Acorns Review 2025
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Our Take
4.6
Reviewed in: Oct. 2024
Period considered: Aug. - Oct. 2024
The bottom line:
on Acorns' website
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Pros & Cons
Pros
Automatically invests spare change.
Cash back at select retailers.
Educational content available.
No account minimum ($5 required to start investing).
IRA match at some service tiers.
High interest rate on checking and savings at some service tiers.
Cons
Monthly fees can be significant for small balances.
$35 per ETF to transfer funds to another broker.
No tax-loss harvesting.
Compare to Other Advisors
Fees $3 - $12 per month | Fees 0.25% management fee | Fees 0.25% management fee | Fees 0.25% with a balance over $20K or qualifying recurring deposit. Otherwise, $4/month. |
Account minimum $0 | Account minimum $50 | Account minimum $500 | Account minimum $0 $10 to start |
Promotion $10 sign-up bonus | Promotion 1% match on rollovers and contributions Terms and conditions apply. Roll over a minimum of $20K to receive the 1% match offer. Matches on contributions are made up to the annual limits. | Promotion Get a $50 customer bonus when you fund your first taxable investment account | Promotion Get 1% match of your net Roth and traditional IRA contributions until December 30, 2024. Terms apply. |
Learn more on Acorns' website | Learn more on SoFi Invest's website | Learn more on Wealthfront's website | Learn more on Betterment's website |
AD Paid non-client promotion | AD Paid non-client promotion | AD Paid non-client promotion | AD Paid non-client promotion |
NerdWallet doesn’t invest its money with this provider, but they are our referral partner – so we get paid only if you click through and take a qualifying action (such as open an account with or provide your contact information to the provider). Most importantly, our reviews and ratings are objective and are never impacted by our partnerships. Our opinions are our own. Here is a list of our partners and here’s how we make money.
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Full Review
Where Acorns shines
IRA match: Silver and Gold members receive a percentage match (1% and 3% respectively) on contributions to IRA accounts.
Roundups: In addition to adding lump sums to your investments, Acorns lets you round up your purchases on linked credit or debit cards, then sweep the change into a computer-managed investment portfolio.
Cash back: Acorns offers cash back at over 450 retailers.
Where Acorns falls short
No tax strategy: Unlike many of its competitors, Acorns does not offer a tax strategy.
High fees on small balances: Because of its pricing structure, Acorns can have high fees on small account balances.
Alternatives to consider:
For tax-loss harvesting: Vanguard Digital Advisor, Wealthfront and Betterment.
For low or no fees: SoFi Robo Investing and Vanguard Digital Advisor.
What type of investor should choose Acorns?
Hands-off investors.
People who struggle to save and would benefit from roundups.
Investors interested in earning cash-back rewards.
IRA investors, due to the company's offer to match contributions.
What the Nerds think 🤓
"In addition to investment guidance, Acorns offers some unique benefits to clients, including cash-back rewards, match on IRA contributions and a job finder tool. Its automated savings feature that rounds up purchases and invests the change might also be ideal for those who struggle with budgeting enough to save and want a no-fuss solution. However, transfers out of Acorns to other brokerages are expensive, which might be a drawback for those managing multiple accounts."
Acorns at a glance
Reviewed in: Oct. 2024.
Period considered: Aug. - Oct. 2024.
