So in this video today we are going to be comparing
the two robo-investing platforms out there
known as Betterment, and M1 Finance.
And at the end of this video, if you guys do decide
that you want to sign up for an account
with either Betterment or M1 Finance,
I am affiliated with both of them,
which means if you do decide to use my links
in the description, at no additional cost to you,
I earn a small commission in the process.
It is certainly not required,
but it is very much appreciated
as it's a way to give back to me
for putting a video like this together.
M1 Finance is my number one pick here for beginners
in terms of a free investing platform,
but it is a little bit confusing to get started with it.
So I ended up putting together
a completely free 30-minute video tutorial,
teaching you how to use the M1 Finance investing app,
that is also linked up down in the description below
if you do decide that you want to pursue that
and learn more about this platform.
But that being said, right off the bat,
one of the biggest differences
between Betterment and M1 Finance is the fact
that Betterment does charge a small fee for the service
while M1 Finance is 100% free.
Now M1 Finance does make money, they're not a charity.
And there's a couple ways they're making money
on the back end.
For example, they have their M1 Finance checking account
and debit card that has an annual fee.
They also make money
from the cash held within brokerage accounts
as far as interest goes,
and they also make money from directing order flow.
So those things are kind of confusing,
not something we're gonna get into in this video,
but just understand they are making money
but just in some slightly different ways.
Betterment, the primary way they're making money
is charging a small annual asset management fee
to customers, which is 0.25% for most people,
for the Betterment digital account.
Or if you are a higher net worth investor
and you have over $100,000 with them,
they offer Betterment Premium
which gives you access to a team of financial advisors,
basically, at any point in time you can reach out to them
and that has an annual asset management fee of 0.4%.
Now, when you compare that
to a traditional financial advisor
who usually charges a 1% fee,
Betterment is still very inexpensive
for that type of money management.
Another key difference here
is the minimum amount of money to get started.
So with Betterment, it is a $0 minimum,
you could literally open up an account
with 20 bucks if you wanted to.
Whereas with M1 Finance, they have a $100 minimum
for your traditional brokerage account,
and a $500 minimum for their retirement account.
You can do retirement accounts
with both Betterment and M1 Finance.
You may find a greater selection
of account types with Betterment.
For example, like trust accounts,
I think that Betterment offers those,
you don't find those with M1 Finance.
Another key difference here is that with Betterment,
they are building you a custom portfolio
based on your investing needs.
So when you go on to betterment website
and you start investing,
you're gonna fill out a questionnaire
where you talk about where you are at in your life.
How much money do you have, what are your investing goals,
and based on all of that,
Betterment is going to build a custom tailored portfolio
for you, consisting of stocks and bonds
and ETFs, exchange traded funds.
There's no individual stocks with Betterment,
it's only going to be passive ETF investing,
and they're gonna build that portfolio for you.
With M1 Finance, you can follow a do it yourself approach
or a portfolio based approach.
They give both of those options there.
If you wanna pick your stocks,
and you wanna pick the ETFs you're investing in,
you can do that through the platform
and build your own portfolio from scratch.
Or if you wanna let them do all that hard work for you,
they offer over 30 different expert built portfolios
which again are going to be completely free,
that means M1 Finance is not charging you for that.
The only difference being
those are more one-size-fits-all portfolios,
and they're not gonna be built
specifically for your investing needs.
Another big difference here
is that Betterment offers a feature
called tax loss harvesting.
Now that in and of itself is a pretty confusing subject,
I'm not gonna go crazy into detail.
But essentially what they're able to do
is they're able to sell an investment
and buy almost the identical type of investment
to recognize like an artificial tax loss
to cut down on your tax bill at the end of the year
by recognizing a capital loss.
And that is actually a way that betterment has been able
to justify that fee that they're charging customers
'cause they're actually saving you money on taxes
through this feature called tax loss harvesting.
And that's not something that is offered by M1 Finance.
So that becomes more important
as you're investing more and more money.
So if you are somebody who's looking to put let's say 10,000
or 20 grand into an account like this,
you really wanna read up on this tax loss harvesting feature
and kind of begin to understand
how much money is that really saving you
and is that making Betterment a more cost-effective choice.
Another difference here is that,
again, you can buy individual stocks on M1 Finance,
you will not find that with Betterment,
you will only find ETFs.
So Betterment is a 100% passive approach,
you don't do anything.
You don't tell them what you wanna invest in,
you don't pick ETFs,
you literally just fill out this questionnaire,
and then you give them your initial deposit,
and then you continue to deposit money on a regular basis.
And other than that, you don't do anything,
they're gonna reallocate
and rebalance that portfolio for you
and handle everything else.
With M1 Finance, you can follow a passive
or active approach.
If you wanna passively invest
in some of their Expert Pies or portfolios, you can do so.
Or if you wanna be more active with your selection
and pick your stocks and your ETFs, you can do that
with the Custom Pies option with this brokerage.
Another difference here
is that Betterment offers a option for your cash reserve.
So Betterment has something called
Betterment Everyday cash reserve.
And that is specifically meant for the cash
that you're not looking to invest.
Now, the APY of this account changes with the market rate.
I believe, as of making this video, it's 2.04% APY,
which is actually significantly higher
than some of the competitors like Ally Bank, for example.
So it's actually a very good online savings account.
And the good news is, you don't need to use
Betterment for your investments
in order to put your savings with them.
So you can keep your cash with Betterment
in this online savings account
without being an investor with them if you wanna do that.
Unfortunately, at this time, M1 Finance
does not have any type of product for your cash savings.
So that is one area where Betterment is stronger.
But again, you could have your cash with Betterment
and your investments with M1 Finance
if you wanted to do that.
So overall, this is what I would say
about Betterment and M1 Finance.
If you're looking for a 100% hands-off approach,
where you literally don't have to do anything,
you don't have to look at portfolios,
you don't have to rebalance
or worry about anything like that.
That is exactly what Betterment is for, it's 100% hands-off,
they do all of the guidance,
and it's completely beginner friendly.
It is the simplest platform out there in my opinion
to begin investing with.
Now on the other hand,
if you know a little bit more than the average Joe,
or you wanna learn a little bit,
and again, my free training on M1 Finance
shows you basically everything you need to know
to get started, then this is going to be a good platform
for somebody who wants to be a little bit more involved,
where they're okay with selecting a portfolio to invest in
or they wanna follow that do it yourself approach
and pick the stocks and ETFs to invest in.
It's also good for people who are looking
for individual stock exposure,
but it's not good for trading stocks.
So if you're looking to trade in and out of stocks
on a weekly or daily basis,
it is not a platform for active traders,
it is a better platform
for people who are long-term investors.
So overall, Betterment is more beginner friendly,
100% hands off approach.
And M1 Finance is good
for a more beginner to intermediate investor
who wants to be a little bit more hands-on.
But anyways guys that's gonna wrap up this video.
That's the differences between Betterment and M1 Finance.
If you guys are looking to sign up for either one of them,
all those resources are down in the description below.
I certainly do appreciate your use of those links.
And I also have that free 30-minute video training
walking you through step-by-step how to use M1 Finance.
But thanks so much for watching this video.
I hope you enjoyed it, and I will see you in the next one.
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