Personal Capital Review: A Comprehensive Money Management Platform

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Personal Capital is a robust and user-friendly platform that helps you manage your finances, investments, and debts all in one place. It's a free service that's been around since 2009.

With Personal Capital, you can link all your accounts, including bank accounts, investment accounts, and credit cards, to get a clear picture of your financial situation. This platform is designed to help you make informed decisions about your money.

The platform offers a range of tools and features, including investment tracking, budgeting, and financial planning. It also provides a comprehensive picture of your financial health, including a debt repayment plan and a retirement savings plan.

Personal Capital's investment tracking feature allows you to see how your investments are performing over time, making it easier to make informed decisions about your portfolio.

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Wealth Management

Personal Capital offers wealth management services that can help you manage your finances and investments more efficiently. You can work with a registered financial advisor to create a personalized plan that fits your needs.

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Their paid wealth management services include access to personalized tools, email, video conference, phone, or chat support from your advisor, and tax optimization through tax loss harvesting. This helps you get higher yields on your investments over time.

One of the benefits of using Personal Capital is that their advisors use Modern Portfolio Theory to weight your investments for maximal returns with minimal risk. They also take your entire financial situation into consideration when giving advice, not just your investment portfolio.

Personal Capital's fees are lower than traditional brokers, with an all-in-one management fee that's much lower than what you'll find at a traditional broker. They also abide by the Fiduciary Standard, meaning they're required by law to act in your best interest at all times.

Their fees are tiered, depending on your account balance:

This makes Personal Capital a more affordable option than traditional financial advisors, who often charge 1.0% of your invested assets per year.

Portfolio Management

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Personal Capital offers a range of portfolio management tools to help you track and optimize your investments.

With the Fee Analyzer and Investment Checkup, you can assess the health of your investment portfolio for free. These tools provide a comprehensive analysis of your portfolio's performance and help you identify areas for improvement.

Personal Capital's cash flow tracking is also helpful, but the app's investment analysis tools are the real reason to sign up for a free account. When you link one or more brokerage or other investment accounts to Personal Capital, you'll have access to a variety of tools that can be incredibly helpful for managing your portfolio and planning for retirement.

Personal Capital's investment tracking tools are free, and the app is also totally free of outside advertisements. This is because Personal Capital's primary business is a premium but affordable wealth management service.

Here are the benefits of using Personal Capital's portfolio management tools:

  • Advice on a Personal Level: you get personal access to registered financial advisors by email, video conference, phone, or chat- whichever you prefer.
  • Tax Optimization: When giving investment advice, your advisor will always take taxes into account.
  • Expose and Avoid Hidden Fees: Personal Capital has an all-in-one management fee, that is much lower than what you will find at a traditional broker.
  • Risk vs.Return is Optimized: Personal Capital’s advisors use Modern Portfolio Theory to weight your investments to get just the right mix for maximal returns with minimal risk.
  • Holistic Financial Planning: They take your entire financial situation into consideration when giving advice, not just your investment portfolio.
  • They Abide by the Fiduciary Standard: They are required by law to act in your best interest at all times, not their own.

Personal Capital's annual wealth management fee incorporates trade commissions and custody-fees, so there are no surprises. The fee is based on a percentage of your deposit amount, with the following rates:

Personal Capital's fees slot in between individual financial advisors on the higher end and robo-advisors on the lower-end.

Managing Your Money

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Managing your money can be a daunting task, but with Personal Capital, you can get a clear picture of your finances in one place. You can link all your financial accounts, including bank accounts, credit cards, and investments, to one convenient dashboard.

Personal Capital's budgeting tool helps you set monthly spending goals and automatically tracks your progress. This feature is especially useful for those who want to stay on top of their finances.

With Personal Capital, you can also get personalized insights into your daily money habits using the cash flow tool. This feature categorizes your transactions and provides an integrated view of your income, expenses, and net expenditures.

