Kemback vs Empower

The verdict

Choose Empower if your priority is investments and retirement: seeing every account in one place, analysing your portfolio and checking whether your savings are on track, with bank and investment sync, for free.

Choose Kemback if your priority is the monthly budget and the household’s day-to-day money: envelope or category budgets, a register you can reconcile, bills, and a household where each person has their own sign-in. The trade-off: Kemback doesn’t track investments, and you import bank files until its Plus plan brings sync. You can also use both.

Who Empower is for

Empower’s Personal Dashboard is built for the big picture. It links bank, credit, loan, mortgage and investment accounts at US institutions and offers a Retirement Planner, Net Worth, Portfolio Analysis, a Savings Planner and Debt Paydown, alongside Budgeting & Cash Flow for tracking spending against a monthly budget. It runs on the web, iPhone and Android, and a primary user can invite additional users.

The tools are free. Empower also offers wealth management, which may be offered to select users; its Personal Strategy service has an advisory fee starting at 0.89% a year. It’s worth knowing before you sign up.

Who Kemback is for

Kemback is for households that budget actively. The Free plan has unlimited accounts and transactions, a register with splits, linked transfers, cleared and reconciled status and statement reconciliation, rules that rename payees and set categories, a review inbox, bills and recurring transactions on a calendar with a warning when one goes up, safe to spend, a 90-day projected balance, savings goals, and net worth and spending reports by category, payee or tag.

Kemback is paid for by its plans: no ads, no selling of data, and it never asks for or stores bank passwords.

Budget depth versus investment depth

Empower’s budgeting tracks spending against a monthly budget. Kemback’s budget is the centre of the product, in two modes. In category mode you set a monthly plan for each category. In envelope mode every dollar of income is assigned before it’s spent, and you can switch at any time without losing anything.

Investments run the other way. Empower analyses portfolios and plans retirement; Kemback doesn’t track holdings or cost basis at all yet. Kemback’s net worth report covers the accounts you keep in it, so it’s a household-money view rather than an investment one.

Getting your data in

Empower’s help centre says it has no file import, including from Mint, and manual transactions are added one at a time. Kemback imports OFX, QFX, QIF and CSV files from any bank, has switching wizards for Quicken, Mint, YNAB and Monarch exports, and skips anything it has already seen when you import again. If you’re coming from Mint with an old export, see the Mint switching page.

Households are different too. Kemback gives each person their own sign-in with a role (owner, editor, viewer, or advisor for view-only access), lets any account stay private, and keeps a tamper-evident activity log. The Free plan covers two people; Plus is planned for up to six.

Moving from Empower to Kemback

Empower exports transactions as CSV from the web:

1. In Empower on the web, export your transactions as a CSV file. If the file covers several accounts, split it by account in a spreadsheet first.
2. Create a free Kemback account.
3. Import each CSV file into its account. Kemback’s column mapper lets you say once which columns hold the date, amount, payee and memo, and can save the mapping.
4. Categories don’t come across in a CSV import, so add rules that set them. Then check each balance against your bank.

You don’t have to leave Empower to do this. Keep it for investments if it serves you well.

Bottom line

Empower and Kemback are both free and do different jobs. Empower is stronger for investments, retirement planning and automatic sync. Kemback is stronger for an active budget, a reconcilable register and a household with private accounts and roles. Automatic sync is coming with Kemback Plus, which isn’t on sale yet; there’s a waitlist on the pricing page.

Questions

Is Kemback an alternative to Empower?

For budgeting, yes; for investments, no. Both are free. Kemback has envelope or category budgets, a register with reconciliation, bills and reports, but doesn't track investments or plan retirement, which is where Empower is strongest.

Can I use both?

Yes. Empower can watch your investments and retirement plan while Kemback runs the household budget and register. Kemback's net worth report covers the accounts you keep in it.

How does each make money?

Kemback is paid for by its plans: there are no ads and it doesn't sell data. Its paid plan, Plus, is planned but not on sale yet. Empower's dashboard and tools are free; Empower says wealth management may be offered to select users, and its Personal Strategy advisory fee starts at 0.89% a year.

Can I bring my Empower history to Kemback?

Yes. Export your transactions as CSV from Empower on the web, then import the file into Kemback, matching the date, amount, payee and memo columns once with the column mapper. Categories don't come across in a CSV import, so rules fill them in.

Can I import my old Mint data?

Into Kemback, yes: its Switch from Mint wizard reads Mint's transactions export. Empower's help centre says it doesn't import files, including from Mint.