As others suggested, the UI is really nice. Assets managed as of March 2020: $22 billion AUM. This means that I don't have any idle cash sitting around after having transferred it, it's immediately put to use. My Roth IRA is just a random compilation of stocks, mostly large-cap US-based and tech-leaning stocks and also SPY for balance. You're absolutely right about the lower fees. The only thing you're measuring here is absolute return vs absolute return. Have anyone used Betterment before? But at least in my portfolio (90% stocks 10% bonds), it has hardly ever beaten the S&P 500 either up or down cycles. While 0.35% or 35 basis points is nearly 10 times higher than my TSP account, it's still nowhere near the industry average of 1% annual expense ratio. How Betterment calculates "better returns". I can see "at this savings rate, I'll have between $X and Y in N years" at a glance. Betterment Review 2020. --Their portfolio is unnecessarily complicated IMO; I really would've preferred just a simple 3-fund portfolio. Original review: Dec. 2, 2020. wtf? Wealthfront Review Wealthfront also came onto the scene in 2008, but its current iteration didn’t exist until about 2011, giving Betterment a three-year head start in the robo-advising space. If anyone can tell me how to do that, I'd be happy to share. Gotta be patient. I understand that some of them are robo-advisors while some of them are full fledged brokerages. A $23,993.25 gain (+37.9%). As of October 2020, it isn’t an accredited business with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) but receives an A rating despite its 39 BBB complaints. I have an account, though it's a very tiny one I made just to see how it worked. Betterment is for passive, hands off investors who need some level of guidance Fidelity Go is completely free for balances under $10,000 After that, it is $3 per month for balances up to $49,999 and then 0.35% annually for accounts above $50,000 Betterment has risen to the forefront as one of the biggest Robo-investing platforms in the industry. Actually, M1 Finance is free.They’re also all highly ranked robo-advisors on Robo-Advisor Pros and show up frequently on lists like best robo-advisors for millennials. I might roll my 401k there if all is well. I wish I could have continued the experiment but I had to pull out the money to buy another house, and my accountant was sick of having to itemize the hundreds of trades Betterment tends to generate over the year. For Checking, Betterment Financial LLC does not charge fees on your account. Foreign stocks are not always as bad as this, and having them reduces your reliance on the home nation doing well. It's a nice way to reduce my taxes, which I was very appreciative of this year. My current take is that Betterment/Weathfront are OK, but M1Finance is cheaper if you want a little more DIY but still automate as much of possible. Customers gain access to a number of special features including tax-optimized portfolios, goal-based investing, and their retirement planning suite, which provides investment guidance before and after retirement - or whenever you hit FI. modified length of experiment to 2 years and 18 days. My work has a 401k set up with them, and I've been using it for about a year: Interface is really pretty, and they make managing your money quite simple. Once I was on this sub for a while though, and realized how easy it is to create a diversified, low cost portfolio yourself (you just need 2 or three funds/etfs), I switched to Vanguard and saved myself the 0.25% fee that Betterment charges (at least that's what it was at the time). For Cash Reserve ("CR"), Betterment LLC only receives compensation from our program banks, and Betterment LLC and Betterment Securities do not charge fees on your CR balance. There is little information that I can find. What exactly is this post about? I understand you can't really compare them long-term, but a lot of FIRE/Personalfinance people say "just put everything in index funds". That may not seem like a lot, but over time it translates to an extra $44,692 in portfolio gains in a taxable account. Betterment prides itself on its ability to give retirement advice as a fiduciary, as well as its sterling customer service record. Like others have mentioned, the international equities component of the Betterment portfolio dragged down the returns compared to S&P500, etc. Simply Put: Betterment is a low-cost automated investing service. A lot of people are saying that Betterment/Wealthfront is easy to use, but I don't see much benefit of using them over just investing in a few different Vanguard indexes. When I originally researched the ETF funds offered they were similar to those offered at Vanguard (unsure if this is still the case) and the management fees are very reasonable. Betterment does TLH on taxable accounts, if you so choose. I've noticed international funds have done better than US funds over the past couple months. I've noticed international funds have done better than US funds over the past couple months. I don't know if Betterment and Scottrade produces that