An Empower (Personal Capital) alternative: read the sign-up rule
Empower's dashboard links US institutions in US dollars, and signing up needs a US phone number. That decides the question for most people looking for an alternative, before anybody compares a single feature.
Stay with Empower if you live in the United States, have US accounts, and want free investment tools, a retirement planner or a human adviser. Hundo fits if you are outside the US or hold more than one currency, because Empower links only US institutions in US dollars and needs a US phone number to sign up: Hundo adds accounts, investments, property, debts and money you are owed into one net worth across 166 currencies, shows how much of each change was the exchange rate, and its tracker is free forever.
Personal Capital is now Empower. Type personalcapital.com into a browser and you land on empower.com, and the product people still call Personal Capital is the Empower Personal Dashboard.
It is a good dashboard, especially for investments, and plenty of people have used it for a decade. If you are looking for an alternative, it is usually for one of four reasons. The first one settles it outright.
Can you sign up for Empower outside the US?Link to this section
Not without a US phone number. Empower's own support article, Can I link an international account in Empower Personal Dashboard?, says it plainly:
Although you can access the Empower Personal Dashboard application from any location, we currently only support U.S based financial institutions (currency in USD) for accounts you can link to your dashboard.
And, at the end of the same article:
Please note: For security reasons, you will need a valid U.S. phone number to sign up for Empower Personal Dashboard.
That is a harder line than most apps draw. Other products let you in and then quietly fail to find your bank. Empower stops you at the door unless you have a US phone number, and links nothing that is not a US institution holding US dollars.
If you are outside the United States, the comparison ends there, and what you need is a tool built for money that does not sit in one country.
How does Empower make money if the dashboard is free?Link to this section
Through wealth management. This is not a criticism, it is the deal, and Empower states it openly.
The wealth management page lists three tiers with minimums of $100,000, $250,000 and $1 million, charges "an annual advisory fee as a percentage of your total assets under management (AUM) using a tiered fee structure", and has a section headed "What we'll cover on your first call".
So the tools are the introduction, and the business is managing your money. If you want that relationship, the tools being excellent and costing you nothing is a good bargain.
If you do not, you are looking for a product whose business model is the product. Ours is: the tracker is free forever with nothing capped, and the paid tier is Pro, the AI assistant and your collectibles, at $36 a year at the floor, $72 if you take the suggested amount, or $8 a month. Nobody calls you.
Is Empower a budgeting app or a portfolio dashboard?Link to this section
Empower leans towards investments. Its tool list is net worth, retirement planner, portfolio analysis, savings planner, fee analyzer, and budgeting alongside them. That order is the right one for its audience, and the wrong one if what you actually want is to know where the money went last month.
In Hundo the spending is the main event: budgets are monthly or weekly limits per category, each in its own currency, and every report is built from the entries you make. Net worth then covers accounts, investments, property, vehicles, crypto and precious metals, minus debts, and including money other people owe you.
One detail worth naming, because it shows the difference in emphasis: Empower tracks cryptocurrency as a manual account you keep up to date yourself. Hundo prices crypto from CoinGecko and metals from metals.dev, automatically, because for a lot of people outside the US those are a real part of the balance sheet rather than a curiosity.
Does Empower support more than one currency?Link to this section
Not for linked accounts. Empower's dashboard is a US dollar dashboard, by the rule quoted above.
Every account, asset and budget in Hundo keeps its own currency, in 166 of them. Each transaction stores the exchange rate for its own date, so last year's numbers stay converted at last year's rate, and the net worth page can tell you how much of a month's change was the market and how much was the exchange rate.
You can test the arithmetic before you sign up for anything: add up a net worth across several currencies, or see how much of an investment's return was the exchange rate. For a card purchase in another currency, which exchange rate to record sets out which number to write down.
How do entries get into Hundo?Link to this section
You add them, so what matters is how quick that is.
- Open "add transaction" and your usual entries are already there, ranked out of your own history: a subscription on its usual day, a regular bill, a usual amount. One tap fills the merchant, category, budget and account.
- Import a CSV, TSV or Excel statement, with column mapping and duplicate detection.
- Photograph a receipt, forward an email receipt to your own address, dictate a note, or tell the assistant in a sentence.
- When an account stops matching the bank, send the assistant screenshots of the bank's list and ask it to find the missing entry.
The first two are free and uncapped. The rest are part of Pro, and nothing the assistant drafts is recorded until you confirm it. How to keep tracking by hand after the novelty wears off covers the habit side.
What do you give up by leaving Empower for Hundo?Link to this section
- Connected accounts. Empower's feeds fill the dashboard in for you, and Empower is straightforward about what that takes: "Your credentials enable us to extract the data". Hundo has no bank connection, so it never asks for them, and every entry is one you add. We have nothing that matches automatic entry, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- Portfolio analysis and the fee analyzer. Empower reads your holdings from the source and tells you what your funds are costing you. Hundo values holdings, but it does not analyse a portfolio.
- A retirement projection. Empower's retirement planner is the reason many people opened it in the first place.
- Advice. If you want a human adviser attached to the software, that is exactly what Empower sells.
What does Hundo give you instead?Link to this section
- A tracker that is free forever, with nothing capped: unlimited accounts, transactions, budgets and assets.
- Every currency, each account, asset and budget in its own, with each transaction keeping the rate for its own date.
- What moved your net worth. The net worth chart splits the change over any period into the part that came from your money and the part that came from exchange rates.
- Your usual entries, one tap away. Suggestions from your own history are waiting when you open the form.
- Your own AI, pointed at your own ledger. Hundo publishes an MCP server, so Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant can read your accounts and draft changes you confirm. How it works.
Empower vs Hundo at a glanceLink to this section
| Empower Personal Dashboard | Hundo | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Tracker free forever. Pro is pay what you want from $36 a year (suggested $72), or $8 a month |
| How it makes money | Wealth management, for an annual advisory fee on the assets it manages | The paid Pro tier |
| Bank connection | Yes, US institutions only, with accounts in USD | None |
| Countries | Links only US institutions, and sign-up needs a valid US phone number | No country list |
| Currencies | Linked accounts in USD only | 166. Each account, asset and budget keeps its own, and each transaction stores the rate for its own date |
| Apps | Web, plus iOS and Android apps | Web app you can install as a PWA. No app-store app |
| AI assistant | Not published | Yes, in Pro |
| MCP server | Not published | Yes, in Pro |
Empower column checked 15 September 2026 against Empower's tools page, its international accounts article and its wealth management page.
The short versionLink to this section
In the United States, with US accounts, wanting investment tools and open to an adviser? Empower is strong and free to you, and this page is not trying to talk you out of it.
Anywhere else, or holding more than one currency? You were never eligible for the comparison, and what you want is a tracker built for money in more than one country, where entering it yourself is quick.
Common questionsLink to this section
Is Personal Capital the same as Empower?Link to this section
Yes. Personal Capital is now Empower: personalcapital.com redirects to empower.com, and the product people still call Personal Capital is the Empower Personal Dashboard.
Is the Empower Personal Dashboard free?Link to this section
Yes. Empower says the Empower Personal Dashboard and its financial tools are completely free, and Empower's business is wealth management, charged as a percentage of the assets it manages.
Can Hundo track crypto and precious metals?Link to this section
Yes. Hundo prices crypto from CoinGecko and precious metals from metals.dev automatically, while Empower tracks cryptocurrency as a manual account you keep up to date yourself.
Does Hundo analyse a portfolio or project retirement like Empower?Link to this section
No. Hundo values holdings, but it does not analyse a portfolio, and it has no fee analyzer or retirement projection.