Empower vs Monarch Money 2026: Free vs $99.99 a Year
One of these costs nothing and one costs $99.99 a year, which makes this look like an easy decision. It is not, because they are not really competing for the same job.
Empower Personal Dashboard is an investment and net worth tool that also shows your bank balances. Monarch Money is a budgeting and spending tool that also shows your investments. That difference decides the whole comparison, and the price is close to irrelevant next to it.
Fast Answer
Empower if the question you are asking is "what am I worth, and are my investments any good?" It is free, the fee analyzer is genuinely valuable, and nothing else does this well at $0.
Monarch if the question is "where is my money going, and can my partner see it too?" Budgeting is where Empower is thin and Monarch is strong.
Both is a common and sensible setup: Empower free for the portfolio, Monarch paid for the spending. Around $99.99 a year total.
What Each One Is Actually For
Empower: what you own
Empower aggregates checking, savings, credit cards, loans, mortgages and, critically, investment accounts including 401(k)s and IRAs. Then it analyzes them.
The standout is the fee analyzer, which inspects the expense ratios inside your funds and projects what they cost you over decades. For anyone holding an old employer 401(k) full of expensive funds, that single free report can be worth thousands of dollars. Our explainer on expense ratios covers why.
Add the allocation checkup and the retirement planner, and you have a genuinely strong investment tool that costs nothing.
The catch: Empower makes money by managing money. The free dashboard is how its advisory business, charging roughly 0.49% to 0.89% of assets annually, finds clients. Link meaningful balances and expect a phone call. Our Empower Personal Dashboard review covers that trade in detail, and is Empower safe covers the security questions.
Monarch: what you spend
Monarch is the Mint successor most Mint refugees actually wanted, co-founded by Mint's first product manager. Budgeting by category with rollover, cash flow projection, net worth, an AI assistant you can ask plain questions, and household sharing so a couple runs on one subscription.
The catch: $99.99 a year with no free tier and a 7-day trial, plus a $199 Plus tier. See Monarch Money pricing and our Core vs Plus breakdown.
Head to Head
| Empower | Monarch Core | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | $99.99/yr or $14.99/mo |
| Budgeting | Thin | Strong, with rollover |
| Investment analysis | Strong, fee analyzer, allocation | Present, deeper on Plus |
| Net worth | Strong | Strong |
| Cash flow projection | Retirement planner | Yes |
| Couples | Not designed for it | Household sharing, 2 users |
| AI assistant | No | Yes |
| Bank link | Required | Required |
| Business model | Sells wealth management | Subscription |
| Coverage | US-centric | US-centric |
The Honest Comparison of "Free"
Empower's dashboard is free in the sense that no money leaves your account. It is not free of cost.
What you pay is a sales relationship. Your account data is what qualifies you as a lead, the outreach is targeted because the dashboard knows exactly how much you have, and declining once does not always end it. Reviewers have noted for years that the experience increasingly steers toward advisory conversion.
Monarch's $99.99 buys a cleaner arrangement: you are the customer, so the app has no incentive to sell you anything else. Whether that is worth $99.99 depends on how much the calls would bother you and how much you would use the budgeting.
There is one more thing free does not include here: budgeting that works. Empower's spending tracking exists but is shallow. There is no meaningful envelope or zero-based system, category control is limited, and the monthly view is a summary rather than a tool. If your goal is to spend less this month, Empower will not help and Monarch will.
When You Need Neither
Both apps are built on the same assumption: that you will connect every financial account you own to a third party.
That is a considered trade. An aggregator ends up holding credentials, and a company ends up holding a complete picture of your finances. Our guide to finance app security and privacy covers the exposure, and connections break routinely, which means a dashboard can quietly show stale numbers while you make decisions from it.
There is also a timing problem that neither solves. Both are retrospective by design: they report after the money moved. Nothing in either app is open at the moment you decide to spend, which is the moment that actually determines the month.
If what you need is an accurate record of daily spending rather than a portfolio analysis or a full budgeting system, Finny covers that at a fraction of the cost: log a spend in seconds as it happens, in any currency, with no bank connection at all, and Apple Pay purchases log themselves. It does not track investments and will not analyze your 401(k) fees. Plenty of people run Empower free for the quarterly picture and something fast for the daily one.
How to Choose
- Do you have investments worth analyzing? If yes, use Empower regardless of what else you pick. It is free, and the fee analyzer alone justifies it.
- Do you need to control spending? If yes, Empower will not do it. Monarch will.
- Do you share money with a partner? Monarch, which is built for two on one subscription. Empower is not.
- Will a sales call bother you? If yes, either skip Empower or link only what you need analyzed.
- Is the real gap your daily record? Then neither, and spend a fraction of the money.
The most common right answer is Empower free for the portfolio, plus something focused for spending. Whether that something is Monarch at $99.99 depends on whether you want a full dashboard or just an accurate log.
Common Questions
Is Empower better than Monarch Money?
For investments, net worth and fee analysis, yes, and it is free. For budgeting, spending control and couples, Monarch is clearly better. They are built for different jobs despite overlapping.
Is Empower Personal Dashboard really free?
Yes. The dashboard, net worth tracking, fee analyzer, allocation checkup and retirement planner cost nothing. Empower monetizes through its paid advisory service at roughly 0.49% to 0.89% of assets managed, and the free tools are how it finds those clients.
Does Empower do budgeting?
Barely. There is spending tracking, but no real envelope or zero-based system and limited category control. Treat it as a quarterly financial checkup, not a monthly budgeting tool.
Can I use Empower and Monarch together?
Yes, and it is a common setup: Empower free for investments and net worth, Monarch paid for budgeting and shared household spending. Total cost is Monarch's $99.99 a year.
What if I do not want to link my accounts?
Both apps require it, since aggregation is the foundation of each. For the alternative approach, see tracking expenses without linking a bank and our roundup of expense trackers with no bank login.
Neither app is open when you actually spend. Finny is: seconds per entry, any currency, no bank connection. Free to start, Pro at a low monthly price.