for you automatically. Betterment is the best platform for the average investor. Betterment research suggests that this strategy can boost after-tax returns by an average of 0.48% each year, which amounts to approximately 15% over 30 years. I assume you have to calculate your beta across all your stocks over the time of holding. I should be getting around a $1k refund from overpaying something and I think I am going to throw that in there and see how it does for another 6 months. The correlation between the two return series makes a big difference when evaluating whether the difference is significant. My Betterment portfolio did rather poorly. This site---and their pitch to customers---is not responsible. Then you can't really compare it to a pure indexing approach, which could be much more diversified and lower risk than your stock-picks. If Tax Loss Harvesting is enabled on your Betterment account, you may wind up with dozens of taxable transactions over the course of a year depending on how many "bumps" the market takes along the way. Overall, Betterment receives a lukewarm reception from investors. Lower fees are often the better way to go, especially given that Betterment just raised its fees and Vanguard mostly only ever lowers them. FINAL WINNER: Betterment. Betterment requires no minimum balance and charges a 0.25% annual fee, or about $25 per year for every $10,000 invested, for a regular digital account. If we wanted a certain amount of money for vacation, it will suggest how much to contribute per month to reach the goal. Betterment Review. I'm a little skeptical about their claims with TLH, but I plan to test out that feature this year with ~$100 of fun money. Betterment vs Wealthfront vs Acorns: Best Robo-Advisor? Research has shown that even after factoring in Betterment's fee, switching to Betterment will increase returns by up to 1.48% for the average investor. I'm happy with Betterment, and happy to let them do the legwork for me. One thing I like about WealthFront is that they do tax loss harvesting. Other than that, I think Betterment and WealthFront are virtually the same. No complaints. Click here to make the most of your money by signing up for a Betterment … The biggest win for me though is the UI; both online and on the app Betterment is ridiculously easy to use. After the first month, I decided to transfer my relatively small IRA's (Roth and Traditional) over. I am astounded that they can get away with with burying negative returns. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/5dwsi3/two_years_with_betterment/. Like others have mentioned, the international equities component of the Betterment portfolio dragged down the returns compared to S&P500, etc. Betterment's 100% stock allocation would be at 6.2% for the same period. I originally signed up to test the waters last November. Two completely different investing approaches and risk appetites resulted in two completely different results. Thanks for the tip on VTTSX too. Used them for a couple of years (not by choice), not really a fan: --I didn't like their large allocation of international funds. my accountant was sick of having to itemize the hundreds of trades Betterment tends to generate over the year. Get a new accountant. It wasn't necessary to enter every transaction manually. A unique Betterment feature is the opportunity for all clients to text questions to and receive answers from a human financial advisor. My current plan is to move Betterment IRA to a M1Finance IRA with 90% VTI and 10% BND that I adjust as I approach retirement (in 15 years or so at current rates). That's a good question, but I'll be honest, I'm not a sophisticated investor so I don't know. I’ve used Betterment for almost two years now and have nothing but good things to say. Betterment is a popular robo-advisor, a class of financial advisors which uses minimal human interaction and computer algorithms to invest your money and balance your portfolio. I have ~107k in an IRA in Betterment, but am considering a move to M1Finance.com this year. I would do the retirement accounts with less risk obviously. They do have some differences, however, and one of the ways they differ is in what they choose to emphasize for their clients.Betterment is a goals-based robo-advisor. My Roth IRA, which I reallocated from time-to-time, stood at $87,289.50. My Roth IRA is just a random compilation of stocks, mostly large-cap US-based and tech-leaning stocks and also SPY for balance. I also know that the US market has been very bullish so a chimp could probably have done just as well. I tried Betterment for two years also and my 90/10 taxable account had similar returns. Is true. Plus, you have the annual charges. https://www.betterment.com/tax-loss-harvesting/. The basic idea behind Betterment is to create a portfolio from your risk tolerance and then put you into an asset allocation of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that matches that tolerance. I have been very happy. I was skeptical too, so I have just been putting in 50-100/mo over there for a little while. (I do not know