: free planning tools and optional wealth management

Last checked August 14, 2026 · Competitor details change — verify on their site.

Empower (formerly Personal Capital) offers a free dashboard with connected-account net-worth tracking, portfolio analysis, a fee analyzer, and a Monte Carlo Retirement Planner. Its official site also offers wealth-management services starting at 0.89% of assets per year with a $100,000 minimum.

RetireGlide's Premium plan is subscription software at $120 per year: no account connection or assets-under-management relationship. It focuses on retirement-specific modeling, claiming optimization, and spending guardrails rather than daily financial aggregation.

Side by side

	Empower (formerly Personal Capital)	RetireGlide
Pricing	Personal Dashboard and planning tools free; separate optional wealth management from ~0.89%/yr with a $100k minimum	Free tier; Premium $120/yr or $14/mo (14-day trial)
Getting your account data in	Designed around securely connected financial accounts; Empower says more connected accounts make its tools more useful	Screenshot capture with human confirmation — no credentials; images deleted after confirmation or within 30 days; manual entry too
Projection engine	Free Monte Carlo Retirement Planner based on your portfolio plus major financial events you add	Deterministic Monte Carlo engine (1,000 futures) with full US tax model — federal & state brackets, Social Security taxation, RMDs, LTCG stacking, NIIT, IRMAA
AI's role	A plan-filling AI assistant is not listed on Empower's current Personal Dashboard tools page as of August 14, 2026	AI gathers confirmed inputs, explains results, and proposes scenarios; figure grounding and claim checks verify its outputs, while CI keeps LLM/network code out of the math engine
Designed around AI?	A plan-filling AI assistant is not listed on Empower's current Personal Dashboard tools page as of August 14, 2026 — its free Monte Carlo planner is part of a connected-account dashboard offered alongside separate optional wealth management	A voice-or-text interview builds your plan as you confirm each fact; every AI-stated figure is cross-checked against the deterministic engine before it's shown; Guardian explains what changed between visits without telling you what to do; a CI test keeps LLM and network code out of the math engine; and every model upgrade must pass our accuracy and compliance checks before it reaches your plan
AI interview	A plan-filling voice interview is not listed on the current Personal Dashboard tools page as of August 14, 2026	Voice or text AI interview that fills in your plan only after you confirm each proposed fact
Product offering	Free dashboard and tools alongside separate optional wealth-management services	Subscription planning software with a free tier and optional Premium plan
Ongoing tracking	Daily balances, cash flow, and fee analysis across connected accounts	Plan-focused — holdings marked to market between captures; re-snap when it matters

Choose Empower if…

You want free, automatic net-worth and cash-flow tracking across all accounts and don't mind linking them.
You're considering human wealth management alongside the free dashboard.
You want a fee analyzer surfacing hidden fund costs across your portfolio.

Choose RetireGlide if…

You prefer manual entry or confirmed screenshot capture instead of connected financial accounts.
You want explicitly documented year-by-year tax modeling, RMDs, IRMAA, couples claiming-age optimization, and spending guardrails.
You want subscription software rather than an assets-under-management relationship, with account export and deletion controls.

Common questions

Is Empower's Retirement Planner really free?: Yes. Empower's official tools page says the Personal Dashboard and financial tools are free. Empower separately offers wealth-management services, currently advertised from 0.89% of assets per year with a $100,000 minimum; verify both offers on Empower's site.
Is Empower the same as Personal Capital?: Yes — Empower acquired Personal Capital and rebranded the consumer tools. The free dashboard, fee analyzer, and Retirement Planner continue under the Empower name.
Which forecast is more detailed?: Empower documents a free Monte Carlo planner using your portfolio and major events you add. RetireGlide explicitly models taxes year by year — including brackets, Social Security taxation, RMDs, IRMAA, NIIT, and capital-gains stacking — and includes claiming-age and Roth-conversion explorers.

A practical way to compare: run your own numbers

Both tools have free tiers. Ours takes about 3 minutes and never asks for a password.

Get your free forecast See how RetireGlide works

Sources & fairness

We build RetireGlide, so read this page accordingly. Competitor facts are drawn from their public pages as of the date above; if we got something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it.