Best Robo Advisors for 2024

Picking the right stocks and bonds for your investment portfolio can be difficult and complicated. Financial advisors promise help, but they typically work with clients who have hundreds of thousands of dollars and charge hefty fees. Over the past decade a new breed of investing apps, known as robo advisors, has grown wildly popular by helping to fill this knowledge gap.

Robos usually start by asking you to fill out a questionnaire about your age, willingness to take risk and financial goals. They then use proprietary algorithms to pick a slate of funds designed to meet your individual needs. While most are automated, some also offer access to expert advice (typically for an extra fee).

While a traditional financial advisor might charge clients a fee equal to 1% of their investments a year, robos typically cost less than half that. Some charge no upfront fees at all. Of course, robo advisors won’t provide you with the same level of personal attention. But they can help you save for that home down payment, college education or retirement without the burden of doing it yourself.

Below are our picks for the Best Robo Advisers. If you’d like to read how we vetted and ranked these services, scroll down for more details.

Best overall robo advisor

Betterment

Pros:

• Low 0.25% annual fee
• No minimum to sign up ($10 to start investing)
• Strong menu of funds
• Tax-loss harvesting (trading to minimize capital gains) 
• Personal financial planning sessions with a licensed advisor for an additional fee

Cons:

• No live customer support on weekends or after 9 p.m. EST on weekdays
• Betterment focuses on investing for the long-term and warns withdrawals initiated 30 minutes before the 4 p.m. close of trading may get executed the following day.

Betterment offers more services at a competitive fee compared to other robos and its zero-minimum means anyone can join.

Betterment’s basic product (officially known as Betterment Digital) is a great option for almost any investor. If you’re just starting out, you can open an account with access to educational materials with nothing, then begin investing in stock and bond funds with just $10. If you are comfortable choosing your own funds, you’ll have the opportunity to add some customization to your portfolio.

When you arrive at the website you’ll be asked to provide personal identification information and to fill out a questionnaire asking about your investment goals and when you’ll need the money to meet those goals. Then Betterment will put you in a mix of stock and bond exchange-traded funds from well-known providers like Vanguard and BlackRock’s iShares.

Most of Betterment’s competitors take a different approach, focusing first on how much risk an investor is comfortable taking rather than on when they need the money. We prefer Betterment’s pragmatic approach. You know when you need to have a down payment in hand to buy a house, but you don’t know for sure how you’ll react to a 10% or 20% drop in your portfolio during a market downturn.

Betterment’s annual fees amount to 0.25% of the assets you have invested if your balance is at least $20,000 or you set up recurring monthly deposits of $250 or more (otherwise, it’s $4 a month), which is on the low end for robos with comparable offerings. (There are also fees for underlying ETFs, but Betterment’s portfolios use almost exclusively low-cost funds.) Few of Betterment’s competitors have as many “socially responsible” strategies—it offers three—and most are not as transparent about the funds that comprise their different portfolios before you sign up. All the exchange-traded funds included in various portfolio strategies are listed on the Betterment website.

If you’d like professional help, Betterment lets you sign up for a single session with a financial planner for an additional fee of $299 to $399, depending on the type of guidance you need. No all-digital robo advisors that we reviewed, including those from Vanguard and Schwab, offered that option without enrollment in a much costlier premium service that will eat up 0.3% to 0.85% of your assets annually. As your balance begins to grow that could add up to thousands of dollars a year.

While Betterment is great for beginners and more hands-off investors, it can also accommodate those who want to take a more active role. Investors in its Core Portfolio strategy, for example, can use its Flexible Portfolio option to change the weights of different asset classes, such as domestic or international stocks, and add real estate investment trusts, or REITs, and commodities. Also, investors with a minimum $100,000 who want to work with a human advisor can sign up for Betterment’s premium option, which costs 0.4% annually.

Best for new investors

Fidelity Go

Pros:

• Free for the first $25,000, then 0.35% on any balance of $25,000 or more
• No account minimum ($10 to start investing)
• Investments are all no-fee Fidelity index mutual funds

Cons:

• No tax-loss harvesting, though muni funds available for taxable accounts
• No socially responsible fund options

Fidelity Go delivers a streamlined but well-designed service for the first-time investor without the bells and whistles that can distract or intimidate a novice.

