Empower.com is a company that has free money management tools that appear to be well reviewed by Nerdwallet, PC mag, Moneywise and some accounting firms. I want to use their tools without opening any accounts with them.
Their ratings for retirement wealth management on BBB is low, and people have complaints about accessing funds.
Anyone have direct knowledge of this, or has use the transaction tracker? Thanks.
If it ends up that no one has any comments check this reddit thread:
Apparently they are legitimate and they use a freemium model and the Wealth Management Fees are the core business: This is where the free dashboard comes in. The free tool serves as a giant lead-generation funnel. If you link your accounts and your net worth crosses $100,000, your information is flagged for their sales team. Dedicated financial advisors will then contact you to pitch their managed wealth services. If you sign up, they charge an annual Asset Under Management (AUM) fee starting at 0.89% for the first million dollars, which scales down for larger portfolios.
But I have no personal experience with them at all.
They’re definitely legit - I have a 401(k) from my former employer that’s managed through them (they took it over from Prudential). I have no complaints about them, but I don’t use any of their tools, and of course they’ve already got some of my money.
yes, they are completely legit as well. I know several people who work for large companies who’s 401(k)s are managed by Empower. I don’t think they are the best for self-managed accounts (I would choose Fidelity, Vanguard or Schwab over them for IRA’s or brokerage accounts) but they are perfectly fine for other investment vehicles.
They manage all of our funds and only our assigned advisor ever makes contact. I have no evidence they sell us as leads to other entities. But we’re paying clients. There may be a free tier where they do that.
I use their free dashboard. I have accounts worth considerably more than $100k linked. Nobody has ever contacted me since I started using it a year or so ago.