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8FIGURES vs Empower vs Monarch Money: Which Platform Is Best for Investors in 2026?

Andrew Izyumov, Founder & CEO of 8FIGURES, professional portrait
By Andrew Izyumov, CFA
Founder of 8FIGURES
Financial Freedom
April 20, 2026
7
min read

Investors rarely keep their entire financial life in one place anymore. Stocks may sit in one brokerage, crypto in another app, cash across multiple bank accounts, and real estate or private investments somewhere else entirely. That fragmentation creates a real problem: it becomes difficult to understand your net worth, evaluate risk, and make smart portfolio decisions from a complete picture.

That is exactly where 8FIGURES, Empower, and Monarch Money enter the conversation. But while they overlap in some ways, they are built for different kinds of users.

  • 8FIGURES is an investment-first platform focused on cross-asset portfolio tracking and AI-powered portfolio insights. 8FIGURES is a registered investment adviser with the SEC and uses read-only connections.
  • Empower is best known for financial visibility, retirement planning, and advisor-led wealth management, with advisory services available from $100,000 in investment assets.
  • Monarch Money is a broader personal finance platform built around budgeting, spending visibility, and household planning, while also supporting investment tracking for public-market assets and crypto.

So which one is best?

The answer depends on whether you care most about portfolio intelligence, retirement planning, or budgeting and household finance.

What is the main difference between 8FIGURES, Empower, and Monarch Money?

The biggest difference is product focus.

8FIGURES is designed around the portfolio.
Empower is designed around long-term planning and wealth management.
Monarch Money is designed around everyday personal finance.

That distinction matters because many users search for the “best investment app” when they actually need very different things. Some want portfolio analysis. Others want retirement projections. Others want budgeting and net worth in one place.

1. Portfolio tracking: which platform is better for investors?

8FIGURES

8FIGURES is built specifically for investors who want a unified view across multiple asset classes. It connects brokerage accounts, bank accounts, crypto wallets, and alternative investments such as real estate, angel investments, and private funds, pulling everything into a single net worth dashboard. It also states that the product is read-only by default, meaning it cannot place trades or move funds.

Empower

Empower is strong for traditional aggregation across bank accounts, retirement accounts, and brokerage accounts. Its digital tools are tied closely to financial planning, retirement visibility, and advisory workflows rather than to AI-led cross-asset portfolio interpretation.

Monarch Money

Monarch supports connected investment accounts and lets users track holdings, asset allocation, and performance. Its help documentation says it supports publicly traded U.S. stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, fixed income, forex, derivatives, and cryptocurrencies. That is solid coverage for many retail investors, but its product is still broader personal finance software first.

Winner for serious portfolio tracking: 8FIGURES

2. Alternative assets: which app handles more complex portfolios?

This is where the differences become sharper.

8FIGURES publicly highlights support for real estate and startups alongside traditional securities and crypto, which makes it more relevant for investors whose wealth is spread across public and private assets.

Monarch Money’s official investment documentation is much clearer on public-market instruments and supported securities than on private-market asset analysis.

Empower’s public positioning is centered more on financial planning, managed portfolios, and retirement workflows than on tracking nontraditional holdings as a core product strength.

Winner for complex multi-asset portfolios: 8FIGURES

3. Budgeting and personal finance: which platform is best?

This category clearly favors Monarch Money.

Monarch is designed to help users manage spending, budgets, cash flow, and household financial organization, with investments included as part of a broader financial view. That makes it especially attractive for users who want one app to handle both day-to-day money management and long-term tracking.

Empower also offers broad financial visibility, but its current public positioning leans more toward planning and advisory relationships than toward a modern budgeting-first workflow.

8FIGURES is not positioned as a budgeting-first app. Its value is centered on investing, tracking wealth, and portfolio insights rather than expense management.

Winner for budgeting and household finance: Monarch Money

4. Retirement planning and traditional wealth management

If your main goal is retirement planning and access to human advisors, Empower is the strongest fit. Empower publicly offers advisory tiers beginning at $100,000 in investment assets and emphasizes retirement planning, financial guidance, tax-aware allocation, and advisor support. Its wealth-management materials present it as a more traditional planning-led platform than either 8FIGURES or Monarch.

Monarch Money is more of a self-serve personal finance app. 8FIGURES is more of an investment-intelligence platform.

Winner for retirement planning: Empower

5. AI insights and portfolio intelligence

This is the category where 8FIGURES stands out most.

It provides AI investment guidance, smart portfolio monitoring, second-opinion workflows, and a multi-agent AI system designed to analyze portfolio allocation, research, risk, and next-step recommendations.

Empower provides planning tools and investment management, but its public language is more centered on advisor-led strategy and portfolio management than on AI-first portfolio interpretation.

Monarch Money offers investment tracking and reporting, but not the same AI-led investment-advisor positioning.

Winner for AI-powered investing insights: 8FIGURES

6. Pricing and access

8FIGURES:

  • $0.99 for the first month
  • $14.99 per month after that

Monarch Money currently advertises:

  • $99.99 billed yearly
  • A trial period for new users

Empower offers financial dashboard tools and separate paid advisory services, with advisory access beginning at $100,000 in investment assets.

Monarch is generally the lower-cost option on an annual basis, while 8FIGURES is positioned more as a specialized AI investing product. Empower becomes most relevant when advisory support is part of the decision.
Pricing is another meaningful difference.

Who should choose 8FIGURES?

8FIGURES is the best fit if you:

  • want an investment-first platform
  • hold more than just standard brokerage and retirement accounts
  • want to track crypto, real estate, startups, or other nontraditional assets
  • care more about portfolio analysis than budgeting
  • want AI-powered investing insights in one read-only dashboard

Who should choose Empower?

Empower is the best fit if you:

  • want a traditional wealth-management experience
  • care most about retirement planning
  • want advisor access for larger portfolios
  • mainly track conventional financial accounts

Who should choose Monarch Money?

Monarch Money is the best fit if you:

  • want budgeting and investments in one app
  • need spending and cash flow visibility
  • want household finance organization
  • mainly hold traditional market-traded investments
See also

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