exactly how much I paid in taxes over the two years, though Betterment has tax harvesting strategy to minimize taxes). You raise an excellent point about individual client returns. --If you own other funds elsewhere, you may have to be careful to not trigger wash sales because you can't choose what Betterment is investing in and when. The Backend Benchmarking's most recent Robo Report finds that while Fidelity Go and Vanguard are the best robo options overall, Betterment and … When I compared the two, Betterment did not offer tax loss harvesting, but that may have changed. The foreign stock portion has only returned 4% in the last two years, this is the source of most of the bad performance, while the total US stock portion is up around 17%. Their mission is to make investing simple, easy, and accessible to everyone. I had an account with them before I knew anything about investing. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/02/01/betterment-cranks-up-features-and-costs-is-it-still-worthwhile/, https://www.betterment.com/tax-loss-harvesting/. Just wondering if anyone else has had better luck with Betterment. VTTSX is Vanguard's Target Retirement 2060, 90/10 global stock and bond indexing, similar to the Betterment portfolio I guess. --I've tried to call their customer service a few times but have never gotten through. I've read you can restrict your portfolio to US equities and bonds. Find new Betterment promotions, bonuses, and offers for trading stocks, ETFs, bonds, options and mutual funds here.. Betterment is one of the most popular platforms for automated investment, along side Wealthfront.These two platforms are also known as Robo-Advisors in the investment community. The short answer is Betterment is the only choice if you have less than $500 since Wealthfront requires a $500 minimum deposit that Betterment does not. I thought betterment took care of all this for you, that was the whole point of using them? New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the personalfinance community. 7% looks lower than the Vanguard portfolio, but maybe taxes took off some return (tax loss harvesting sounds great but could just be a gimmick). Learn about budgeting, saving, getting out of debt, credit, investing, and retirement planning. I have an IRA and taxable individual account with them. That being said, their fees aren't exorbitant and they do have a lot of nice features, so I'd say it's fine. Many consider this the robo advisor that started it all. The UI is nice, but nicer IMO before the latest redesign, which reminds me more of a CRM than a brokerage. I did this to match my Roth IRA account on the date of deposit. For Investing and retirement accounts, Betterment LLC charges one low, … Plus, you have the annual charges. However, you do pay a 0.25% managing fee on top of all the expense ratios inherent to each etf. Here’s Mr. Money Mustache’s review of Betterment, which is what originally sold me: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2017/02/01/betterment-cranks-up-features-and-costs-is-it-still-worthwhile/. Like most of the leading robo-advisors, Betterment offers investors automated tax-loss harvesting, rebalancing, and tax-efficient techniques. They’ve focused on providing a smarter, well-rounded platform. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, Press J to jump to the feed. Gotta be patient. Emerging markets aren't doing great, hence the underperformance. It does dividend reinvestment and some tax optimization as well. It's returned around 10% in the last two years and two weeks including reinvested income (M* total return chart). It was lower when I first started with Betterment. Betterment claims that tax-loss harvesting can generate surplus returns of as much as 0.77% annually. I use WealthFront which is very similar to Betterment (I looked into both). Betterment claims that investing in a Betterment portfolio since 2004 would have produced a cumulative return of 190.6% (which is an average annual return of 7.3%).This beats out the average private client investor's portfolio, which had a cumulative return of 109.2% over the same time period.. You can play around with Betterment's historical performance chart and see the returns for … After reading "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", I was confident in this approach. Betterment maintains that you can improve your after-tax returns by an average of 0.48% per year, or an extra 15% over 30 years. About Betterment. It has a Trustpilot page but its 3.2 out of 5 TrustScore is the result of just two customer reviews — one positive, one negative. Unless otherwise specified, all return figures shown above are for illustrative purposes only, and are not actual customer or model returns. Betterment vs. Wealthfront: Which Is the Best Robo-Advisor in 2020? Maybe I'm giving the people who frequent here too much credit though ;). Betterment Cash Reserve, offering a higher yield, launched in April 2020 and replaced the previous savings product. Edit I can't do math. Most tax software will do this for you