Helping you take hold of today and helping you move toward a brighter tomorrow.
Meet our Principal® app dedicated to helping you build your future. Make moves on your retirement account(s) and feel great that you can move toward your goals. Download our streamlined, trustworthy and sleek app, now.
Log in to the app for retirement account information and:
• Check your defined contribution account details (i.e. account balances, vested balances)
• View your defined benefit, nonqualified and employee stock ownership plan details
• Change the contribution rate to your retirement account
• Make transfers between investment options or change how your upcoming contributions are invested
While you’re there, gain access to your insurance information too.
The availability of information and functionality will vary depending on your employer’s plan type(s).
To make changes not available on the app, visit Principal.com.
Some screens may contain more information than is illustrated in the samples.
This document is intended to be educational in nature and is not intended to be taken as a recommendation.
Insurance products and plan administrative services provided through Principal Life Insurance Co., a member of the Principal Financial Group®, Des Moines, IA 50392.
Visit our online privacy policy at https://www.principal.com/privacy-policies
© 2019 Principal Financial Services, Inc.
600144-092018
Just started using this app. Easy to use, easy to interpret the numbers with graphs, seems easy to transfer funds and setup external accounts. One thing I don’t like… Should be able to run/download reports for balances/fund performance! BTW, I don’t know why so many are complaining about speed. There are a couple of functions that take a couple of seconds, but it’s not tragic like some are saying. I work in IT; this app could be much worse. Im wondering if certain phones or net speeds are why?
Complete Edit: My primary complaint about the app continually making me reauthenticate nearly every time I use the app has finally been addressed (at least on my device)! Additionally, that chat bubble is gone, too, which is nice. At this point, the app is fully usable and is, more importantly, useful. I think the only thing I’d like to see still is the ability to change the date range for things like personal performance and whatnot.
UPDATE: Very responsive team! Fixed issue from my rating and feedback. App is working again & it gives me the info I need to see! Thanks for the responsiveness! On S10+, used to work nicely, but now doesn’t even work! After logging in, takes you to page with gray bars that just flash until you’re greeted with an error message that says, “Here’s some info you’ll want to look at” on an otherwise blank page.
App looks great and is easy to use. However, you have to be sure to have a phone number set on your account’s 2 Factor Authentication Preferences. Without it, I kept getting a generic “Sorry, that didn’t seem to work” message when trying to log in – when I called support, they just wanted to reset my password even though my login worked fine on browsers. The error message makes no mention about needing 2 Factor Authentication to be via SMS.
I updated to the newest version and now it won’t start. It just opens a window saying Principal keeps stopping and do I want to close the app, see app info, and one other choice. I tried deleting the app and reinstalling, but it didn’t help. Now that the developers responded to my problem so quickly, I changed the rating to 5 stars since that’s what I think the app deserves. I’ve used it for a long time and I’ve always been happy with it.
Just installed the new app and logged in. Got a blank screen with message “error occurred while retrieving your data”. Disappointing to say the least. After a couple more attempts of opening the app and going through the initial process, it seems to work. having to install a brand new app is odd, then had the old and new but icons are identical. had to go through initial process multiple times. when switching between apps, it requires fingerprint verification but my data is still visible. EDIT: I appreciate the response from the developers. As of right now, the app still prompts me to login every time I open it even though I have gone through the setup and configured fingerprint recognition. Hopefully, we’ll see some great updates soon.
I have been using your old app for 3 years…. It has always been clunky and slow. Now you finally upgrade it and I was crazy happy about the finger print recognition and the ability to do more with investments. But sadly…. It constantly logs me out, requires a text to be sent, restart the app and login manually. Then the retirement score calculator doesnt work! It screws up the calculation! For such a top-tier investment company, you should have a working app by now.
It’s a beautiful app but it lacks some basic functionalities. It’s a bit difficult to find investement information e.g. performance, and fees. I like the account balance chart. I wish it had more advance charting options. It also lacks the ability to add or view beneficiaries. Will the app provide me a reminder of the monthly webinars? Lastly, there is no option to adjust retirement planning tool.
