Tiller and Empower are personal finance tools built for different primary jobs: Empower for investment tracking and wealth management, Tiller for active budgeting in a customizable spreadsheet.
A quick note on the name change
Personal Capital, founded in 2009, was one of the most respected free personal finance platforms available. In 2023, it rebranded as Empower following its acquisition by Empower Retirement. The product is largely the same — a free financial dashboard, investment tracking, net worth monitoring, and wealth management services.
In short, which is best?
Empower is a free financial dashboard built around investment tracking, net worth monitoring, and wealth management, with light budgeting features included as part of a broader financial picture.
Tiller is a financial automation tool that delivers your transactions daily to Google Sheets or Excel, where you can build a fully customizable budgeting and financial management system you own and control.
If your primary financial goal is tracking investments, monitoring net worth, and getting a bird’s-eye view of your overall wealth — especially if you’re accumulating assets and want free tools to monitor them — Empower is likely the better fit. If your primary goal is active budgeting, controlling day-to-day spending, and managing your finances in a customizable spreadsheet you own, Tiller is the better choice.
Many people use both: Empower for investment and net worth tracking, and Tiller for their actual budgeting system.
Quick comparison: Tiller vs. Empower at a glance
| Tiller | Empower | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $79/year | Free (dashboard); wealth management fees apply |
| Platform | Google Sheets or Excel | App and web (iOS, Android, web) |
| Bank sync | Yes — automatic daily import | Yes — automatic sync |
| Primary focus | Active budgeting and financial management | Investment tracking and wealth management |
| Budgeting depth | High — fully customizable | Basic — spending categories and cash flow |
| Investment tracking | Yes — customizable | Yes — built-in, detailed portfolio analysis |
| Net worth tracking | Yes (Foundation Template) and community templates | Yes — built-in, real-time |
| Retirement planning tools | Yes — customizable | Yes — retirement planner, fee analyzer |
| Data ownership | You own all your data and the spreadsheet | Stored in Empower’s platform |
| Customization | High — full spreadsheet control | Low — works within Empower’s structure |
| Mobile app | No dedicated app | Yes, strong mobile app |
| Free tier | No (30-day trial) | Yes — dashboard is free |
What Empower is built for
Empower’s core strength is connecting all your financial accounts into a single view, with particular depth around investment accounts. Portfolio allocation, performance benchmarking, fee analysis, and retirement projections are best-in-class for a free personal finance product. The net worth dashboard tracks assets and liabilities across investment, retirement, and bank accounts in real time.
Empower is free because it uses its dashboard to identify high-net-worth users and pitch them on its wealth-management advisory service. That’s standard practice in the industry, and the free tools are excellent.
Where Empower is notably weaker is budgeting. It includes a budget feature with spending categories and a cash flow summary, but it’s significantly less detailed than dedicated budgeting tools. It has limited category customization, a basic budget vs. actual view, and no ability to add formulas or custom tracking. Day-to-day use is largely passive. You log in periodically to check investment performance, net worth trends, and a high-level spending summary.
What Tiller is built for
Tiller connects your bank accounts and delivers transactions and balances to Google Sheets or Excel daily via the Tiller add-on. The Foundation Template gives you a pre-built budget vs. actual view, transaction log, and net worth tracker: usable from day one and customizable from there. See how Tiller works.
Tiller is designed for active budgeting, including reviewing transactions, managing spending by category, and making deliberate financial decisions, not passive monitoring. Because it lives in a spreadsheet, you can build exactly the financial system you need. Debt payoff trackers, savings rate calculators, custom net worth charts, multi-year trend analysis — anything you can do in Google Sheets or Excel, you can do in Tiller.
Every morning, your new transactions are waiting in your spreadsheet. A five-minute review keeps your budget current and your month-to-date picture accurate. If you want to be engaged with your finances, Tiller is built for that.
Free vs. paid
Empower’s dashboard is free and useful. It’s the full product at no cost, not a stripped-down trial. If Empower’s investment tracking and high-level financial overview does what you need, there’s no reason to pay for anything else.
Tiller costs $79/year for the bank data connection and the spreadsheet add-on. The Google Sheets or Excel file itself is free, but the live transaction import requires the subscription.
It’s important to note that these tools aren’t competing on price for the same product. If you need serious budgeting and Empower’s cash flow view isn’t deep enough, Tiller’s $79/year gives you a complete system. Empower provides a powerful dashboard that gives you a comprehensive picture of your finances. In fact, many people use both services to manage their personal finances.
Where they don’t overlap and where they do
What only Empower does:
- Detailed investment portfolio analysis, including allocation, performance, benchmarking, fee analysis
- Retirement planner with projections based on real account data
- Net worth tracking across investment, retirement, and bank accounts in real time
- Free access to all of the above
What only Tiller does:
- Deep, customizable budgeting in a spreadsheet you own permanently
- Full control over categories, formulas, budget structure, and financial reports
- A file that exists on your Google Drive or computer forever, independent of any platform
Where they overlap:
- Bank account and credit card transaction import
- Basic spending summaries by category
- Net worth snapshot (both do this; Empower’s is more detailed and real-time)
Empower’s budgeting features — honest assessment
Empower includes a budget feature with spending categories, monthly targets, and a cash flow summary. In practice, it’s significantly less detailed than Tiller, YNAB, Monarch, and similar tools. It has limited category customization, a basic budget vs. actual view, and no ability to add formulas or custom tracking.
For users who just want to know roughly where their money goes each month, Empower’s budgeting is adequate. For users who want to actively manage spending, set detailed limits, review transactions category by category, or build custom financial views, Empower’s budgeting falls short. It’s a supplementary feature on a wealth management platform.
