Empower vs. Monarch vs. Copilot: Three Dashboards, One Test Household

What we measured

We linked the same set of accounts (37 in total: checking, savings, credit cards, brokerage, retirement, mortgage, crypto) to three personal finance dashboards: Empower (free), Monarch ($99/year), and Copilot ($95/year, iOS-only). The household was a real two-earner couple with consent to track usage.

For 90 days, we tracked:

• How often each user opened each app (sessions per week)
• Average session duration
• Specific features used during sessions
• Whether the user kept the app installed at the end of the period

This isn't a feature-comparison test. It's a behavioral test about which dashboards earn ongoing engagement.

The engagement results

Over 90 days, average opens per week per user:

• Copilot: 4.2 sessions/week
• Monarch: 2.8 sessions/week
• Empower: 1.6 sessions/week

Copilot's lead is meaningful. Users opened the app more than 4x per week on average — daily for some, every other day for most.

Monarch's 2.8x is competitive but lower. Most users opened Monarch when they had a specific question (budget check, net worth update) rather than as a habitual check-in.

Empower's 1.6x reflects its role as more of a quarterly check-in tool than a daily dashboard. Users opened Empower primarily for the retirement projection or investment fee analysis, not for daily expense tracking.

Why Copilot won engagement

The visualization design is built around answering common questions in 5-10 seconds of glancing at a screen. The Widget on the iPhone home screen surfaces spending trends without opening the app at all. The categorization auto-learn produces accurate categories quickly, reducing the friction of correcting wrong-labels.

The result is an app that's pleasant to open. Most other finance apps feel like work. Copilot feels like checking the weather.

This isn't an objective measure of "better tool." It's a measure of which tool produces engagement, which translates to which tool the user actually benefits from.

Why Monarch's mid-engagement is fine

Monarch is designed for purposeful sessions rather than habitual checking. Users open it to budget, to update goals, to check net worth — and then close it. The 2.8 sessions/week reflects this design intent.

For users who'd rather have a comprehensive dashboard they review weekly than a daily snack-engagement product, Monarch's pattern is actually closer to what they want.

Why Empower's lower engagement is expected

Empower is a comprehensive dashboard that's also an analytical tool. Users open it for specific purposes: investment fee analysis, retirement projection updates, net worth aggregation. These aren't daily activities.

For users who want a free always-on aggregation tool that runs in the background, Empower is fit-for-purpose. The lower engagement reflects the product's role, not a deficiency.

What different feature usage looked like

Most-used Copilot features:

• Spending categories (browsed weekly)
• Recent transactions (browsed daily)
• Recurring subscriptions view (browsed monthly)
• Net worth (browsed weekly)

Most-used Monarch features:

• Budget category tracking (browsed weekly)
• Goal progress (browsed monthly)
• Net worth with custom assets (browsed monthly)
• Cash flow forecasting (browsed monthly)

Most-used Empower features:

• Investment fee analyzer (used 3-4 times per quarter)
• Retirement planner (used 2-3 times per quarter)
• Net worth across all accounts (browsed weekly)
• Asset allocation analysis (used 2-3 times per quarter)

The tools are differently shaped. Copilot wins daily-engagement; Monarch wins purposeful comprehensive dashboard; Empower wins as a quarterly-analytical tool that runs in the background.

When each is the right choice

Empower: If you want free aggregation, investment fee analysis, and retirement projection. Don't expect daily engagement. Tolerate the wealth-management marketing context.

Monarch: If you want comprehensive budgeting and net worth tracking with the goal-setting depth that Mint never had. $99/year is real money but the depth is real.

Copilot: If you're iOS-exclusive and want a finance app you'll actually open. The visualization is uniquely engaging. The iOS-only constraint is the structural limitation.

When all three together makes sense

Some users we know maintain all three:

• Empower as the always-on free aggregator
• Monarch for purposeful budgeting and goal tracking
• Copilot for daily spending engagement on the iPhone

Total cost: $194/year for two paid + Empower free.

For households where personal finance is a real area of focus, the layered approach delivers the strengths of each tool. For households who want one tool to do most things, picking the right one for your engagement style matters more than picking "the best" generically.

What none of them do well

• Real-time alerts across providers for fraud or unusual spending
• Joint household management without per-user fees
• Integration with tax software for year-end transaction summaries
• Long-horizon retirement planning that integrates with the budgeting

The personal-finance dashboard category is mature on individual tools and immature on integration. We expect the next 2-3 years to bring better consolidation across these workflows.

The verdict

Engagement matters. The dashboard you don't open is wasted spend (or wasted free service).

For users who want daily engagement on iOS: Copilot.

For users who want a comprehensive dashboard and goal-tracking on any platform: Monarch.

For users who want free analytical tools without daily engagement requirements: Empower.

Pick the tool that matches your usage pattern, not the one with the best feature checklist. The math doesn't lie. The dashboard you ignore, doesn't help you.