Vault compared with Empower
Empower's Personal Dashboard is a capable, genuinely free net-worth tracker, and it is free because it is the front door to Empower's wealth-management business. That is a stated model, not an accusation. Vault has no advisory business, no assets under management and nothing to refer you to, which is why it will charge a subscription — and why it can refuse the account connections that a lead-generating product needs.
| Vault | Empower Personal Dashboard | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays for it | You, by subscription | Empower's wealth-management business |
| What that buys them | Nothing beyond the subscription | Qualified introductions to their advisory service |
| Account connections | None offered | Required for the dashboard to work |
| What their server can read | Ciphertext, row identifiers, dates | Balances, holdings and transactions |
| Contact from a salesperson | Never — there is nobody to call you | Advisory outreach above an asset threshold |
| Availability | Anywhere, any currency | United States |
| Multi-currency consolidation | Built in, any base currency | US-dollar first |
| Crypto | A first-class class, entered by you | Manual entry, no wallet or exchange connections |
| Companies, nested look-through | Yes | No |
Verified August 2026. Prices and features change; if you find something out of date here, it is a mistake rather than a position.
When Empower is the better choice
If you are in the United States, your assets are in mainstream US accounts, and you want a free tool that updates itself, Empower's dashboard is a strong product and costs nothing. Plenty of people use it for years and never speak to an advisor. Choose Vault if you would rather the arrangement have no second party in it at all, if your balance sheet spans currencies or private companies, or if you do not want a database somewhere able to read what you are worth.