Empower and Fidelity both offer retirement-planning tools that can model whether current finances are likely to support a future retirement lifestyle. The difference is not that one uses numbers and the other does not. It is which numbers are emphasized, how the data enters the tool, and how easily the user can test spending, retirement age, linked accounts, income events, and investment assumptions.
Empower’s Personal Dashboard is built around aggregating a broad household balance sheet and transaction history. Fidelity’s Planning & Guidance Center is built around a formal set of financial goals and retirement-analysis assumptions. Both can be useful, but the projection can move for different reasons.
Current investment balances affect both tools
Both Empower and Fidelity need a starting asset base. Retirement accounts, taxable investments, and other savings expected to support retirement form the foundation of the projection.
If a major account is missing, either planner can understate retirement resources.
Empower emphasizes connected accounts
Empower’s current linked-account tool can connect investments, retirement plans, checking, savings, credit cards, mortgages, and loans into the Personal Dashboard.
That makes it natural to begin from the household’s current aggregated financial data.
Fidelity also allows a broader plan than only Fidelity-held assets
Fidelity’s current Planning & Guidance Center lets users include accounts and income sources they expect to use toward their goals, including information from outside Fidelity where supported or entered.
Fidelity’s own FAQ tells users to make sure expected retirement accounts and income sources are included before relying on the plan.
Future contributions matter in both systems
A retirement planner cannot simply compound today’s balances. It needs an assumption about how much will continue to be saved.
Empower’s plan reflects current savings behavior and scenarios, while Fidelity’s retirement methodology explicitly uses estimated future contributions.
Retirement age is a major lever in both
Empower currently lets users test retirement at different ages. Fidelity likewise uses retirement age as a key planning input and what-if variable.
Changing retirement age affects years of contributions, years of compounding, and the period over which retirement assets need to support spending.
Spending is where Empower has a distinctive data advantage
Because the Empower Dashboard includes transaction categorization and budgeting tools, users can review actual connected-account spending while building retirement assumptions.
That does not mean the app should copy current spending directly into retirement. It means the user has a concrete spending history from which to build the retirement estimate.
Fidelity asks directly for retirement spending needs
Fidelity’s retirement analysis uses estimated retirement spending and income needs as part of the projection.
The user can adjust the expected lifestyle rather than relying on current spending alone.
Income events matter in both tools
Empower allows users to include retirement income sources such as Social Security, pension income, rental income, and windfalls.
Fidelity likewise incorporates Social Security, pensions, and other retirement income sources when they are included in the plan.
Major future expenses are especially prominent in Empower
Empower currently highlights adding expenses such as college, vacations, home remodeling, or a second home to the retirement timeline.
This is useful for households whose biggest financial risks are not steady monthly spending but large planned cash needs.
Fidelity handles competing goals inside the broader Planning & Guidance Center
Fidelity can track multiple independent financial goals rather than treating retirement as the only objective.
A home purchase, college savings, or other goal can affect how much cash is available for retirement contributions.
Portfolio allocation affects both projections
Empower has a separate Portfolio Analysis tool showing asset allocation and risk. Fidelity’s retirement analysis also incorporates investment strategy assumptions.
A projection using a high stock allocation can have a different expected growth path from one using a conservative portfolio.
Neither tool can turn higher expected returns into certainty
Increasing investment risk can improve projected average outcomes while increasing the range of possible real outcomes.
Do not change asset allocation merely to make the planning chart turn greener.
Inflation assumptions matter
Fidelity’s retirement methodology models future values and lets users view results in today’s dollars or future dollars. That helps keep purchasing power visible.
Empower’s planning output also has to model future spending and investment values over long periods, so inflation is embedded in the planning assumptions even when the user is primarily interacting with spending and scenario inputs.
Empower can show how the household behaves today
Because connected transactions can be categorized automatically, Empower can reveal that actual monthly spending is much higher or lower than what the household guessed.
That makes it especially useful for someone who has never built a reliable retirement spending estimate.
Fidelity can be especially useful when retirement accounts already live there
A user with a Fidelity 401(k), IRA, brokerage account, or pension information may find the Planning & Guidance Center easier to maintain because the core balances are already inside the Fidelity ecosystem.
