9 best robo-advisors—manage your portfolio automatically

• Account minimum: $0
• Fees: $3/month personal, $5 personal plus, or $9 for premium family
• Assets: ETFs (including up to 5% in a Bitcoin-linked ETF)
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement, education

Newbie investors who don’t have a lot of cash to get started will appreciate Acorn’s approach to investing.

Acorns rounds up purchases you make with any linked credit or debit card to the nearest dollar and then invests the difference into a diversified portfolio of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Users also have the option to set recurring automated investments, which is great for getting into the habit of investing small amounts of money regularly. You can also earn $20 by setting up recurring investments.

Acorns offers various automated investing portfolios to match your risk tolerance and financial goals, ranging from conservative, to aggressive. Your base portfolio is automatically rebalanced as needed and any dividends earned are reinvested.

Additionally, the "investing robot" app has some great financial education and savings tools to help you make informed decisions and improve their overall financial wellbeing.

Plus, the easy, instinctual app design makes it a breeze to use and understand your investments. Acorns is also one of our top picks for best investing apps overall.

• Account minimum: $0 to open account, $10 to start investing
• Fees: $4 monthly or 0.25% annually
• Assets: ETFs, cryptocurrency
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement

Betterment gives you some great flexibility with expert-built and custom-curated portfolios using either low-cost ETFs or cryptocurrencies.

Beginners can choose from 10 portfolio options, including ones that focus on innovative technology, social impact and decentralized finance. And if you’re a more experienced investor, you can select a flexible portfolio that allows you to adjust individual asset class weights based on your preferences.

Account setup is simple and once your deposits are received, they’re automatically invested in the market. Betterment’s algorithms continually monitor and manage your portfolio, rebalancing as needed.

You can set up your own deposit schedule, and automate your contributions for seamless investing, which starts with a little as $10.

When it comes to tax time, the automated tools can help maximize your returns. This includes a preview to see how much you may have to pay before withdrawing.

Additionally, if you have a portfolio balance of at least $100,000, you can upgrade to a premium robo-advisor account and gain access to unlimited financial guidance from a CFP. This feature costs an additional 0.15% annually.

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• Account minimum: $100
• Fees: $0 for cash-enhanced portfolio, 0.30% annually for market-focused portfolio
• Assets: ETFs
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement, custodial

Ally Invest is a robo-advisor service offered by Ally Financial. It offers four types of portfolios that focus on your needs and goals:

Core: A highly diversified portfolio designed for hands-off investors. You can select your risk level and let it invest your funds.

Income: A conservative risk profile that offers higher dividend yields.

Tax-optimized: For investors who make after-tax contributions to an investment account.

Socially responsible: Gives greater focus to investments in companies with strong environmental, social, or governance qualities

We like that portfolios are designed by a team of humans, and then managed and monitored daily using Ally’s smart technology.

Investors can choose between two pricing tiers. The cash-enhanced option is free as long as you maintain 30% of your funds in cash, which may not work for all investors, as a good chunk of your money isn’t in the market. It does, however, earn interest.

The market-focused portfolio charges a 0.30% annual advisory fee, but holds less than 2% of funds in cash.

Like other robo-advisors, portfolios are rebalanced as needed at no extra cost. Plus, you can update your portfolio goals whenever your needs change.

In addition to its robo-advisory service, Ally Invest offers self-directed investment options, such as individual stocks and bonds, if you want to go beyond ETFs. They also have a range of tools and resources to help you make informed investment decisions.

• Account minimum: $0, but some portfolios do have minimums to invest
• Management fee: $1/month for Essential, $5/month for Plus, $9/month for Executive
• Assets: ETFs, mutual funds
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement

Ellevest stands out as the first gender-aware investing platform. While open to all investors, it focuses on the challenges that women investors face, such as lower lifetime earnings and longer lifespans, on average.

After answering some questions about your lifestyle and financials objectives, Ellevest puts together a personalised investment plan. Their goal-oriented approach ensures your plan includes a risk-optimised mix of stock, bond, and alternative investment funds.

There’s two types of portfolios:

Core portfolio: This robo trading option is designed to help you reach your financial goals through diversification, personalization, tax minimization strategies and more.

Impact portfolio: This option focuses on socially responsible investing, with more than half of your portfolio invested in ETFs and mutual funds that help advance women on boards and senior leadership teams.

Additionally, Ellevest offers two tiers of membership. The Plus option provides a diversified portfolio with automatic rebalancing, tax optimization and retirement planning. The Executive level provides up to five goal-specific accounts and portfolios, plus discounts for one-on-one financial advice.

The financial advice and coaching are a valuable bonus, with one-on-one sessions available to help with retirement planning, budgeting, home buying strategy and more life goals.

• Account minimum: $500
• Fees: 0.30% annually
• Assets: ETFs
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement

E*TRADE designed its Core Portfolios on the premise that automated investing should be as easy as possible. To get started, you answer a few questions about your financial goals, time horizon and risk tolerance. Then E*TRADE recommends a diversified portfolio that matches your risk tolerance and financial objectives.

