Category: 4. Best Robo advisors

Our Score: 9
Minimum Deposit: $0
Annual Fees: 0.25% – 0.40%
Human Advisor Access: Yes

Get Started With Betterment

Best For: Betterment is one of the simplest robo-advisors you can use. After filling out a brief investment profile and questionnaire, you decide how much you want to invest and Betterment takes care of the rest.

Betterment offers two products: a basic investment service that’s great for beginners and an upgraded service where you can access a financial advisor for a higher fee. Betterment works with several types of taxable and retirement accounts, and taxable accounts get automated tax-loss harvesting.

It also offers members a helpful all-in-one dashboard to view all of their financial accounts, including accounts outside of Betterment.

Potential Drawbacks: The most significant drawback at Betterment is its cost. The standard account charges an annual fee based on your investment balance. If you have at least $100,000 with Betterment, you can upgrade to the full financial advising service with a human advisor, but this costs even more.

Fees: The standard “Digital” account at Betterment costs 0.25% per year. The Premium plan requires a higher 0.40% annual fee. Digital plan customers can get a session with an advisor for a one-time fee of $299-$399.

Pros:

• No minimum account requirement
• Very easy to use
• Betterment offers other services like cash accounts
• Uses tax-loss harvesting

Cons:

• High balance requirement for Premium Investing
• Expensive one-time fees for meeting an advisor

Our Score: 9
Minimum Deposit: $500
Annual Fees: 0.25%
Human Advisor Access: No

Get Started With Wealthfront

Best For: Wealthfront offers robo-advising products that work well for the needs of a wide range of investors, from beginners with no investment experience to experts looking to fine-tune a portfolio that’s kept in line by automatic systems.

The automated investing product suggests an ideal portfolio based on your profile but gives you plenty of customization options with more than 200 available exchange-traded funds (ETFs). You can choose a classic portfolio, a socially responsible portfolio, or customize your own.

Taxable accounts can save with automated tax-loss harvesting, and those with $100,000 or more can tap into direct indexing for further investing efficiency.

Potential Drawbacks: Wealthfront uses a simple, flat fee structure which means larger accounts pay higher fees. And if you want access to a human advisor, Wealthfront isn’t for you. This is a software-only robo-advisor regardless of your account balance.

Fees: Wealthfront uses a flat fee of 0.25% of assets under management, automatically deducted from your account. For taxable accounts, it claims most users save more on taxes than the annual cost of the account.

Pros:

• Wide range of available ETFs
• Simple fee structure
• Control over your portfolio composition
• Tax-loss harvesting for taxable accounts

Cons:

• No access to human advisors
• No fractional shares

Robo-advisors, sometimes known as automated online advisors or digital investing services, are technology-based investment platforms that offer fully automated online investing.

If you want a hands-off approach to investing, robo-advisors are an obvious choice. And these days, the top robo-advisors offer useful tools like automatic rebalancing and consider your financial goals when picking investments.

However, this is a crowded market, and it’s not always easy to make the right choice. That’s why our list of the best robo-advisors is covering some of our top picks for different types of investors.