The more accurate and current the inputs, the more useful the comparison scenarios become.
Example: one spouse has an outside 401(k)
If Empower is connected to both spouses’ workplace plans, it can include both balances in the dashboard. Fidelity can also include the outside retirement resource when it is added to the plan.
If either planner is missing the second spouse’s account, the retirement result can be materially understated.
Example: large remodeling expense
A household plans a $100,000 home renovation five years before retirement. Empower explicitly encourages adding large future events to test their effect.
In Fidelity, the same financial reality should be reflected through the relevant planning goal, asset change, or spending assumption so retirement resources are not overstated.
Example: current spending is temporarily high
A family with children in daycare may spend $3,000 more per month today than it expects to spend after the children leave home.
Empower’s transaction data can expose the current number, while both tools still require judgment about how much of that spending belongs in the retirement lifestyle.
The plan is only as good as the data
Empower linked accounts can become stale or duplicated. Fidelity outside-account information can be missing or outdated if the user does not maintain it.
Review major balances before making a decision based on either projection.
Which inputs should you stress-test first?
- Retirement age
- Annual retirement contributions
- Retirement spending
- Social Security and pension assumptions
- Major future one-time expenses
- Investment allocation
- Longevity assumptions where available
- Linked account balances and debts
Empower can be stronger for day-to-day financial visibility
Someone who wants one dashboard for transactions, spending, net worth, investments, debt, and retirement scenarios may prefer Empower’s aggregation-first design.
See How Empower’s Retirement Planner Uses Spending and Investment Data for a deeper look at those inputs.
Fidelity can be stronger for a structured retirement-goal workflow
Someone already using Fidelity for retirement accounts may prefer the Planning & Guidance Center’s direct integration with Fidelity balances and retirement analysis.
Our article How Fidelity’s Retirement Planner Builds a Retirement Income Estimate explains Fidelity’s approach in detail.
Bottom line
Empower and Fidelity both model retirement from balances, contributions, retirement age, income sources, spending, and investment assumptions. Empower’s distinctive strength is its broad connected-account and transaction view, which can ground the plan in actual household cash flow. Fidelity’s strength is a structured goal and retirement-analysis framework integrated closely with Fidelity accounts. The better tool is the one whose inputs you will keep complete, realistic, and current.
This article was prepared using Empower’s current Retirement Planner, linked-account, transaction, and portfolio tools, together with Fidelity’s current Planning & Guidance Center and 2026 retirement-analysis methodology. Both companies describe planning outputs as estimates rather than guarantees.
Run the same scenario in both when comparing tools
If you use both Empower and Fidelity, compare them with the same retirement age, spending target, Social Security assumption, and contribution plan. Different inputs can create different projections even when the underlying models are both reasonable.
Large differences should prompt an input audit before you conclude that one tool is more accurate.
Run the same scenario in both when comparing tools
If you use both Empower and Fidelity, compare them with the same retirement age, spending target, Social Security assumption, and contribution plan. Different inputs can create different projections even when the underlying models are both reasonable.
Large differences should prompt an input audit before you conclude that one tool is more accurate.
Run the same scenario in both when comparing tools
If you use both Empower and Fidelity, compare them with the same retirement age, spending target, Social Security assumption, and contribution plan. Different inputs can create different projections even when the underlying models are both reasonable.
Large differences should prompt an input audit before you conclude that one tool is more accurate.
Run the same scenario in both when comparing tools
If you use both Empower and Fidelity, compare them with the same retirement age, spending target, Social Security assumption, and contribution plan. Different inputs can create different projections even when the underlying models are both reasonable.
Large differences should prompt an input audit before you conclude that one tool is more accurate.
Run the same scenario in both when comparing tools
If you use both Empower and Fidelity, compare them with the same retirement age, spending target, Social Security assumption, and contribution plan. Different inputs can create different projections even when the underlying models are both reasonable.
Large differences should prompt an input audit before you conclude that one tool is more accurate.
Run the same scenario in both when comparing tools
If you use both Empower and Fidelity, compare them with the same retirement age, spending target, Social Security assumption, and contribution plan. Different inputs can create different projections even when the underlying models are both reasonable.
Large differences should prompt an input audit before you conclude that one tool is more accurate.