From there you have the option to further customize your portfolio with strategies such as socially responsible investing and smart beta ETFs.

Users with taxable accounts also get access to a portfolio of tax-sensitive ETFs. That being said, they don’t offer tax-loss harvesting.

And unlike many robo-advisors, E*TRADE customers can contact a dedicated team of specialists to answer any questions at no additional cost. Investment advisor reps are just a call away seven days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. EST, while additional customer service reps are online 24/7.

Beginner investors should also take advantage of the up to date and extensive educational materials available in this robo trading app.

• Account minimum: $0 to open account, $10 to invest
• Fee: 0.35% a year for balances over $25,000
• Assets available: Mutual funds, stock
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement

Fidelity Go is the robo-advisor arm of Fidelity Investments, which makes it easy to add on if you already have an account with them.

Like other robo-advisors on the list, you’ll share a few details about yourself and Fidelity will suggest an automated investing strategy. Your investments will be automatically managed according to your goals.

What makes it stand out is the low cost for beginner investors. There’s no fees whatsoever if your portfolio balance is under $25,000. Once you cross that threshold, there’s 0.35% annual fee.

Once you hit that threshold, you unlock Fidelity’s coaching services. These include access to the Personalized Planning & Advice coaching team and unlimited 30-minute phone calls. These calls aren’t limited to your investments, they’ll chat with you about retirement planning, managing debt and even help with budgeting.

Even if you don’t have a cool $25,000 to invest right now, all customers have access to Fidelity’s online planning and educational tools, which are robust. The information is kept up to date, and comes in various investing levels and formats, like videos, podcasts and classes.

Fidelity Go accounts hold a combination of Fidelity Flex mutual funds, which are made up of domestic and foreign stocks, bonds and short term investments. Investors have access to 14 different portfolios, with no fees, that are recommended based on your goals, risk tolerance and investment timeline.

Fidelity Go automatically rebalances your portfolio when it falls outside your risk level, and offers monthly and yearly progress updates on your goals.

• Account minimum: $1
• Fees: None
• Assets: ETFs
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement

If you’re looking for a truly low-cost investing experience, SoFi is definitely worth it. There are no account management fees for Automated Investing accounts, which holds a mix ETFs matched to your automated investing strategy. There’s are 10 portfolio options built around your investing goals and risk tolerance, however there isn’t a socially responsible investing option, in case that is important.

A huge perk is direct access to a credentialed Investment Specialists via phone or chat. Plus there’s the ability to schedule a meeting with a certified financial planner if you have more complex questions or need help developing a personalized financial plan. These meetings are unlimited so you can call and adjust your plan as life changes.

Investing with SoFi also lets you access member benefits, including rate discounts on loans, career services and exclusive events at no additional cost.

Whether your goal is saving for a home down payment, retirement or just a rainy day, SoFi has the tools and access to professionals to help you make a plan to tackle it.

Portfolios are automatically rebalanced every quarter to ensure you stay on track. However, there’s no tax loss harvesting offered, which is offered by many other robo-advisors.

• Account minimum: $3,000
• Fees: Up to 0.20% for all-index investment options or 0.25% for active/index mix
• Assets: ETFs, mutual funds, collective investment trusts
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement

Vanguard’s Digital Advisor takes a holistic approach to funding your goals, knowing that you likely have a lot of things you are saving for at once.

Once you enroll in one of Vanguard Digital Advisor’s taxable brokerage accounts, you get the option to add non-retirement goals to your profile. Your assets then are pooled across all your accounts in order to meet your long-term goals. These resources can be shifted where needed and adjusted automatically; if your investments have drifted more than 5% off target, Vanguard will automatically rebalance your portfolio.

Portfolios can be made up of mutual funds, ETFs and more — the exact mix is determined during the onboarding process, when you take an assessment. Based on risk tolerance, actively managed funds may be added to your portfolio as well.

Tax-loss harvesting is also available, but Vanguard advises that the platform will decide if the service makes sense for your financial situation.

New investors will appreciate the low-fees as well as access to budgeting and debt repayment tools to help with goal planning. The platform is easy to understand different savings and spending scenarios, as well as visualize your journey towards your financial goals.

• Account minimum: $500
• Fees: 0.25% annually
• Assets: ETFs
• Accounts: Taxable, retirement, education

Wealthfront stands out from the pack with its low management fee, personalized portfolios and tax-optimization.

After a quick quiz, Wealthfront builds you a personalized portfolio of diversified, low-cost index funds. You can curate specific interests such as social responsibility, then customized further according to your needs and goals.

Hundreds of funds are available in investing categories such as clean energy, healthcare, tech and crypto. Plus, Wealthfront offers tools that let you experiment with different fund choices to ensure they match your risk level.

Wealthfront also offers tax-loss harvesting, which it claims boosts clients’ after-tax returns by an average of 1.8%. This is especially useful for those with large portfolios in taxed accounts.

There is also a dedicated team of product specialists available by phone or email, all of whom are registered with FINRA and have financial designations ranging from CFP to CPA.

Additionally, Wealthfront offers a tool called Path, a fully mobile retirement planning experience that takes just five minutes to set up.