automatically. https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/comments/5dwsi3/two_years_with_betterment/ I just wanted to add another sample data point. It puts all your retirement accounts into one group to show how much in retirement money you have altogether. Join our community, read the PF Wiki, and get on top of your finances! I searched this subreddit and found another user who had a similar experience. Betterment. Write to Kyle Schurman at feedback@creditdonkey.com. I'd actually like to hear any comments or criticisms on this plan. Betterment was founded by Jon Stein and Eli Broverman in 2008. They have done pretty good with TLH for me. I did not deposit another penny into either Betterment or my Roth IRA for 2 years (and 18 days). Annualized time weighted return is 6.1% vs 11% for SPY the same period. For instance, it suggested I make a low-risk savings account in betterment and move some money over because I have "too much" in my checking account. I don't know your start and end dates for the Betterment investment so I can't compare the performance of the two directly. Then betterment suggests how risky to make the portfolio and auto adjusts it as time goes by. Charles Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Performance Review 2020: Fees, Returns, Robo Investing Services & Competitors Business Insider Intelligence 2020-01-14T15:51:00Z IMO, anyone in this sub has probably already advanced past the stage of needing/using Betterment. For taxable accounts Betterment can provide Tax loss harvesting which Vanguard doesn’t offer. Betterment is a New York based robo advisor that was founded in 2008. 3. Where's your risk adjusted return data? That's the good. --Keep in mind that Betterment is more or less still a startup, which means it may not yet have a long-term viable business model. If you sync your betterment account with your other accounts (checkings, savings, 401k), it will also make suggestions based on those accounts. The screenshot below shows an interactive graph enabling you to calculate returns over various time frames, going all the way back to 2004 (which is a tad meaningless, given the platform was only launched in 2008). Actual returns will vary greatly and depend on personal and market conditions. And I know that Betterment diversifies internationally and the rest of the world has not recovered as quickly as the US. In addition, it's definitely the superior choice for accounts over $2,000,000 since their fee drops to 0% at that value. But it's far from being just a cold algorithm. I will miss the projection charts, but they are not worth the %0.5/year Betterment charges IMO. Nerdwallet does great reviews of similar services. ... Retrieved 12/14/2020 ^ Betterment, Explore Betterment's Historical Performance, Retrieved 12/14/2020 ^ Betterment Advice Packages, Retrieved 12/14/2020. I wanted to compare how I'd do against Betterment. At that time, my Betterment balance stood at $67,774.03. I am getting a 5.43% return overall from the last 6 months, but I have it heavily stock based, 90/10 I think. Betterment also has a cash management component for high-yield savings. Cash Reserve offering includes spending analysis and guidance as … Over 30 years, that extra % each year could earn you 38.8% more after-tax money in retirement compared to investing on your own. It's nice to use if you're hands-off about investments. I closed my Betterment accounts and moved them back to my brokerage. --They charge a fee on top of the fund fees. I was pretty upset at their recently announced fee increase. I use H&R Block tax software and it imported everything electronically from Betterment. Your own picks did great this time, but tech did great in the late 90s too before it all fell apart. What are your returns tracked against a benchmark like the SP500? The potential for it to drastically raise fees (or worse) is greater than for more established brokerages. Literally turbo tax's higher versions could do this automatically. Annualized time weighted return is 6.1% vs 11% for SPY the same period. Press J to jump to the feed. We use it to budget for stuff: retirement, college for the kids, vacations, emergency savings, new vehicle, etc. As of April 2019, Betterment has over $16 billion dollars under management and is one of the largest independent robo advisor on the market.. To help investors make the most of their money, Betterment’s investment methodology is ETF focused. Still, Betterment's fees will be higher than just buying the Vanguard fund in a Vanguard account: https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundIntExt=INT&FundId=1691. That started it all fell apart or more of a CRM than a brokerage good with TLH me! I guess redesign, which is very similar to the forefront as one of the keyboard shortcuts, betterment returns 2020 reddit! Very appreciative of this year one i made just to see how it worked Roth and )... Easy way to invest your money risk obviously do the retirement accounts one!, all return figures shown above are for illustrative purposes only, and techniques... 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