Wealthfront offers the most accessible route to direct indexing, with a $500,000 minimum for the advanced indexing plan. This gives the firm an edge over Betterment but only for investors with a six-figure portfolio.
Building a direct indexing portfolio on your own requires a ton of time and significant assets. For most investors, it would not be practical to attempt such a portfolio manually or without professional assistance.
However, that does not mean you should ignore tax-loss harvesting. A solid portfolio built with tax-loss harvesting can help you save up enough assets to eventually begin direct indexing. And you can learn a lot about tax-loss harvesting along the way.
Any form of tax-loss harvesting requires a fairly large portfolio to make a significant impact. But you can start with tax-loss harvesting in smaller portfolios as well. Tax-loss harvesting has some skeptics but many more fans. If you are looking for an option to take your portfolio and tax strategy to the next level, direct indexing may be perfect for you.