The asset allocation feature in Personal Capital helps you analyze all your investments, bank accounts, and other assets to see if you're well diversified. This feature is essential for making informed financial decisions.

Here are some key features of Personal Capital's budgeting and cash flow tracking tools:

  • Budgeting: Set monthly spending goals and automatically track your progress.
  • Cash Flow Tool: Get personalized insights into your weekly, monthly, and yearly spending habits.
  • Asset Allocation: Analyze all your investments, bank accounts, etc. to see if you're well diversified.

By using these features, you can take control of your finances and make informed decisions about your money.

Investment and Retirement

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Personal Capital's Investment and Retirement features are a game-changer for anyone looking to take control of their financial future.

The Investment Checkup tool analyzes your investments and provides automated, detailed advice to help you achieve your investment goals.

You can use the Retirement Planner feature to build a customized retirement plan, or meet with an advisor to discuss your investment goals. Either way, it's a great tool to help you work towards becoming independently wealthy.

Personal Capital offers free budgeting, investment tracking, and retirement forecasting, making it a valuable resource for anyone looking to manage their finances.

The free retirement planner replicates the kind of projection you might receive after meeting with a financial advisor, all for free. This can be a huge cost savings compared to paying several thousands of dollars for a financial advisor.

By entering your desired retirement date, expenses, and other spending goals, Personal Capital provides an estimate of how your investments will perform throughout retirement.

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If you're off-track, you can easily adjust parameters to see how your projection changes, and the planner will automatically adjust for your portfolio's performance every time you log in.

Personal Capital's retirement fee analyzer can help you identify cost savings opportunities within your retirement portfolio, especially helpful for giving yourself a 401(k) check-up.

Features and Tools

Personal Capital offers a range of features and tools to help you manage your finances effectively.

You can set monthly spending goals and automatically track your progress on any given day using the budgeting tool. This helps you stay on top of your finances and make informed decisions about your money.

The cash flow tool provides personalized insights into your weekly, monthly, and yearly spending habits, helping you identify areas where you can tweak your spending to achieve your financial goals.

Personal Capital also allows you to analyze your investments, bank accounts, and other assets to ensure you're well-diversified and making the most of your money.

Credit: youtube.com, Personal Capital vs Mint Wealth Management Tools

With Personal Capital, you can consolidate all your financial accounts into one convenient dashboard, making it easier to manage your finances and make informed decisions.

You can manually add financial information to your dashboard, such as a residential rental property or other items of value, to accurately reflect your net worth.

Here are some of the key features and tools offered by Personal Capital:

  • Budgeting: Set monthly spending goals and track progress
  • Cash Flow Tool: Get personalized insights into your spending habits
  • Asset Allocation: Analyze your investments and assets for diversification

Fees and Pricing

Personal Capital offers a range of fees and pricing options to suit different investment needs.

The fees are flat, depending on the amount of your investable assets. There's no need to worry about complex fee structures or hidden charges.

To access paid advisor services, you'll need a minimum investment of $25,000. This is a relatively low barrier to entry, but it may exclude some people.

Their fees are slightly higher than some competitors, but you get a live professional helping you out for that price. That's a benefit many others don't offer.

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If you just want a single convenient place to manage your finances on your own, it's completely free. You can track your income, spending, assets, and investments from a single portal.

The paid investment management service requires a $25,000 minimum investment, but it offers access to a team of registered financial advisors. They'll help you put together a personalized investment plan.

Personal Capital's fees are based on a percentage of your deposit amount, but the exact percentage isn't specified. If you have $100,000 or more in investments, you can sign up for their wealth management service.

Pros and Cons

Personal Capital has plenty of great features that make it a world-class platform.

One of the biggest advantages of Personal Capital is that it offers investment tracking and portfolio analysis, allowing you to see how your investments are performing in real-time.

It also provides financial planning and investment advice, helping you make informed decisions about your money.

However, Personal Capital lacks a few features that might be important to some users, such as a mobile app for tracking expenses, which is a notable drawback.

