Coastline vs Empower
Empower (formerly Personal Capital) offers a well-regarded free Retirement Planner and Monte Carlo tool — bundled with account aggregation and its wealth-management service, which means linking accounts and, often, sales outreach. Coastline is a standalone planning tool: free, no signup, no account linking, no one calling you, with the full math behind every figure.
Coastline vs Empower, feature by feature
| Feature | Coastline | Empower |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Yes | Yes |
| No signup / account-linking required | Yes | No |
| No sales / advisory outreach | Yes | Advisory-driven |
| Monte Carlo retirement projection | Yes | Yes |
| Detailed federal + state tax math | Yes | Simplified |
| Roth conversion / withdrawal-order strategy | Yes | Limited |
| Shows the exact math behind every number | Yes | No |
| Automatic account tracking / net-worth dashboard | No | Yes |
The same plan, run through Coastline
Empower’s planner runs a Monte Carlo on linked accounts with simplified tax. Below is the same plan with federal tax on each withdrawal worked through, and without linking anything. One retiree, $1,000,000 at 65 split 60% taxable / 30% traditional / 10% Roth, single filer, no-income-tax state, no Social Security, spending $40,000 a year in today’s dollars to 95:
| Figure | Coastline |
|---|---|
| Spending the accounts delivered, 65 to 95 (today’s $): the $40,000 a year plus Medicare premiums from 65 | $1,287,081 |
| Gross withdrawn to deliver it | $1,295,071 |
| Tax on the way out, federal + state (today’s $) | $7,990 (0.6% of withdrawals) |
| Real net worth left at 95, straight-line 6% return | $382,148 funded to 95 |
| Most the plan can spend after tax and still last to 95, retiring at 65 | $47,000 (4.7%) |
| … retiring at 45 instead | $28,000 (2.8%) |
The tax row is what a pre-tax simulator leaves for the reader to guess, and for this particular retiree it is small: a single filer drawing about $12,000 a year from a traditional account and the rest from a taxable account whose gains fall in the 0% capital-gains bracket has little to tax. A larger traditional balance, a pension or Social Security stacking on top, or a state with an income tax moves it — which is the case for running your own plan rather than reading this one. The figures are identical on every comparison page on this site because they are one plan run once; only the tool being compared changes.
When to use Empower
Empower is genuinely useful if you want automatic account aggregation and a live net-worth dashboard, and you don’t mind linking accounts (and the advisory pitch that can follow). Its retirement projection is a nice free byproduct of that ecosystem.
When to use Coastline
Choose Coastline when you want to plan without handing over account access or contact details: detailed tax modeling, strategy comparisons, and market stress-testing, with a transparent breakdown of every calculation. It’s a tool, not a funnel to a wealth manager.
Both tools are free. This comparison is written by Coastline, so weigh it accordingly — try both and use whichever answers your question. Empower is a well-regarded tool; the differences here are about focus, not quality.
Common questions
Is Empower’s retirement planner free?
Yes, it’s free, but it requires creating an account and linking your financial accounts, and Empower may follow up about its paid wealth-management service. Coastline needs neither an account nor account-linking.
Which has better tax modeling?
Coastline models federal and state tax on withdrawals in detail and exposes the math; Empower’s projection uses more simplified tax assumptions in service of a quick, aggregated picture.
Does Coastline track my accounts automatically?
No — that’s a deliberate trade-off. Coastline links nothing; figures are entered by hand, so no account access is needed.