Fidelity Go is a solid choice for a new investor who doesn’t have much money to invest but wants to work with an established financial firm. All you need is $10 to start investing and you won’t pay a dime for your first $25,000 because there is no management fee at that level nor are there any fees for the investment funds at any level. Fidelity Go invests in only zero-expense Fidelity Flex index mutual funds. Most other robos, including Betterment use index exchange-traded funds or mutual funds that charge fees, which are then passed along to investors.

Once you sign up for a Fidelity Go account, you’ll be asked a number of questions that will help you take stock of your financial life, including your investment goal (only one is allowed per account), risk tolerance, household income, monthly expenses and potential unexpected future expenses and more. Just considering those questions will help you focus on what you need to do to get your finances in order.

Fidelity Go will then choose a portfolio for you that uses several Fidelity Flex mutual funds in a mix of stocks, bonds and cash. As a Fidelity customer you’ll also have access to the brokerage’s suite of other tools: If you want a fuller view of your finances you can sign up for Fidelity Full View, which will aggregate all your investment, credit and banking accounts along with loans and property values. Another app, Fidelity Bloom, can help you build savings and track your spending.

Fidelity Go is a less robust robo than Betterment with fewer investment options and no tax-loss harvesting, but like Betterment it offers a premium hybrid product with access to a financial advisor. That service requires a smaller minimum than Betterment’s ($25,000 vs. $100,000) and charges less (0.35% compared to 0.40%). 

Best for investors with multiple goals

Wealthfront

Pros:

• Low 0.25% annual fee
• $500 minimum
• Ability to set multiple investment goals 
• Flexible investment options 
• Tax-loss harvesting

Cons:

• No premium option with access to a financial planner

Wealthfront allows investors to plan for multiple investment goals and offers an extensive list of investment options with some ability to customize choices.

Wealthfront is a smart choice if you’re juggling multiple savings goals such as buying a home while saving for kids’ college education as well as your own retirement. Once you link all your banking and investment accounts to your Wealthfront account, the robo’s Path financial planning tool will track your progress to meet your financial goals as balances are updated and goals change. Wealthfront is also a good option for investors who want some ability to customize their portfolios.

After you’ve answered questions about your current finances and risk tolerance and chosen a core (called “classic”) or socially responsible account, Wealthfront will design a portfolio of low-cost ETFs that you can then tweak by adding or removing specific funds. This is an unusual option from a robo advisor. You can also invest up to 10% of your portfolio in two cryptocurrency funds: the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust and the Grayscale Ethereum Trust.

Investors with $100,000 have even more choices, including a direct indexing account and a risk parity account. People with $500,000 or more can also choose a smart-beta portfolio. All three options are more intricate strategies best suited for investors who understand them.

There’s also a 529 fund, which is a tax-friendly way to save for college and precollege private education that is not available from many robos and a cash account that pays a 5% annual percentage rate compared to 4.75% from Betterment.

If you want additional help from a financial advisor, however, you won’t find it at Wealthfront. Unlike Betterment and some other robos, Wealthfront does not provide any access to financial advisors, even for investors with $100,000 or more in assets.

Best premium robo advisor

Vanguard Personal Advisor

Pros:

• Low 0.3% fee for $50,000 minimum
• Access to actively managed funds

Cons

• No banking options or ability to trade individual stocks

Vanguard’s Personal Advisor, or PAS, combines a digital investment offering with the expertise of human advisors and access to active and passive funds at a price lower than any of its competitors. PAS charges 0.3% of invested assets each year, compared to 0.4% at Betterment and 0.85% at Merrill Guided Investing from Merrill Lynch. Its $50,000 minimum is lower than Betterment’s $100,000 but higher than the minimum at some other premium robos, including those from Fidelity, Merrill and Schwab.

Vanguard’s advisors are salaried and do not earn commissions, which means they should provide impartial advice, and most are certified financial planners or working toward that designation. They work in teams, but if you have $500,000 in your account you will be assigned a single advisor.

(Since services like PAS rely on phone calls with actual humans, not everyone considers them robo advisors. But we’ve included these hybrids in our ranking because we think investors who work with robos will also want to consider these.)

