Empower vs. Mint 2025: Which Free Money App Actually Wins?
If you're Googling "Empower vs Mint," there's a good chance you just found out that Mint is gone — and you need a replacement, fast. Good news: you landed in the right place, and you actually landed on a better option.
Intuit shut Mint down in January 2024, leaving millions of budget-tracker loyalists scrambling. Empower — formerly known as Personal Capital — has emerged as the standout free alternative. In this post, we'll break down how they compared, what Empower does better, and why it's now our top pick for tracking your money in 2025.
Quick Background: What Were These Apps?
Mint launched in 2006 and became the go-to free budgeting app for a generation of millennials. It connected your bank accounts, categorized transactions automatically, and showed your spending in a color-coded breakdown. Intuit acquired it in 2009. For years, it was the personal finance app. Then Intuit killed it in 2024, redirecting users to Credit Karma — a very different product focused on credit, not budgeting.
Empower (originally Personal Capital) was founded in 2009 with a different philosophy: rather than just tracking spending, Empower focuses on your complete financial picture — net worth, investments, savings, spending, and retirement projections. The free version is genuinely excellent. They also offer a paid wealth management service, but you absolutely don't need it to get value from the app.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | Empower (2025) | Mint (Defunct 2024) |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free (wealth mgmt costs extra) | Was free (now shut down) |
| Net Worth Tracking | ✓ Excellent — all assets + liabilities | ✗ Basic / limited |
| Investment Tracking | ✓ Outstanding — portfolio analysis, fee analyzer, allocation view | ✗ Minimal |
| Budget Tracking | ✓ Good — income & expense categorization | ✓ Was excellent — category budgets, alerts |
| Spending Categorization | ✓ Solid — auto-categorized, editable | ✓ Was very strong |
| Retirement Planner | ✓ Best-in-class — Monte Carlo projections | ✗ None |
| Fee Analyzer | ✓ Yes — shows hidden investment fees | ✗ None |
| Bill Tracking | ✗ Not available | ✓ Was included |
| Mobile App | ✓ iOS + Android | N/A (shut down) |
| Still Active? | ✓ Yes | ✗ No — shut down Jan 2024 |
Empower: Pros and Cons
✅ Pros
- 100% free for the core financial tools
- Best net worth dashboard available for free
- Exceptional investment portfolio analysis
- Retirement planner with Monte Carlo scenarios
- Investment fee analyzer (saves real money)
- Secure, connects to thousands of institutions
- Regular feature updates and improvements
- Clean, intuitive interface on mobile and desktop
❌ Cons
- Budget category limits aren't as granular as Mint's were
- No bill tracking or bill pay features
- Wealth management upsells can feel persistent
- Spending categorization sometimes needs manual correction
- Limited goal-setting compared to dedicated budgeting apps
What Empower Absolutely Nails (That Mint Never Did)
Mint was designed around one question: Where did my money go? That's useful. But Empower is built around a more powerful question: What is my complete financial picture?
Here's where Empower genuinely outclasses what Mint ever offered:
1. Net Worth Dashboard
Empower aggregates every asset you own — savings accounts, checking accounts, investment accounts, 401(k)s, real estate (manual entry), and loans — into a single net worth number that updates daily. Watching your net worth climb as you build passive income and pay down debt is incredibly motivating.
2. Investment Portfolio Analysis
If you have any money in a brokerage, IRA, or 401(k), Empower's portfolio analyzer is worth its weight in gold. It breaks down your asset allocation, sector exposure, and — critically — the hidden fees you're paying inside your funds. Many people discover they're losing thousands per year to high-fee mutual funds they didn't realize they owned.
3. Retirement Planner
Empower's retirement planner runs Monte Carlo simulations to show your probability of retiring on time with your current savings rate. It's the kind of tool that used to require a paid financial advisor. It's now free in the app.
💡 Real talk: We've used both apps. Mint was great for budgeting beginners. Empower is better for anyone who cares about building wealth — not just tracking where last month's paycheck went. If you're serious about passive income and financial independence, Empower is the tool for you.
What Replaced Mint? (And Why Empower Beats the Alternatives)
After Mint shut down, Intuit pushed users toward Credit Karma. A few other apps also picked up Mint refugees:
- Credit Karma: Good for credit monitoring, but minimal actual budgeting features
- YNAB (You Need A Budget): Excellent budget app, but costs $14.99/month
- Copilot: Beautiful app, but subscription-based and Apple-only
- Monarch Money: Strong budgeting features, $14.99/month
- Empower: Free. Connects investments. Tracks net worth. Retirement planning. The clear winner for cost-to-value.
🏆 Verdict: Empower Wins, Clearly
Mint is no longer an option — but even if it were, Empower would win for anyone focused on building wealth rather than just tracking spending. The investment analysis, net worth tracking, and retirement planning tools are unmatched at the free tier.
If you're building passive income streams, Empower is the command center you want. Connect your HYSA, your brokerage account, your dividend ETF portfolio, and your checking account. Watch your total net worth grow as your passive income compounds. That dashboard is motivation made visual.
The one caveat: if you want granular budget category limits with alerts (Mint's strongest feature), you may want to run Empower alongside a free tool like Wallet by BudgetBakers for the budgeting side. But for most people, Empower alone is enough.
💸 Start Tracking Your Wealth for Free
Sign up for Empower — it takes about 5 minutes, connects your accounts automatically, and immediately shows you your net worth, investment fees, and financial health score. 100% free.
Try Empower Free →