Overall, Personal Capital's strengths outweigh its weaknesses, making it a valuable tool for anyone looking to manage their finances effectively.

Pros

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Personal Capital has a lot to offer. It tracks all your financial accounts in real time, giving you a clear picture of your financial situation.

One of the standout features is its free budgeting tool, which can help you make sense of your finances and create a plan for the future.

Personal Capital also saves you time and money by allowing you to analyze your monthly cash flow, investments, and other financial aspects regularly.

This can be a huge win, especially if you're someone who likes to stay on top of their finances and make informed decisions.

Here are some of the key benefits of using Personal Capital:

  • Tracks all your financial accounts in real time
  • Free budgeting tool

Cons

The Cons of a particular approach or product can be a major turn-off. It's more about managing money than teaching financial skills.

This can be a problem for people who want to learn how to handle their finances effectively. It's a narrow focus that may not provide the comprehensive education people need to succeed.

Here are some specific cons to consider:

  • It’s more about managing money than teaching financial skills

This lack of focus on financial skills can leave people feeling unprepared to handle unexpected expenses or long-term financial planning.

Security and Support

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Personal Capital uses similar security protocols to the bank and investment accounts you'll be linking, giving you a high level of protection for your financial data.

The app requires you to authorize each device you use to access the app, receiving a text-message, phone call, or email the first time you log in from that device.

This adds an extra layer of security, and it will also re-prompt you for a code if you clear your browser cache or use a private browser tab.

Your account links to Personal Capital are read-only, which means that if your account were to be hacked, nobody can use that access to make any changes to your linked investment accounts or steal any money.

Account numbers are not displayed anywhere within Personal Capital, further protecting your sensitive information.

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Is Secure?

Personal Capital uses similar security protocols to the bank and investment accounts you'll be linking, making it a secure option.

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The app requires you to authorize each device you use to access it by receiving a text-message, phone call, or email the first time you log in from that device.

This added layer of security will also re-prompt you for a code if you clear your browser cache or use a private browser tab.

Your account links to Personal Capital are read-only, meaning that if your account were to be hacked, nobody can use that access to make any changes to your linked investment accounts or steal any money.

Account numbers are not displayed anywhere within Personal Capital, providing an extra layer of protection.

Support Deteriorating

Personal Capital's support has seen a significant decline in responsiveness. They used to resolve issues within 2-3 weeks, sometimes even the next day, but now it takes much longer.

Their support team is no longer able to provide estimated times of arrival (ETAs) for fixes, which raises questions about the capabilities of their personnel to address issues effectively.

Our Verdict

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Personal Capital's free budgeting tool is a game-changer for tracking your money, but it's not for everyone.

The app is designed with affluent investors in mind, so if you're a novice looking for nuts-and-bolts guidance, you might find it lacking.

It provides the most comprehensive view of your expenses against your earnings by aggregating and analyzing all your accounts in one place.

If you just want to track your monthly income and outflow, Personal Capital is probably overkill.

Those interested in managing and growing their money over time will find plenty to love here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Personal Capital called now?

Empower Personal Strategy is the new name for Personal Capital, a financial management platform.

Is Personal Capital legitimate?

Personal Capital is a legitimate and trustworthy company, backed by FDIC insurance. Learn more about our secure services and how we protect your financial information.

Is Personal Capital now owned by Empower?

Yes, Personal Capital is now owned by Empower, a Canadian-owned company based in Denver, following a $825 million acquisition in 2020. Empower officially rebranded Personal Capital's products and services in February 2023.

Vanessa Schmidt

Lead Writer

Vanessa Schmidt is a seasoned writer with a passion for crafting informative and engaging content. With a keen eye for detail and a knack for research, she has established herself as a trusted voice in the world of personal finance. Her expertise has led to the creation of articles on a wide range of topics, including Wells Fargo credit card information, where she provides readers with valuable insights and practical advice.

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