Posted by Personal Capital and YNAB are good apps that help out when it comes to managing your finances. They, however, work differently. While Personal Capital focuses on your long-term goals, YNAB is concerned with your finances monthly.
Personal Capital has a strong focus when handling your finances, especially in investments. It comprises comprehensive tools to help with investment management and planning your retirement.
YNAB, on the other hand, is solely a budgeting platform. Apart from budgeting, it assists in managing funds, setting and achieving your goal towards savings, and staying free from debt.
The basics of Personal Capital
Personal Capital gives digital wealth management and free money tools. With Personal Capital giving you an overview of your financial life, you can track your portfolio performance of your spending, net worth, investment fees, and retirement progress without paying for an account.
Wealth management services grant access to fiduciary advisors making it a more personal experience.
What is YNAB?
YNAB is an abbreviation for You Need a Budget. It is a unique budgeting app that takes you through the process of keeping track of your finances. It is an excellent choice if you need help to control your saving and spending habits.
The app’s primary focus is to assist you in creating a budget and moving forward in your finances by allowing you to have more control over your future spending and putting you in charge of your future financial goals.
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Personal Capital vs. YNAB: Outstanding features
Personal Capital and YNAB are two of the best finance apps. They are both outstanding in a specific area of your financial picture.
Key Features of Personal Capital |
Key Features of YNAB |
| Cash flow: Personal Capital is a full-featured personal financial tool that automatically collects your income and expenses. It displays your cash flow statistics using graphs that are easy to understand. | Age of money: One goal YNAB has is to increase the age of your money. The idea behind this is that the older your money, the better off you will be with your overall spending and saving habits. |
| Budgeting: You have access to a budgeting section to peg your monthly spending targets and track them. You can also organize your spending and savings by category, date, or merchant. | Direct transaction import: YNAB imports transactions automatically from your bank account. Once you have your transactions in the app, you can categorize them to create a well-detailed budget. You also have the choice to link to your accounts manually. |
| Portfolio analysis: irrespective of your investment portfolio, you can explore where your assets are. You can also compare your current portfolio and a target portfolio. Based on your retirement horizon and your level of risk tolerance. This feature is useful when you want to manage total asset allocation. | Goals: the goals feature allows you to set and keep track of monthly or future goals. For instance, you may develop a plan to pay off a particular debt by a specific date, and YNAB will assist you in achieving this. |
| Net worth: You can find your balances and investment assets all in one place with the Personal Capital net worth report. The dashboard also functions with Zillow, a real estate website, for regular updates on the value of your home.
Fee analyzer: You can check how your account fees affect your retirement date using the Personal Capital fee analyzer. The platform also grants insights into hidden costs in your mutual funds. |
Net worth tracker: YNAB helps you understand your net worth on the app through charts and graphs. These charts and graphs update automatically with changes in your net worth.
Reports: This function lets you view your finances and spending habits through a bird’s eye. For example, you can view the amount of money you spend in each category over a particular period. |
Pricing and fees
Personal Capital comes with free tools that you can use to keep track of the progress of your finance, while YNAB is a service based on a subscription.
Personal Capital |
YNAB |
| Personal Capital gives free financial planning and budgeting tools to anyone that creates an account. | To create an account on YNAB, you get a free trial for 34 days, after which you are charged monthly or annually, depending on the structure of the fee you go. |
| It gives additional services for investment management when you use a paid account. | The monthly payment is $14.99, while the annual subscription fee is $84. |
Customer service
| Personal Capital | YNAB |
| You can reach out to Personal Capital customer service via email. Their website comprises articles, guides as well as an online support portal. You can check Daily Capital which gives market updates and personal finance education. | It has a message and lives chat support feature available whenever you have questions. In addition, they will go further to send a copy of your chat conversation to you via email afterward. |
Security
| Personal Capital | YNAB |
| Two-factor authentication | 128-bit encryption and Two-factor authentication |
| Fingerprint scanning for iOS devices | Partnership with MX and Plaid for direct import services |
| Military-grade encryption | A platform built on Heroku, which the CIA trusts |
| Continuous monitoring | Removes your information if you delete your account. |
| Access to your data only on a registered device. |
Which is better between Personal Capital and YNAB?
For budgeting
Is Personal Capital good when it comes to budgeting? While it has an option for budgeting to help you keep track of cash flow, the app’s primary focus is monitoring net worth and investment activities.
You can still view your transactions from the last 90 days, last year, or another time frame that you choose. Each of these options keeps a total of the amount you spent over the selected period.
YNAB, on the other hand, is solely committed to budgeting. With a zero-based budgeting approach that guides you to give every dollar a purpose to aid your long-term goals, you can create monthly budgets and set future savings goals.
If you have a varying income, you can put your YNAB budget to work frequently with your paycheck. It is also easy to set up and share budgets with your partner.
For planning
The app that is best for planning is dependent on your specific goals. Are you looking to help plan your budget, keep track of your spending, and manage your short and long-term savings goals? Then YNAB may be the option for you as long as you are willing to pay the subscription fee.
On the other hand, Personal Capital is a better option if your plan is on investment. It is so due to its advanced financial management capabilities. The retirement plan lets you carry out different scenarios to compare and have other retirement plans. The free tools help manage risk, create a balanced portfolio, and tax efficiency.
Although personal Capital offers budgeting support, its main focus is on wealth management. It is a platform that is free to use. With the growth in your assets, complications starts to set in regarding your finances. You may join wealth management services with a variety of features.
YNAB possesses a net worth tracker to view your finances, but it is primarily a platform for budgeting. The services are free for a trial period of 34 days, after which you must pay for a subscription.
Personal Capital and YNAB are popular choices in the area of financial management. Although YNAB is good for budgeting, Personal Capital takes the lead in managing your investment.
In conclusion, Personal Capital and YNAB are good platforms that take care of your finances. While one helps in handling your investments and safeguarding you in areas of your wealth, the other one allows you to create a savings and spending plan for you to pick. Your preference, however, depends on the goals you set to achieve.
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