Personal Capital is a free service, but also offers wealth management tools at a premium price. This funding from the wealth management program allows Personal Capital to keep their site free of ads. When you first log in to Personal Capital it walks you through the easy process of linking your accounts (with your banking login information and PINs) so that transactions can be automatically synchronized to your dashboard. You can also manually add accounts by simply providing a name and the current account balance. Personal Capital employs 2-factor authentication to log in to the site as well as utilizing firewalls, continuous monitoring, and 256-bit military-grade encryption algorithms. You can get daily emails showing activity on all your accounts to better guard against fraud. Personal Capital also works with federal protections like the FDIC and SIPC. Here is more information about Personal Capital's security practices. Personal Capital is a free online personal finance tool focused on monitoring your cash flow, net worth, and investment performance on all of your accounts. The following are some highlights about Personal Capital:

Free
Wealth management program
No ads
Easy set up
Automatically synced transactions
Crisp design
Mobile apps
Personal investment performance
High security

The Personal Capital home page dashboard is clean, easy to read, and beautifully designed with easy to read the charts. At a glance, you will see how your cash flow is moving and how your net worth is growing. You can drill down into the charts for more detailed information on transactions. You can also access all of this information while mobile, with apps offered on phones and tablets through:

Apple
Google Play
Amazon

Behind the scenes of your investments Personal Capital calculates a proprietary number that they call the You Index™ which shows your investment performance over time. You can also avail yourself of their free financial advice on 401(k) allocation or get an investment checkup on how your funds are balanced. Personal Capital's security practices are very robust. The CEO, Bill Harris, founded the company that originally invented the systems that banks use for their secure transactions. You can also get daily emails showing activity on all your accounts to better guard against fraud.

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The Bad

Minimal tracking tools
Tracking additional accounts
Wealth management services can be pricey

There are minimal budget and goal saving tracking tools built into Personal Capital. As a result, Personal Capital also doesn't offer email and text alerts for account balances or bills due, only a few notifications within the program. Some of the common concerns include:

Minimal budget and goal tools
Few alerts
Cannot add transactions to manual accounts

If you manually add an account you cannot add transactions. The only way to track these accounts is to edit the balance on an ongoing basis. Personal Capital's core service is free. If you'd like advice about investment strategies or wealth management, the fee schedule is as follows:

First $1 Million: 0.89%
First $3 Million: 0.79%
Next $2 Million: 0.69%
Next $5 Million: 0.59%
Over $10 Million: 0.49%

Although the majority of Personal Capital's wealth management services require a fee to use, they will help with some financial planning and 401(k) allocations for free. Personal Capital's free Investment Checkup checks your current retirement plan and provides portfolio recommendations based on when you want to retire and how much risk tolerance you have. You can upgrade from Personal Capital's free tools to a plan focused on wealth management and investment advice.

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The Bottom Line

Personal Capital is focused on growing wealth for people who can't yet afford top tier financial advisors. It's free tools focus on investments and net worth rather than budgets and savings goals. If you're already comfortable with budgeting and want to take your finances to another level, Personal Capital might be a great fit for you. It's a great tool to get you on top of your personal finances. Those that use Personal Capital can expect the following from the service:

Free and paid subscriptions available
Quality budgeting tools
Advanced security
Cannot add transactions

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User Reviews

Star Rating

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6 Reviews

Review Breakdown

5 grade

33%

4 grade

33%

3 grade

17%

2 grade

17%

1 grade

Sentiment Criteria

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John Burnside Colorado Springs, CO

It's a very mixed bag. The financial software available online is easy to use and helps to gather all your financial data into one screen. Now for the BAD! Within 2 days of loading my stock funds into PC, I was getting bombarded with messages on my screen to set up an appointment with one of their advisers so they could try to sell me on paying for their wealth management services. I replied no and then started to get phone calls. I listened to what they had to say and replied no. Your financial info my not be made public, but it darn sure is available to all of PC's salespeople. They knew exactly what I owned and where it was at at the very start of our conversation. Not a comfortable feeling knowing that your private data is there for their viewing.

7 years ago

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Jason Brown Lehi, UT

I downloaded the app about a month ago. So far, it has been very helpful to see all of my financial accounts on one page. I have no idea, however, how secure my information is. It would be nice to see a whitepaper on how they handle client's information. Setting up my various financial accounts did take some time and I had to go search for my usernames and passwords.

7 years ago

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Darrell Provo, UT

I love Personal Capital! Easy to use and super free. Keeps track of my new worth in a friendly interface. I feel my personal data is secure with them.

8 years ago

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upnorthwi Bellevue, WA

I'm giving this 2 stars not necessarily because they are bad, but more because I just don't know and am uncomfortable with my information being with a unknown company. I had always used 2 popular financial programs, 1 went out of business but I loved the simplicity of it. I tried Personal Capital, again very hesitant to put my financial information on a unknown website. I gave them a try, they seemed OK, but later it seemed to be to much personal information, and I stopped using it. It might be great for someone else, but with everything "in the cloud", I want more control over my personal financial information.

4 years ago

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Eban Beltran Arlington, TX

I was forewarned that this app while great for understanding your net worth and overall finances would not be great for budgeting. I went ahead and created an account only to realize that the reviews were true - I’m on the search for a budgeting app and will likely go for a paid product for full functionality.

5 years ago

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Russell Vastine Aurora, CO

I use personal capital for all my accounts to see everything in one place. I also invest with them as they are easy to work with and have good customer service

4 years ago