Those individuals need more than
robo advisors to manage their finances, but are still far out of reach of being able to afford a family office.
Fortunately, Business Insider has compiled a reference guide to get you started on the path to finding the right
robo advisor for you.
That's why BI Intelligence spent months putting together the best and most comprehensive guide on
robo advisors entitled The Robo - Advising Report: Market forecasts, key growth drivers, and how automated asset management will change the advisory industry.
So which
robo advisor is best?
Each of these companies has established itself as a player in the growing
robo advisor market that BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, expects will manage approximately 10 % of all worldwide assets under management (AUM) by 2020.
Customers must now run their own
robo advisor comparison for companies that offer automated investing services.
Robo advising has been on the rise in the last few years, which has created a healthy competition among
robo advisors.
This robo advisor comparison is just the start when it comes to the rapidly expanding market of automated investing.
It's important to note that some of
these robo advisors have additional fees.
What about
robo advisor fees?
There are several
robo advisor reviews out there, so we here at BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, combed through several of them and pulled together the table below, which compares 15 of the best robo advisors on the market by minimum account balance and management fee at different account balances.
Which financial institution offers the best
robo advisor performance?
Wealthfront is an excellent
robo advisor for those who want to take full advantage of tax loss harvesting and direct indexing.
Multiple different segments of the investing public have already taken advantage of
robo advisors for a variety of reasons.
That's why BI Intelligence spent months putting together the greatest and most exhaustive guide on
robo advisors entitled The Robo - Advising Report: Market forecasts, key growth drivers, and how automated asset management will change the advisory industry.
The robo advisor offers free management on the customer's first $ 10,000, though several promotional offers exist that bump that figure up to $ 15,000.
The robo advisor will react to market fluctuation and changing circumstances to adjust portfolio positions or even get out of them completely if necessary.
We discussed fee comparison in a previous section, but
the robo advisor falls on the lower to mid-range part of the spectrum, and the free management for the first $ 10,000 is a wonderful selling point to get skittish investors to dip their toes in the water.
Hedgeable is just one of the many
robo advisors on the market, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
And retirees and high net worth individuals can often test
robo advisors because they have more disposable income.
As mentioned earlier, Wealthfront is the only major
robo advisor to offer direct indexing, which is essentially a supplemental tax - loss harvesting service that it provides on top of regular harvesting that it offers on all taxable accounts.
Wealthfront is just one of the many
robo advisors on the market, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
As mentioned earlier, it requires no minimum deposit, but neither does Betterment (which is arguably the gold standard for
robo advisors), and WiseBanyan requires just $ 1 to open an account.
Hedgeable is
the robo advisor for the sophisticated investor.
Hedgeable is one of the best
robo advisors on the market, but it still has some real competition.
Millennials use
robo advisors because they remove the perceived «guess work» out of investing, which provides a measure of comfort to hesitant millennial investors.
Wealthfront has approximately $ 5 billion in assets under management, which is a far greater amount than many of the other
robo advisors out there (save for Betterment, which has more than $ 7 billion in AUM).
Many traditional financial advisors have decided to work cooperatively with
robo advisors rather than try to compete with them directly, and this strategy has helped streamline the process and reduce costs.
But
some robo advisors offer a better rate, such as Schwab Intelligent Portfolio, which charges 0.08 % for conservative portfolios, 0.19 % for moderate - risk portfolios, and 0.24 % for aggressive portfolios.
Wealthfront's minimum account requirement is just $ 500, which is an extremely reasonable threshold compared to most other
robo advisors.
The robo advisor operates in a manner similar to its peers by creating a customized portfolio based on account type, income, risk tolerance, and more.
Robo advisors are increasingly growing in popularity, and these automated services are threatening to take huge amounts of business away from traditional financial advisors.
Wealthfront has positioned itself as the go - to
robo advisor for clients with larger account balances, specifically those with taxable accounts, thanks to its direct indexing feature and excellent tax - loss harvesting.
And often,
robo advisors offer cheaper fees than human advisors, which also makes them attractive to this group.
These fees do not compare all that favorably to other
robo advisors, such as Schwab Intelligent Portfolio, which charges 0.08 % for conservative portfolios, 0.19 % for moderate - risk portfolios, and 0.24 % for aggressive portfolios.
This flat fee, particularly with the initial 0 % rate, compares quite well to the other major
robo advisors on the market.
The minimum account requirement of $ 50,000 is one of the highest thresholds on
the robo advisor market, second only to Rebalance IRA's $ 75,000.
Vanguard's
robo advisor has $ 101 million in AUM, which places it in the middle of the pack when compared to other leading automated investors.
Below, we've outlined the five groups that use and benefit from
robo advisors and explain how these automated products serve each segment.
That's where
robo advisors enter the picture.
And typically,
robo advisors offer cheaper fees than human advisors, which also makes them attractive to this group.
On top of this,
robo advisors usually automate items such as application processing.
To understand and analyze the growing
robo advisor market, BI Intelligence spent months putting together the best and most extensive guide on robo advisors entitled The Robo - Advising Report: Market forecasts, key growth drivers, and how automated asset management will change the advisory industry.
BI Intelligence found that 49 % of HNWIs worldwide would consider letting
a robo advisor manage at least some of their wealth.
BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, forecasts that
robo advisors will manage approximately 10 % of all global assets under management (AUM) by 2020.
2) Asia will push
robo advisor adoption.
Finally,
robo advisors oftentimes offer auto - rebalancing, accessibility from multiple devices (smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc.), extremely low or nonexistent minimum investments, and tax loss harvesting.
But who uses
robo advisors?
This group actually holds a majority of the power over
robo advisors because the majority of global AUM is in the hands of this small share of the population.
So as pure and hybrid
robo advisors begin to manage more global wealth, more investors would benefit from letting these automated services manage their wealth.