Net Worth Trackers: Build a Spreadsheet or Use an App?

A personal-finance page with 4 million followers posted a single screenshot this week: a phone app showing a total net worth of ₱1,228,717.78 across savings, loans, and investments. It pulled 17,000 likes and nearly 500 comments — and the most-asked question was not about the numbers. It was "what app is this?"

A budget tells you how money moves this month. Net worth tells you whether you are actually getting richer — and it is the single number most people never track at all. The real question is not whether to track it, but how: build a spreadsheet yourself, or let an app do the work?

What tracking your net worth actually tells you

Net worth is simple arithmetic: everything you own minus everything you owe. Assets include bank balances, investments, retirement accounts, property, and anything else with real value. Liabilities are credit card balances, loans, mortgages, and any other debt.

Why it matters more than your balance on payday:

• It turns progress into a trend line. Paying down debt moves the number up just as surely as saving, which keeps you motivated on the boring parts.
• It catches drift. Lifestyle creep shows up here long before it shows up as an overdraft.

Check it monthly or quarterly — often enough to stay honest, rarely enough that market wiggles do not dictate your mood.

The two ways to track it

Option 1: the spreadsheet you build yourself

A simple sheet with two columns — assets and liabilities — and one row per month is the oldest net worth tracker in existence. It costs nothing, it lives on your own computer, and nobody sees your data. You can shape it exactly how your brain works: one number, or separate liquid and total views.

The trade-off is effort. You enter numbers by hand, so they are always slightly stale, and a busy month can break the habit. There are no alerts and no auto-charts. If you love control and hate subscriptions, this is your lane.

Option 2: an app that syncs your accounts

Account-aggregation apps connect to your banks, brokerages, cards, and loans and compute net worth automatically, refreshed continuously and charted over time. Zero data entry: everything updates whether you remember or not.

The trade-offs: you hand a third party read access to your financial life, and most of the good ones charge a subscription. Free ones earn their money somewhere — usually through advisory upsells or marketing use of aggregated data.

The best net worth tracking apps in 2026

If the app route appeals to you, these are the names that keep surfacing in independent 2026 roundups.

Empower — the best free option (US)

Empower, formerly Personal Capital, remains the standout free dashboard: bank, credit, investment, and retirement accounts, plus crypto, mortgages, and even your home's value via a Zillow integration. It holds a 4.8-star App Store rating across roughly 378,000 reviews.

The catch is twofold: US accounts in US dollars only, and "free" has a business model — Empower monetizes through its wealth-management service (around 0.89% of assets under management for advisory clients) and uses aggregated data in its marketing. Read the privacy terms before connecting everything.

Monarch Money — best for couples and households

Monarch became one of the most recommended apps after Mint shut down in March 2024, reportedly gaining over a million new users in the months that followed. Core costs $99.99 a year (about $8.33 a month) or $14.99 month-to-month after a 7-day trial — no permanent free plan. Plus, at $199 a year, adds retirement forecasting and Morningstar-powered investment analysis.

Its standout feature is household collaboration: two people share one financial view with separate logins. It is the most polished dashboard here — but five years of annual billing is roughly $500, so treat it as a utility bill and ask whether a free sheet would do the job.

Kubera — best for complex portfolios

If your wealth includes property, crypto, private investments, or vehicles alongside ordinary accounts, standard budgeting apps handle it poorly. Kubera is built around the balance sheet rather than the monthly budget, with an Essentials plan at $250 a year and a 14-day trial (pricing checked October 2026).

It is the priciest option here and does no day-to-day budgeting, so it only earns its fee when your assets are genuinely diverse. A straightforward paycheck-and-retirement-account life does not need it.

Quicken Simplifi — the budget-friendly all-rounder

Simplifi pairs budgeting with a net worth view at $5.99 a month or $47.88 a year, with a 30-day trial (pricing as of early 2026). It is the cheapest paid route to automatic net worth tracking, aimed at US users who want spending and wealth in one place. With no free tier, compare it against the free Empower dashboard if investments are your main interest.

Tool	Price	Trial	Best for	Limitation
DIY spreadsheet	Free	—	Privacy-first, custom views	Manual entry, no alerts
Empower	Free dashboard	—	Free US investment overview	US-only; advisory upsell model
Monarch Money	$99.99/yr or $14.99/mo	7 days	Couples, all-in-one dashboard	No free plan
Kubera	$250/yr	14 days	Complex/multi-asset portfolios	No budgeting; pricey
Quicken Simplifi	$5.99/mo or $47.88/yr	30 days	Budget + net worth on a budget	No free tier

Track the trend, not the day. A monthly net worth number that rises $200 is worth more than a daily one that swings $2,000.

The safety question: is linking your accounts risky?

Reputable aggregators use read-only connections through services like Plaid — they can see balances, not move money. That said, risk is never zero: any company you connect to holds a copy of your financial picture. Before you link:

• Use the app's official channels only to connect accounts — never paste login details anywhere else or message anyone your credentials.
• Read the data policy. Free apps monetize somehow; know whether it is advisory upsells, advertising, or data sharing.
• Turn on two-factor authentication on the tracker itself — it becomes a one-stop view of your whole financial life, so protect it like one.
• Watch the syncs. Aggregators sometimes double-count transfers or miss a loan payoff. Reconcile against your actual statements when the numbers look odd.

Frequently asked questions

Should I include my home and car in net worth?

Technically yes — they are assets, with the mortgage as the offsetting liability. Many people also track "liquid net worth" (excluding home and car) because those are hard to spend in an emergency. Do both if you can: total for the trend, liquid for reality checks.

What if my net worth is negative?

Then you have a baseline, which is exactly where every good payoff story starts. Negative net worth that shrinks every quarter is progress — the direction of the line is the point, not its height.

Is a free spreadsheet really enough?

For most people, yes. If your finances are a checking account, a savings account, one or two cards, and a retirement account, ten minutes a month in a sheet beats a $100-a-year subscription. Pay for an app when you have enough accounts that manual updates stop happening.

Your next step

Do it once this weekend: open a blank sheet (or a free trial), list every account with a current balance, subtract every debt, and write down the number. It does not need to be impressive. It needs to be recorded — because next month's number is the first one that will tell you whether anything actually changed.