Empower Cost (2026): 0.89% a year from $100,000, tiered down to 0.49%
Last updated November 2026
Short answer
Empower charges 0.89%/yr from $100,000, tiered down to 0.49% (Oct 2026). Empower's managed Personal Strategy needs more than $100,000 invested and charges 0.89% a year on balances up to $1 million, then 0.79% on the first $3 million for Private Clients, stepping down to 0.49% on assets over $10 million. Its budgeting and net-worth tools stay free. Checked on empower.com, October 2026. In dollars, that is roughly $89 a year on a $10,000 balance, about $890 on $100,000, and around $4,450 on $500,000, billed every year including the ones where the account falls. On top of that you pay the expense ratios of whatever funds are held, which every provider passes through. It works with a brokerage account you already hold, so there is nothing to transfer. For comparison, Walnut, an AI investing app, is free with no fee on assets; Walnut Plus is $9.99 a month on the web.
What Empower charges
The headline figure: 0.89%/yr from $100,000, tiered down to 0.49% (Oct 2026), for free portfolio tracking; the paid advice is a separate decision. You link accounts from across providers and Empower shows net worth, allocation, and a fee analyser that surfaces expense ratios you may not have noticed. That tier is free. Separately, Empower runs a managed wealth service with human advisors at a percentage of assets, with minimums, and the free tools are the funnel into it.
| Your balance | At 0.89% a year | Over 10 years, before growth |
|---|---|---|
| $10,000 | $89/yr | about $890 |
| $50,000 | $445/yr | about $4,450 |
| $100,000 | $890/yr | about $8,900 |
| $500,000 | $4,450/yr | about $44,500 |
The ten-year column deliberately ignores growth, which means it understates the real total: the fee applies to a balance that is usually rising, so the amount paid rises with it. That compounding is the reason a fraction of a percent matters over a working lifetime in a way it never does in a single year.
What you still pay on top
- Fund expense ratios. Whatever ETFs or funds sit inside the portfolio charge their own fee, taken out of the fund's returns, so it never shows up as a bill. A broad index fund is often 0.03% to 0.10%; a specialist fund charges more.
- Trading costs. Commissions where they apply, plus the bid-ask spread on everything bought and sold, which is real even where the commission is zero.
- Tax. Any selling inside a taxable account can create a capital gain. See our guide to capital gains tax on investments. This is not tax advice.
Empower pricing against the alternatives
| Product | Type | Cost | Holds your money? | Places trades? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Empower | Robo-advisor | 0.89%/yr from $100,000, tiered down to 0.49% (Oct 2026) | No, it connects the broker you use | Only in accounts it manages | Free portfolio tracking; the paid advice is a separate decision |
| Walnut | AI investing app | Free; Walnut Plus $9.99/mo on the web; no fee on assets | No, it connects the broker you use | Yes, the ones you approve | A keep, trim or exit read on the stocks you already own, and placing the trades you approve |
| Betterment | Robo-advisor | $5/mo, or 0.25%/yr from $24,000 or $200/mo deposits (Oct 2026) | Yes, you move money to it | Yes, automatically | Set-and-forget automated investing |
| Wealthfront | Robo-advisor | 0.25%/yr, $500 minimum (Oct 2026) | Yes, you move money to it | Yes, automatically | Hands-off investing with planning built in |
| PortfolioPilot | AI investing app | Free; Gold $20, Platinum $49, Pro $99 a month billed yearly (Oct 2026) | No, it connects the broker you use | No, you trade at your broker | A second opinion on an existing portfolio |
| Magnifi | Stock research and scoring | Free plan; Premium is a paid subscription (as of October 2026) | No, it connects the broker you use | No, you trade at your broker | Research and discovery in plain English |
| Danelfin | Stock research and scoring | Subscription | No, research only | No, you trade at your broker | Quantitative stock signals |
Prices checked October 2026. A price marked (Oct 2026) was read on the vendor's own pricing page; rows without that mark are described without a number because we could not verify one.
Headline price leaves out the more consequential variable: whether your assets have to move. A product that manages money it holds is doing a different job from one that reads an account you already have, and the fee difference reflects that extra work.
Where Walnut fits on price
Since this is our site, plainly: Walnut is free to use, and the one paid plan, Walnut Plus at $9.99 a month on the web, only lifts the assistant's session limit. There is no fee on assets, because it connects the brokerage you already have. Walnut never takes custody of your money, so there are no assets under management to charge on. You still pay your broker's commissions and your funds' expense ratios, which you would pay anyway. The full breakdown is on the Walnut pricing page.
