Kobah vs Empower

When Empower is the right choice

• You live in the United States and your assets are in US bank and brokerage accounts.
• You're comfortable with Plaid-style bank linking and the data sharing it requires.
• You don't mind the wealth-advisory cross-sell (Empower's actual business model).
• You want a free product backed by financial-advisor upsell.

When Kobah is the right choice

• You live outside the United States, or your wealth is in multiple currencies.
• You explicitly don't want bank linking via Plaid or any other aggregator.
• You don't want to be marketed financial advisory services in your tracker.
• Your portfolio includes assets Empower can't see (non-US brokerages, crypto on non-US exchanges, ASX, LSE, AED cash).
• You want a tool whose business model isn't 'free in exchange for advisor leads'.

Side by side

Where Empower works and where it doesn't

Empower is built around US bank-account and brokerage connections via Plaid and Yodlee. If your money is at Chase, Vanguard, Fidelity, or any major US institution, Empower works beautifully: automatic sync, mainstream UX, and a free price tag. The moment your accounts are outside the US (CommSec in Australia, Saxo in Singapore, Interactive Brokers internationally, ENBD in the UAE), Empower's coverage breaks down. There's no manual-entry workflow that fills the gap. Kobah is the inverse: manual entry by design, which works the same regardless of which country your account is in.

The business model question

Empower is free because it's a lead-generation funnel for Empower Personal Wealth, a registered investment advisor. Once you cross a portfolio threshold (typically $100,000+), Empower's advisors call you about managed wealth services with management fees around 0.89% of assets per year. That's the actual product. The tracker is the bait. Whether that's a fair trade depends entirely on whether you want financial advisory services. If you do, Empower is one of the most polished entry points to one. If you don't, the bait can feel uncomfortable. Kobah's business model is subscription. If Kobah's paid tier launches, you'll pay for the product, and nobody will call you about wealth management.

Multi-currency as a primary citizen

Empower can display some non-USD accounts but the experience is anchored to USD as the base currency. Switching between currencies, comparing performance in your local currency, and seeing the FX drag versus investment return: all of that requires manual work or just isn't possible. Kobah treats every currency equally. The display currency is a one-tap UI preference.

Privacy and the Plaid question

Empower's sync requires you to authorize Plaid (or in some cases Yodlee) to read your bank and brokerage data continuously. Plaid is a credible company, but the surface area is large. Plaid stores your credentials on its servers, and Empower stores your transactional and holdings data on theirs. Kobah's manual-entry model means there's nothing to leak: we never see your bank credentials, never store your transaction history, and never aggregate your data across services. The trade-off is that you enter your holdings yourself.

Complementary or alternative?

If you're a US resident with mostly US assets and you don't have a problem with Plaid, Empower is excellent. Use it. Kobah isn't trying to replace it for that user. Kobah is for the user Empower can't serve: the Australian expat in Dubai, the British remote worker in Bali, the American digital nomad with brokerage accounts in three countries. For those users, Empower isn't a worse Kobah. It's a non-starter, because the product structurally requires what they don't have (a US bank account and willingness to link it).