Turbobulls vs Personal Capital (Empower)
Start With Availability, Because It Decides Most of This
Empower Personal Dashboard supports only US-based financial institutions, requires a US phone number to sign up, and does not support linking international accounts (Empower support, on linking international accounts; accessed August 2026).
So:
- If you are in the US, Empower is available and Turbobulls is a poor fit for most of your needs. Skip to the honest recommendation below.
- If you are outside the US, Empower is not an option regardless of how good it is, and the real question is what to use instead.
Everything else follows from that, which is why it is at the top rather than buried under a comparison table.
What Each One Is Actually For
They are different categories of product, and comparing them feature by feature would obscure that.
Empower is a wealth-management business with an excellent free dashboard attached. The dashboard aggregates your accounts, shows net worth, and analyses fees and retirement readiness. It is free because it identifies people worth talking to about advisory services. That is a legitimate and openly stated model, and the dashboard is genuinely good.
Turbobulls is a paid tracking and analytics tool with no advisory arm, no ability to read your data, and no automatic account connections. It is built for multi-currency, multi-broker portfolios, mostly European.
The honest summary: one is a US aggregator funded by a wealth business, the other is a European tracker funded by subscriptions. Neither is a version of the other.
If You Are in the US
Use Empower, or another US-native tool. We say that plainly because the alternative is pretending, and the specifics are checkable:
- We have no automatic account connection, to any broker. Imports are file-based, because data is encrypted on your device before it is stored.
- We have no US broker adapters beyond Interactive Brokers. No Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard or Robinhood.
- We produce no US tax reporting of any kind.
- Our tax guidance covers Germany and Romania, and our pricing is in euros.
There is one case where a US investor might still want us: if you hold assets in several currencies, or live abroad, and want a tool whose operator cannot read your portfolio. That is a narrow case and it is a real one.
If You Are Outside the US
Empower is unavailable, so the question becomes what fills the role. Split it, because Empower does two jobs and most alternatives do one:
The net-worth aggregation job. Seeing everything, including cash and property, in one place. Turbobulls covers this: multi-broker and multi-account across 30+ currencies, with custom assets for property and other unlisted holdings, and net worth that counts debt against you through loan and mortgage account types.
The advisory job. Empower's dashboard leads to human advisers. We do not do this and never will. If that is what you valued, you want an adviser, not a tracker.
The thing you gain in the swap is that no one can read your portfolio. Transactions are encrypted on your device with AES-256, so the server holds ciphertext. The thing you lose is automatic syncing, which is the same trade in the other direction.
What People Actually Valued, and What Replaces It
Most people looking for an alternative are not looking for a whole product. They are looking for one thing the dashboard did. Taking the common ones in turn:
Seeing everything in one place. The core aggregation job: brokerage, cash, property, debt, in a single net-worth figure. Any decent tracker covers this, ours included, and the differences are in how many currencies and account types it handles rather than in whether it works.
The fee analysis. Surfacing what funds were quietly costing. We do not have an equivalent feature that scans holdings for expense ratios. What we do have is cost tracking on your own transactions and a cost efficiency measure of what survives fees and tax, which answers a related question from the other direction.
Retirement projection. We track FI progress rather than modelling retirement, and that projection is on the paid plan. There is no scenario modelling or what-if analysis, so if you relied on projecting outcomes under different assumptions, no part of our product replaces it.
The free price. Worth naming, since it is often the real answer. If free was the appeal, the honest comparison is between our capped free plan and other free tiers rather than against a dashboard funded by a wealth-management business.
The Comparison, Briefly
| Empower | Turbobulls | |
|---|---|---|
| Available outside the US | No | Yes |
| Account connection | Automatic, US institutions | File-based import |
| Can the operator read your holdings | Yes, by design | No, encrypted on device |
| Multi-currency | Not supported | 30+ currencies, trade-date FX |
| Advisory service | Yes | No |
| Free tier | Yes, dashboard | Yes, capped |
| Business model | Funnel to wealth management | Subscription |
Empower details from their own support documentation, accessed August 2026. Products change; check their site.
Switching, If That Is What You Are Doing
Export your transaction history before you stop using anything, and keep the file somewhere neither tool controls. On arrival, check that cost basis survived and that dividends kept their withholding tax rather than appearing as net-only figures. Those two are the ones that quietly do not carry across. See reading your brokerage statement for which file to ask for.
See It Before Signing Up
The Full Picture: Read These Next
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I use Empower from Europe?
No. It supports only US-based financial institutions and requires a US phone number to register, per their own support documentation as of August 2026. Accessing the site from abroad does not change what you can link.Q: Is Turbobulls a replacement for Personal Capital?
For the tracking and net-worth aggregation half, it covers the same ground and adds multi-currency. For the advisory half, no, and there is no intention to build it. If the adviser relationship was the value, a tracker is the wrong replacement.Q: Why does Turbobulls not connect to my accounts?
Because your data is encrypted on your device before it reaches the server, which means we hold ciphertext and cannot read your holdings. A tool that syncs your accounts necessarily can read them. That is the trade, made deliberately, and the file-based import is its cost.Q: Which is better?
For a US investor wanting automatic syncing and possible access to advisers, Empower, comfortably. For an investor outside the US, Empower is not available. For anyone with multi-currency holdings who would rather their portfolio not be readable by the tool holding it, us.Turbobulls is a tracking and analytics tool, not an investment adviser. Nothing here is investment, tax, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Do your own research or consult a licensed professional.
A Tracker That Cannot Read Your Portfolio
Encrypted on your device, multi-currency by default, and available wherever you are.
- AES-256 encryption on your device, server holds only ciphertext
- 30+ currencies with FX applied on the trade date
- Custom assets for property and other unlisted holdings
- Loan and mortgage account types, so net worth counts debt
- Free plan with no card and no time limit, within published caps
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