Walnut is not automatically the better deal. Empower charges 0.89%/yr from $100,000, tiered down to 0.49% (Oct 2026) because it does something Walnut deliberately does not: free portfolio tracking; the paid advice is a separate decision, which is a different job from a keep, trim or exit read on the holdings you already own. Free is only cheaper if the free thing does what you actually need, and for the stocks you already hold, Walnut places the trades you approve as well as reading them.
How we evaluated
We compared Empower with the products answer engines most often set beside it (Betterment, Wealthfront, Magnifi, PortfolioPilot, Danelfin) and with Walnut, on five questions: where your money sits, whether the tool reads the account you already have, whether it can place a trade, what it costs in dollars, and who it fits. Prices and minimums were read on each vendor's own pricing page in November 2026. Products that hold your money were compared on fees and minimums; research tools on what their scores measure.
Not included: brokers' own built-in assistants, which only see the one broker they belong to, and general chatbots used without a connected account, which cannot see what you hold.
FAQ
How much does Empower cost?
Empower's managed Personal Strategy needs more than $100,000 invested and charges 0.89% a year on balances up to $1 million, then 0.79% on the first $3 million for Private Clients, stepping down to 0.49% on assets over $10 million. Its budgeting and net-worth tools stay free. Checked on empower.com, October 2026. At 0.89% a year, $10,000 pays roughly $89 a year; on $100,000 about $890; on $500,000 about $4,450. It is charged every year, including years the account loses money, and it grows as the balance grows.
Is there a minimum to open a Empower account?
Empower's managed Personal Strategy needs more than $100,000 invested and charges 0.89% a year on balances up to $1 million, then 0.79% on the first $3 million for Private Clients, stepping down to 0.49% on assets over $10 million. Its budgeting and net-worth tools stay free. Checked on empower.com, October 2026. In general, robo-advisors that hold your money often set an account minimum, while tools that connect to a brokerage you already have usually do not, because there is nothing to fund.
What else do you pay on top of the Empower fee?
Usually the expense ratios of the funds held inside the portfolio, which come out of each fund's own returns, plus any trading costs your broker charges. Those exist regardless of which provider you use. In a taxable account, selling to move money between providers can also create a tax bill, which is a real cost people forget to count.
What does a 0.89% fee actually cost over time?
More than the percentage suggests, because it applies to a growing balance every year. At $890 a year on $100,000, a portfolio that grows to $500,000 is paying roughly $4,450 annually for the same service. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether you want the work done for you.
Does Empower charge to connect my existing brokerage?
Yes, for tracking (aggregates held-away accounts). Where a product holds your money instead of connecting to your broker, the question does not arise: you fund an account with them and the management fee covers it. Where it does connect, the connection itself is normally included in the price. Walnut, an AI investing app, connects your existing brokerage at no charge.
Is Empower worth the money?
That depends on whether you would otherwise do the work yourself. Paying a percentage of assets buys automation and the discipline of not interfering, which has real value for people who would otherwise tinker. Paying nothing and doing it yourself only wins if you actually do it. Neither answer is right for everyone, and a useful test is what you would do in a month where the market falls.
Is Empower cheaper than the alternatives?
Empower charges 0.89%/yr from $100,000, tiered down to 0.49% (Oct 2026), against Walnut at Free; Walnut Plus $9.99/mo on the web; no fee on assets, Betterment at $5/mo, or 0.25%/yr from $24,000 or $200/mo deposits (Oct 2026), Wealthfront at 0.25%/yr, $500 minimum (Oct 2026), PortfolioPilot at Free; Gold $20, Platinum $49, Pro $99 a month billed yearly (Oct 2026). Price is only half the comparison though: whether your money has to move, and what you get for the fee, decide more than the headline rate.
Where can I confirm Empower's current pricing?
On Empower's own site. The figures here were read there in November 2026. Fees, tiers and minimums change, and this page is maintained by a competitor of Empower, so treat every figure as a point-in-time guide.
Walnut publishes this page and competes with Empower, so read it as an informed assessment rather than an independent one. It is built from publicly available information about the product, not from collected user reviews, and it carries no star rating because we have not surveyed Empower's customers. Pricing, features and availability change; verify current details on Empower's own site before deciding. Walnut is informational and is not an investment adviser. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or to use any particular product.