Empower retirement planner alternative
Retirology vs. Empower's retirement planner
Empower's free dashboard — formerly Personal Capital — tracks your net worth across linked accounts and includes a retirement planner. It's free because it's the front door to Empower's paid wealth-management service. Retirology costs a little once and is just a planner.
Updated October 2026
The short version
| Retirology | Empower | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $19+ once; every update free | Free tools; paid advisory service on assets |
| Account required | No | Yes — name, email and phone to sign up |
| Account linking | No; nothing leaves your computer | Yes — that's the core of the dashboard |
| Monte Carlo | Yes, plus historical stress tests | Yes |
| Roth ladders, ACA, SEPP, Rule of 55 | Modeled year by year | Not the planner's focus |
| State retirement taxes | All 50 states + DC, 2026 rules | Not the planner's focus |
| Net-worth tracking | Manual balances | Automatic, across linked accounts |
Where Retirology is different
- No sales funnel. There's no advisory business behind Retirology and nothing to upsell. You pay once and own the app.
- No account, no linked logins. Your financial data stays in a file on your own computer.
- Depth on the tax side. The decisions that move an early retirement — Roth conversions, ACA subsidies, penalty-free early access, state taxes, IRMAA — are modeled together every year of the plan.
When Empower is the better choice
- You mainly want automatic net-worth and investment-fee tracking, for free.
- You're interested in having a firm manage your investments.
Common questions
Is Empower's retirement planner really free?
The planning and tracking tools are free with an account. Empower also sells advisory services, charged as a percentage of the assets it manages; the free tools are how many clients find it.
Does Empower model Roth conversions or ACA subsidies?
Empower's planner focuses on a Monte Carlo projection from your linked accounts and life events. If detailed Roth conversion, ACA subsidy, SEPP or state retirement-tax modeling matters to you, a dedicated planner like Retirology goes further.
Can I use both?
Yes. Many people use a free aggregator to track balances and enter the totals in a planner a few times a year.