Vanguard’s PAS offering starts with the development of a comprehensive long-term financial plan that considers all your financial accounts and investment goals in addition to your tolerance for risk. An advisor will then develop a portfolio centered on the same four total market Vanguard funds used by Vanguard no-frills robo: the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund, Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund, Vanguard Total Bond Market Index Fund and Vanguard Total International Bond Index Fund. Note that the advisor can add more funds from a roster of about two dozen other Vanguard funds, if needed. They include actively managed equity funds, muni funds and socially responsible funds. Accounts with at least $5 million in assets can also invest in private equity.

PAS also lets investors keep non-Vanguard funds and individual securities in their account if they align with Vanguard’s portfolio construction guidelines.

Vanguard recently added tax-loss harvesting services to PAS and Digital Advisor, which is standard for other premium robos, like Betterment’s, and many all-digital robos. There is no additional fee for the tax-loss harvesting.

More robos to consider

SoFi Automated Investing

SoFi has something for everyone: access to financial advisors, no management fee and a $1 minimum to enroll and a $5 minimum to start investing. We didn’t include it in any best category because it doesn’t offer socially responsible funds or tax-loss harvesting and has a business model based on cross selling products like personal loans and savings and checking accounts. Also, when SoFi introduced its first proprietary no-fees ETFs, client assets were automatically transferred out of comparable existing funds without telling them beforehand, creating potential tax consequences for clients. (SoFi says it “notified our members in a timely fashion” and settled the SEC charges without admitting or denying the allegations.)

Acorns

Acorns is an appealing choice for first-time investors because you can start investing simply by depositing change left over from purchases using a credit or debit card that is linked to an Acorns checking account. Fees start at $3 a month for the individual plan (the Bronze plan) to $12 a month for the Gold plan, but tax-loss harvesting is absent.

Interactive Advisors

Interactive Advisors offers an extensive array of investment options which sophisticated investors, more than novices, will appreciate. There are smart beta, socially responsible and index tracking portfolios. Unlike most other robos, Interactive’s fees vary depending on which investing strategy you choose, with the options running from 0.08% and 0.2%.

Robo Advisor terms to know

If you’re new to investing with robo advisors, here are some terms to know.

Robo advisor

A robo advisor is a digital advisor that uses algorithms to create and maintain an investment portfolio that aligns with your goals, risk tolerance and time horizon. They’re a cheaper option than traditional human advisors, and offer many of the same services.

Risk tolerance

Your risk tolerance refers to the amount of risk you’re willing to endure while investing, partly depending on your goals and time horizon. For example, if you are planning to retire in 30 years you will likely have a higher risk tolerance than if you’re planning to retire in five years. A longer time frame means you can afford to wait out a temporary decline in stock prices if there’s a bear market. Robo advisors take your risk tolerance into account when setting up your portfolio.

Rebalancing

Rebalancing refers to buying and selling investments in order to return a portfolio to its intended mix of stocks and bonds. For instance, you may aim to have a portfolio that is made up of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, but that balance will shift over time as stocks gain in value faster than bonds. It’s important to regularly rebalance so you can return your portfolio to that 60%/40% ratio. Most robo advisors will do this for you automatically.

Tax-loss harvesting

Tax-loss harvesting is a way to use capital losses to your advantage and potentially lower your tax bill. The strategy entails selling losing investments to offset capital gains. In addition to gains, you can offset up to $3,000 of your ordinary income with this method each year. Many robo advisors offer tax-loss harvesting services.

How we picked

To pick Best Robo Advisors, Buy Side from WSJ reviewed 20 different robo advisors and ranked them based on their fees, investment strategies and investor services, including financial planning, tax-loss harvesting and availability of a premium service. We compiled this information from the robos’ websites, sometimes augmented with interviews with their communications representatives; The Robo Report, published by Condor Capital; and Morningstar’s Robo-Advisor Landscape report.

We also considered whether the robos rebalance portfolios to adjust the mix of assets that have strayed from their original allocation and the usability of their website, including how much information is available before investors sign up for an account.

All the winners offer individual and joint taxable accounts and individual retirement accounts; some offer additional account types.

(Mallika Mitra contributed to this story.)

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