Terrible experience. There do not seem to be very many options for viewing and managing your account. Information is difficult to find. Information that should be readily available in a normal account statement isn’t there. Edit: it’s not a tech issue its a lack of transparency. Where’s information on exact transactions for the month? Fees? Contributions? You only show information for very broad categories. It’s all graphs and charts. It’s impossible to truly track what’s happening. Very shady.
I downloaded the app, signed in, did the verification, and then.. The app has this message /announcement that is larger than my screen. I can not go any further. There isn’t any way to close this message and access ANYTHING on this app. As a first time customer, this doesn’t look like a promising investment of they cannot even get their technology to be user friendly, or even better yet functioning correctly at all.
I use to have the wells fargo and im now on this. I guess its not really fair to compare this app to the masterpiece that was the wells fargo app, but im going to anyways. Its slow….painfully slow, its like surfing the internet 20 years ago slow. Poor design, wells fargo had only about screen and a half of options that you could easily see from top to bottom, very consolidated. Principal is alot more spread out so it takes longer to find what you are looking for.
Recently, it was taking forever to load the financial data. I was told it was when i use bio log in, unfortunately it’s on all log in. Since yesterday, 8/28/2020, it won’t load at all. I even restart my phone, reinstall the app, but no luck. Please stop trying to improve what’s working well… each time you try to improve, it seems get worse. Very frustrating
Incredibly slow! I can’t stand to try and open it. I spent 15 minutes and couldn’t get through more than 3 or 4 screens and back. What is wrong with this? Update: The apps speed has gotten better but unfortunately today it will not open on my device. It’s crashing within a second of selecting.
does not provide anywhere close to the same capabilities as the web interface. thus i consider this app of no value whatsoever. Follow up: Examples include if you have after tax and pre-tax balances you only get the total balance (I also have both pre- and after-tax in the same investment), transactions are not available, balances by source are not available… to name a few.
Mediocre app. As user unfriendly as their website. Edit: I looked at the “improvements”. The app is not any better than before. Take a hint from other brokers. Edit2: there is no transactions history in app. The tickers of the funds are not readyly visible. For a bunch of functions you have to click through at least three times and end up on the website.
so far is way better than the old app it replaced. displays much more info more quickly with more options to change things. I like that it supports finger print log in too without constantly asking to verify my account beyond initial login. two notes: 1 sometimes trying to back out of the app will result in getting stuck in a loop of the app attempting to log you back in. 2 checking on a work disability coverage redirected me to the actual website where the document wasn’t formatted correctly
Recent convert from Wells Fargo. This app is SLOW and clunky. There is a dial-up type of delay between pressing the “View Account Details” button and it actually loading. The button does not react to touch, so you have no idea anything happened until it loads the page 15 seconds later. At least there are no ads.
This app is a far cry fron the previous verison. It takes forever to connect and load your information. It us also very limited in the information that you get.Very very disappointed. I would like the app to work. Right now it doesn’t. It just plan sucks. Why did you change it? The previous version worked great. 12/21/19 This updated version is a say huge improvement over the last upgrade. Reliable and gives you the information you need, thanks principal it appears they actually listen
My company switched from Wells Fargo to this. Its by far the worse app I’ve used, but it was usable. At least untill the last update, now I cant even open the app. Not like its a huge loss, since its basically worthless as a tool. Lack of any friendly user UI, hard to navigate menu and almost impossible to adjust where your investment ar spent (well totally impossible now since I cant even open it) utter garbage for an app as well as a company.
App doesn’t remember account name for login info and I have to use two step verification to login every time. Very annoying. Immediately came back to change score from two stars to one. In the 30 seconds it took me to write my review when the option popped up, it logged me out because of an expired session. After less than 60 seconds. Ridiculous. Username also HAS to require two numbers. This makes sense for the password, but for the username? Seriously?
Please do not advertise as a “sleek new app” if you can’t get passwords and verifications to work. I realize most things are buggy on launch but this is bad and made worse by the overselling. Update 6 months later: Newest update principal made the app unusable again. The app crashes immediately upon entering the 2 point authentication code. I gave it a couple of weeks after it crashed several times and it still doesn’t work. Why? Why do I have to uninstall/reinstall everytime they update?
