Honest comparison
WealthWatch vs Personal Capital (Empower): free US tracker vs Canadian-built
Personal Capital (now Empower Personal Dashboard after the 2020 acquisition) is the most popular free portfolio tracker in the US, with ~3 million users. It's well-polished for US accounts but struggles with Canadian institutions. Here's how WealthWatch compares.
| Feature | WealthWatch | Personal Capital (Empower) |
|---|---|---|
| US account support | Via Plaid | Native (Yodlee) |
| Canadian account support | Native | Poor |
| TFSA/RRSP/FHSA contribution room tracking | ||
| Canadian tax features (ACB, T5) | ||
| Options tools | ||
| FIRE calculator with CPP/OAS | ||
| Family sharing | Limited | |
| Wealth management upsell / cold calls | No | Yes |
| Base price | Free · $5/mo Pro | Free (sells advisory) |
Where Personal Capital (Empower) wins
- •Personal Capital has excellent US account coverage via Yodlee, more reliable than Plaid for some US brokers.
- •Tens of millions of accumulated data points power their retirement planner and "You Index" benchmarking.
- •Free version is feature-complete for basic tracking. WealthWatch reserves some advanced features for Pro.
- •Mobile apps are very polished (they've had years to refine them).
Where WealthWatch wins
- WealthWatch is built in Canada: TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, RESP, LIRA all supported natively with contribution-room tracking. Personal Capital treats Canadian accounts as "other" or ignores them.
- Canadian tax features: ACB, superficial loss, T5 buckets. Personal Capital has none of this.
- Personal Capital's pitch is to sell you wealth-management services ($30B+ AUM). WealthWatch has no advisory upsell. We just ship software.
- No phone calls from wealth advisors. Personal Capital famously has salespeople call users with $100k+ portfolios.
- Options tools, FIRE calculator with CPP/OAS, AI Trade Ideas, none of which Empower offers.
- Privacy: we don't share your data with financial services partners. Empower's business model does.