Who should use Empower
Empower is likely the stronger fit if:
- Your primary financial concern is investment tracking, including portfolio performance, allocation, fees, and retirement projections
- You want a real-time net worth dashboard across all your accounts at no cost
- You’re accumulating significant assets and want free tools to monitor and optimize them
- Light spending summaries are sufficient — you’re not trying to actively manage a budget category by category
- You want free tools and don’t need deep budgeting customization
- You use a financial advisor or are considering one (Empower’s wealth management service may be relevant)
Who should use Tiller
Tiller is likely the stronger fit if:
- Your primary financial goal is active budgeting — knowing exactly where your money goes and making intentional spending decisions
- You’re comfortable in Google Sheets or Excel, or willing to learn
- You want full control over your budget categories, formulas, and financial reports
- You want your financial data in a file you own permanently, independent of any platform
- You used Mint before it shut down and want the closest equivalent to Mint’s transaction tracking and budgeting in a format you control
- You tried Empower’s budgeting and found it too shallow for your needs
Not sure if spreadsheets are right for you? See spreadsheet finance vs. app-based budgeting.
Using both together
Empower’s investment tracking and Tiller’s budgeting system can easily be used together. They solve different problems and don’t overlap in ways that create friction. A common setup is using Empower for the investment and net worth dashboard (free) and Tiller for transaction review and budget management (paid). You get the best of both without redundancy.
If you’re in the wealth-building phase of life — actively saving and investing while also trying to control spending — this combination covers most of what a personal finance system needs.
For a full walkthrough of how to build this kind of system, see how to build a complete personal finance system in a spreadsheet.
The bottom line
Empower and Tiller are built for different primary jobs, and for many people they’re complementary rather than competing. Empower is the right tool if investment tracking and net worth monitoring are your priority — and it’s free. Tiller is the right tool if active budgeting in a spreadsheet you own is what you’re after.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Tiller and Empower (Personal Capital)?
Tiller and Empower are built for different primary financial goals. Empower is a free financial dashboard focused on investment tracking, portfolio analysis, net worth monitoring, and wealth management. It includes basic budgeting features, but those are secondary to its core purpose. Tiller is a financial automation tool that delivers your transactions daily into Google Sheets or Excel, where you build a fully customizable budgeting and financial management system. Empower is best for people focused on growing and tracking wealth; Tiller is best for people focused on actively managing day-to-day spending and budgeting.
What does Empower do that Tiller doesn’t?
Empower does three things Tiller doesn’t do out of the box: detailed investment portfolio analysis, including allocation, performance benchmarking, and fee analysis; a retirement planner with projections based on your real account data; and a real-time net worth dashboard across investment, retirement, and bank accounts — all completely free.
What does Tiller do that Empower doesn’t?
Tiller gives you deep, customizable budgeting in a spreadsheet you own — full control over your budget categories, formulas, and financial reports. You can build debt payoff trackers, savings rate calculators, multi-year spending comparisons, or any custom financial view your situation calls for. Your data lives in a Google Sheets or Excel file that belongs to you permanently, independent of any platform.
What happened to Personal Capital?
Personal Capital was acquired by Empower Retirement in 2020 and rebranded as Empower in 2023. The product — a free financial dashboard with investment tracking, net worth monitoring, and wealth management services — is largely the same under the new name. If you used Personal Capital before, you’re now using Empower.
Is Empower free?
Yes. Empower’s financial dashboard — including investment tracking, net worth monitoring, cash flow summaries, and retirement planning tools — is completely free. Empower makes money by offering wealth management advisory services (for a fee based on assets under management) to users with significant investable assets. The free tools are not a trial; they are the full product.
Can Tiller replace Empower?
For budgeting and transaction management, yes — Tiller is significantly more capable than Empower’s budgeting features. For investment tracking, portfolio analysis, and retirement planning, no — these are Empower’s core strengths and Tiller doesn’t replicate them out of the box. Many users find the tools complementary: Empower for investment and net worth tracking (free), Tiller for active budgeting (paid).
Is Empower good for budgeting?
Empower includes a budgeting feature with spending categories and monthly targets, but it is significantly less detailed than dedicated budgeting tools like Tiller, YNAB, or Monarch. It provides a useful high-level cash flow summary but has limited category customization and no ability to build custom tracking or reports. If light spending awareness is your goal, Empower’s budgeting is adequate. If you want to actively manage spending category by category, set detailed targets, and review every transaction, a dedicated budgeting tool like Tiller will serve you better.
Does Empower do what Mint did?
Partially. Empower includes automatic transaction imports, basic budget categories, and net worth tracking. However, Mint’s budgeting features were considerably more detailed than Empower’s, and Empower’s primary focus is investment tracking rather than budgeting. For users who primarily used Mint for budgeting and transaction management, Tiller is typically the closer replacement. For users who mainly used Mint for a financial overview, Empower is a reasonable free alternative.
Can I use Tiller and Empower at the same time?
Yes, and many people do. Empower handles investment tracking and net worth monitoring for free; Tiller handles active budgeting and transaction management in a spreadsheet. They connect to the same bank accounts but serve different purposes, so there’s no meaningful overlap or friction. For users in the wealth-building phase of life — actively saving and investing while also trying to manage spending — this combination covers nearly everything a personal finance system needs.
Why do people look for an Empower alternative?
The most common reason is that Empower’s budgeting features aren’t deep enough for users who want to actively manage spending. Empower’s cash flow view is designed to give a high-level picture of where money goes, not to support the kind of detailed, category-by-category budget management that tools like Tiller, YNAB, or Monarch provide. Users who try Empower after Mint and find the budgeting too shallow are typically looking for exactly what Tiller offers: a real budgeting system they can customize and own.