The app is poorly tested for real workflows. The app requires TFA, but the for most people the authenticator and the app are on the same device, which means you have to rapidly switch between the two. Once in, if you try to leave feedback, you get a session timeout error forcing reauth. There’s a lot of unnecessary glitz (webinars? Really?) that should be cut out to make the app more basic. User sessions shouldn’t expire so fast – minutes not seconds. The old app was better. This is a poor beta.
Every time it asks you to enter an authentication code, you have to check your texts, but even when you leave the app running, you come back to enter the code and it automatically has backed up a page and sends you a new code. Cannot be opened. Deleted immediately. Useless. Worst app in history?
This version is a piece of junk. Don’t waste your time downloading it. Follow-up after receiving reply from Principal: You’re kidding, right? The offering of functionality is fine if it worked. Often crashes during login after entering verification code. Other times requires login twice to access data. Goes into terminal death loop after trying to use the wellness planner. Repeatedly redirects to website and sends verification but cannot enter code because it keeps redirecting.
too slow. not very interactive compared to other apps with similar usage. moved from wells Fargo. thought that needed improvement. now I think that was better. no daily change updates Apart from the app which has improved, even when the market was going down, wellsfargo did not let the losses go so low. But with Principal, there is not much improvement. There is a constant decline in the investment.
This company mails paper checks for your loans via U.S. mail. The app logs you out if you navagate to text to view their authentication Code. Then requires a new authentication code. Message center is not viewable from the app. They state they respond within 3 business days to an issue. What type of response is three business days?
just here because its my only employer option. requested how to short the market at the beginning of the year and received no response would of made a killing. only options are to long indexes in ponzi scheme corrupt markets. no commodity – you can go money market. silver is sitting at 21$/an ounce and their is no option to buy..
I am stuck with them and they have been losing my money pretty consistently and cannot seem to figure it out.
Update 4/18/22 Please add Dark mode, has not been updated with this option yet in 2022. 1/13/22 Still NO Dark Mode. ☹️ Please Add DARK Mode.
I don’t see any improvement on performance in last one year. Dropping to 3 star. Little bit slow but overall good app. I have 401k account rollover from Wells Fargo. Hopefully developers will work on performance.
App is slow and often doesn’t load the pages at all. Just a white screen.
Half the time this app dosen’t work. Pages won’t load. It is very frustrating to try and navigate.
Just don’t like it. I wish my 401k was with Wells Fargo. Their app was better. And I even hate that bank so that is saying lot!
This app is pretty much worthless. As I am never able to use it due the extra authentication step that they use. You have to have an additional app on your device to sign in. I switch devices frequently and am constantly unable to access my account because I have not moved the authentication app to the new device. I understand the security aspect, but I also have 5+ other financial service companies that I do business with and none of them make it this difficult to get into my account.
When I installed this app it was absolutely useless. I signed in and went to my text to get the second-step verification When I went back to enter it I had to sign in again. When I entered the code they sent me it said it was incorrect. After this repeting 3 times in a row, I deleted the app.
it sucks that you can only take one loan at a time and you have to wait 5 yrs to dip into company ESOP!!! principle sucks…
Does what it supposed to I suppose, just downloaded it 15 minutes ago. Either the app is slow or server side delivery to app is slow. Delays on clicking, selected what’s new to provide feedback, button didn’t work. It’s running on a Samsung S21 Ultra, so it’s not my phone, but handier than web login. Will look for improvement down the road.
I would like to be able make changes my account. View all my choices for investments. To have complete access like I do on my PC. On PC I can see individual investments monthly/quarterly etc. I realize apps are usually the shortened version of the PC. But you asked for more input… Overall the app works great. Thanks
hard to fix problems and issues with account and contributions is very painful. Customer service is not helpful, after long wait times and a ton of security questions. They don’t fix problems. The most annoying part is I have to pay a fee for this.
Looks ok, but there’s apparently no way to exit the app without hitting the home key. I logout and the screen for fingerprint login pops up. The only options are login or cancel. If you cancel the password screen comes up. If I try to exit that it goes back to the fingerprint screen. I haven’t wasted enough time in the app to decide if its useful, but the initial screens and options don’t look promising, just basic info.