Account minimum | $0 to open account; $5 required to start investing. |
Account management fee | Prices are per month: Bronze Tier: $3. Silver Tier: $6. Gold Tier: $12. IRA match for qualifying contributions at Silver and Gold tiers could wipe out management fees. |
Investment expense ratios | 0.04% to 0.22%. |
Account fees (annual, transfer, closing) | $35 per ETF to have them transferred to another broker when you close your taxable Acorns account; no charge to sell your investments and have the resulting cash transferred. |
Portfolio mix | Well-diversified portfolio with exposure to domestic and international stocks, bonds, REITs and a Bitcoin-linked ETF. |
Socially responsible portfolio options | Sustainable portfolio built with ESG ETFs available for no extra cost. |
Accounts supported |
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Tax strategy | Not available. |
Automatic rebalancing | Free on all accounts. |
Human advisor option | Not available. |
Bank account/cash management account | Acorns offers impressive high-yield checking and savings accounts. At the time of this review, the checking account earns 2.72% APY and the savings account earns 4.29% APY, with no minimum balance to receive the interest rate. The checking account has no overdraft fees and access to 55,000+ fee-free ATMs. |
Customer support options (includes how easy it is to find key details on the website) | Customer support is available 7 days/week from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. PT via live chat, phone and email. |
How to sign up for a Acorns account
You can sign up for an Acorns account through their website or mobile app. You'll provide personal information to get the account started, such as your email address, physical address, Social Security number. You'll also need your online banking information handy, so you can fund the account and pay the monthly subscription fee.
You'll then answer a few questions to get a sense of your risk tolerance and financial goals. Once set up, you can link spending accounts — credit and/or debit cards, so that the spare change from those purchases gets invested. (This will happen once the amount reaches $5.)
How much does Acorns cost?
Account minimum
There’s no minimum to open an account, but the service requires a $5 balance to start investing.
Account management fee
Acorns has three plans. Here’s what you get with each plan:
Bronze: $3/month | Silver: $6/month | Gold: $12/month |
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Checking account with Real-Time Round-Ups and a debit card. |
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Whether Acorns' fee is a pro or a con depends entirely on your account balance. Flat fees like this are less common among robo-advisors, which typically charge a percentage of your assets under management per year.
A fee of only $3, $6 or $12 a month might sound cheap, but it can be a high percentage of assets for investors with small balances. If you only contribute by rounding up your spare change, one of Acorns’ signature features, your fee relative to your account balance will be fairly high.
Account balance | Bronze: $3/month ($36/year) | Silver: $6/month ($72/year) | Gold: $12/month ($144/year) |
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$100 | 36% | 72% | 144% |
$500 | 7.2% | 14.4% | 28.8% |
$5,000 | 0.72% | 1.44% | 2.88% |
$10,000 | 0.36% | 0.72% | 1.44% |
For context, Acorns’ competitors such as Wealthfront and Betterment charge 0.25% per year (though Betterment has some balance requirements), and generally offer a higher level of service including tax assistance and more diversified portfolios. In order to achieve an equivalent fee of 0.25% at each level, you'd have to have account balances of $14,400 with the Bronze plan, $28,800 with the Silver plan and $57,600 with the Premium plan.
The good news is that if you invest in the Silver or Gold plans, you may come close to wiping out that account fee entirely. Acorns offers what they call Later Match, an IRA contribution match of 1% for Silver members or 3% for Gold members.
Investment expense ratios
An expense ratio is an annual fee charged by mutual funds, index funds and exchange-traded funds, as a percentage of your investment in the fund. If you invest in a mutual fund with a 1% expense ratio, for example, you’ll pay the fund $10 per year for every $1,000 invested. If high, these fees can significantly drag down your portfolio returns. The expense ratios of the funds used in Acorns’ portfolios range from 0.04% and 0.22%. Expense ratios are paid in addition to your Acorns account management fee, which is typical at robo-advisors.
Account fees
If you decide to move your investments out of Acorns to another provider, you'll pay a steep fee for that convenience. Acorns charges $35 per ETF to transfer investments. Acorns isn't alone in charging this type of fee, but the fee itself is on the high side. If you have, say, five ETFs, you're looking at a $175 fee. A more common scenario among providers is to charge $75 to transfer all investments out, and some don’t charge a fee at all.
Still, you can always choose instead to sell your investments and transfer your cash to a bank account. There's no charge for that, but you'd want to take care not to lock in investment losses (or trigger capital gains taxes) by accident.
Acorns portfolio selection
Portfolio mix
Like other robo-advisors, Acorns takes the investing reins from the user. The app considers your data — including age, goals, income and time horizon — and then recommends one of five portfolios that range from conservative to aggressive. You can accept the recommendation or choose a different portfolio that takes more or less risk.
