People often avoid budgeting because they think it’s complicated or too time-consuming- but we’ve got to tell you that it’s all malarky!
A budget will save your financial future, and there are programs out there that will make budgeting a breeze.
With that being said, there are 2 free tools (we LOVE) that can help you with your finances, which we will go over today.
Empower Summary
The first one that we will look at is Empower (formerly Personal Capital). Have you heard of it? We love it!
The main focus of Empower is investing. There are 2 different parts to Empower- a free one, and a paid one. We will just look at the free aspect of it today for the sake of comparison.
The company was founded in 2009, and they have over 2 million people using it, with over $9 billion in assets under management.
In the account, you are able to see a good overview of your finances, which include things like:
- Net worth
- Investable cash
- Cash flow
- Budgeting
- Portfolio balance
- Retirement savings
To read our in-depth Empower review click here.
Get clarity on your money, with tech you can trust. See all your accounts in one place, including your investments. And go deeper with our planning and analytics tools.
Mint Summary
Mint has been going a little bit longer, they were founded in 2006, but they were acquired in 2009 by Intuit.
People use this for beginner budgeting because it’s free and easy, but there are some Mint alternatives out there if you’re interested in more features and investment management.
We love how you can see an overview of all of your finances – this is a great site for budgeting.
It has personal finance tools on there to help you, such as:
- Budgeting
- Spending analysis
- Bill pay reminders
- Credit monitoring
Say hello to the FREE app that takes the work out of personal finances. Track spending, detect fraud, and keep tabs on rising subscription costs.
How are they the same?
Cost
Both Mint and Empower are free to use.
Linking Accounts
You can link up your various financial accounts to collect all in one place, such as your bank accounts, loans, investments and so on.
Tracking Expenses
Both sites will show you where you are spending your money each month and which categories your expenses are going into. Very handy for budgeting like Dave Ramsey!
Email Notifications
Both sites will send you email alerts if there are any changes to your finances.
How are they different?
Now that we’ve seen the similarities between Empower vs. Mint, it’s time to look at the differences. This may help you to make your decision when deciding between the two.
Mint
Budgeting
If you are looking for a platform that will help you with your budgeting, then Mint is a great one to use.
Advice on Savings
Mint will give you recommendations on the ways that you can save money on the things that you have linked e.g. your credit cards, investments
Credit Report Monitoring
We’ve covered before how important it is to keep an eye on your credit report, so it’s really handy that Mint does this for you.
It will check on a quarterly basis if there have been any changes to your credit score.
Empower
Retirement Planner
This is a great tool to allow you to see different scenarios for retirement and see if you are on track with them.
401(k) Fee Analyzer
This will help you to see which funds in your retirement plan are costing you the most, and allow you to make adjustments.
Asset Allocation Target
This will help to show you if you need to make any adjustments in your equity categories.
How do Empower and Mint Make Money?
They are both free platforms, but they have to make their money somewhere!
Mint makes money by using adverts on their site and getting commissions from the financial products that they recommend.
Empower doesn’t make any money from its free financial app. Instead, their free financial app is a tool used to funnel customers to their premium investment management service.
Customers must have $100,000 in investment assets in order to qualify.
They charge 0.89% of assets under management under $1,000,000, with fees scaling down to 0.79% for money between $1 – $3 million, 0.69% for the next $2 million, 0.59% for the next $5 million, and 0.49% for money over $10,000,000.
The Empower vs. Mint Showdown
We can have a look at the different parts of each platform in more detail now, to see how they stack up against each other.
Budgeting
Empower budgeting is essentially where you are able to see all of your finances at a glance, whereas Mint is more of a budgeting tool to help you manage your money.
Winner = Mint
Fees
Both Mint and Empower are free to use. With Empower, you have the option of signing up for their paid version, which is a robo-advisor for clients who have more than $200k in assets.
If you are trying to be a bit frugal, it may be worth sticking with Mint’s totally free service to begin with.
Winner = Mint
Bill Alerts
This is probably an area that both Mint and Empower need to work on, but it’s probably because they want you to frequently log into the sites.
Mint does let you set up bill payment reminders, which is useful.
Empower can also remind you when your bills are due, but only for the accounts that you have linked.
Winner = Mint
Synchronization
This is an important thing to consider when you are choosing between money management systems because you want to see everything in one place and have it be accurate.
There have been reports that Mint is a bit slow, or doesn’t register transactions, so this is something to look out for.
Empower seems to do better in this regard, however.
Winner = Empower
Mobile App Access
There is both a Empower app and Mint app, which is great for when you are out but still want to see an overview of your finances.
Winner = Tie they both have awesome apps
User Experience (dashboard and ease of use)
I don’t know about you, but it’s really important to me to use something that is really easy to navigate and looks nice!
It’s worth taking a look at both and seeing which is more appealing to you, but we really like Empower.
The reason that it sways our vote here is because there are no ads or distractions.
Winner = Empower
Investment Analysis
Mint allows you to link your investment accounts and get a good overview of how they are doing.
Empower is much more investment-focused, and have the tools on the site to break it all down for you.
They also offer a free investment checkup which will analyze the allocations and costs of all of your investments. This is well worth doing as something that you can get for free!
Winner = Empower
Retirement Planning
If you are looking at retirement planning, Mint can give you a good look based on the investments and accounts that you have linked.
In terms of actual planning and forming a strategy, Empower would win here.
The retirement planner on the Empower site will look at the age that you want to retire, and how you are on track to get there.
It will do this by looking at all of your information, including your current net worth and your current retirement contributions.
Winner = Empower
Safety and Security
Both Empower and Mint work in quite the same way when it comes to security – although Empower doesn’t have the multi-factor authentication that Mint has. They do both offer fingerprint log-in though, via Apple devices that allow this.
Some security features that they both have include:
- You are not able to access any of your money within your account. You are able to see it all, but not touch any of the money. This means that even if someone hacks into your account, they won’t be able to get to your money.
- Your full name and account details are not displayed within the apps
- They use to of the range data encryption technology to protect your data
Winner = Mint
Customer Service
Empower offers 24/7 help through their Help or the Contact button on the site.
They are known for excellent customer service and will typically respond within 24 hours.
Mint offers a Chat option, which is more email-based.
Winner = Empower
Who’s the Winner? Empower Vs. Mint
If you are looking for the best money management tool, these are 2 awesome companies we knew you needed to know about among the many budgeting tools out there. It really does depend on what your financial goals are, and what you want to get out of these apps.
If you are looking for something to help you in regards to budgeting, Mint is probably the best one for that. Their budgeting spreadsheet and overall budgeting capabilities are the most helpful.
If you are looking for one that will help you with more of the investment and retirement side, then Empower would be the one for you.
Your personal goals will help you to choose – but there’s no reason why you couldn’t use both of them at the same time!
Get clarity on your money, with tech you can trust. See all your accounts in one place, including your investments. And go deeper with our planning and analytics tools.