The portfolios themselves are mostly made up of low-cost iShares exchange-traded funds that cover large, medium and small company stocks, international company stocks and a variety of bonds.
Acorns also allows investors to allocate up to 5% of their investments toward a Bitcoin-linked ETF.
Socially responsible portfolio options
Acorns offers a sustainable portfolio made up of ETFs graded using ESG (environmental, social and governance) criteria. The platform makes it easy for existing customers to switch their portfolios over from the core portfolio to the sustainable one, but also recognizes that clients may experience tax complications if they do so.
Other key Acorns features
Accounts supported
The Silver plan includes Acorns Early, which makes it easy to create UTMA/UGMA accounts for your kids. These custodial accounts allow parents to invest on behalf of a minor child, and use the money for expenses that benefit the child. Once the child reaches the age of transfer (this will depend on where they live), they gain ownership of the account and can use the money for any reason.
Custodial accounts are not the same as 529 college savings accounts. A 529 account is are less flexible, as it is designed for education expenses, but 529s also offer more tax advantages and are generally considered a better way to save for college. Be sure to do your research or consult a financial advisor to determine the best account for you.
Automatic rebalancing
Your portfolio allocation, or how much of your portfolio is in stocks versus bonds or other investments, depends on factors such as your age and investing timeline. Acorns will automatically adjust your portfolio in response to market fluctuations or other factors that shift your portfolio out of its intended investment allocation.
Savings account/cash management options
Acorns offers high-yield checking and savings accounts. The checking account earns a 2.72% APY and the savings account earns 4.29% APY, with no minimum balance to receive the interest rate. The checking account offers real-time roundups to your investment account, mobile check deposits and access to more than 55,000 fee-free ATMs around the world. These APYs are only available at the Silver and Gold levels.
Customer support options
Customer support is available seven days a week from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific time, by live chat, phone and email. Some robo-advisors provide more comprehensive customer service, such as 24/7 phone support.
Automated savings tool
One feature Acorns is known for is its automated savings tool. Acorns sweeps excess change from every purchase using a linked account into an investment portfolio. You can connect as many cards as you want, though all roundups are taken from the same linked checking account. With each purchase, Acorns rounds up to the nearest $1 and gives you the option to transfer that change into an investment portfolio.
You can do that either automatically, so every purchase is rounded up and the change transferred, or manually, by going through recent purchases on the app and selecting which roundups to transfer.
You can also invest lump sums manually or set up recurring deposits on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Lump-sum transfers may be as small as $5.
Cash back on purchases
To help flesh out your accounts, Acorns has partnered with more than 450 companies through its app — including Apple and Walmart — to give you cash back when you use a linked payment method at one of the partners. If you use the Acorns Google Chrome and iOS Safari browser extension, you can earn rewards when you shop online. In most cases, you get the cash automatically, without any additional steps. You simply use a card linked to an active Acorns account to make the purchase, and the rewards will usually land in your account in 60 to 120 days.
Job finder tool
Acorns also has a Job Finder feature powered by ZipRecruiter. The tool gives clients access to career development content and lets them set up job alerts for new opportunities.
Good to know about Acorns
Tax strategy
Acorns does not offer any form of tax strategy. Many other robo-advisors offer tax-loss harvesting, which is an investment strategy that can reduce the amount of tax you may have to pay after you sell your investments.
» Want to check out other providers? Here are our top picks for best robo-advisors.
No human advisors
Some robo-advisors offer access to a financial advisor, either for free or for an added fee. Unfortunately, Acorns does not offer its clients access to financial advisors.
Is Acorns safe?
According to Acorns, the website and app is secured with 256-bit encryption to protect personal and other identifying information. Brokerage accounts with Acorns also receive SIPC coverage of up to $500,000 , which does not protect against invesment losses. Acorns is not a bank, but the Acorns Checking accounts are insured up to $250,000 per depositor through FDIC insurance at its partner bank.
Is Acorns worth it?
If you want to make the most of your spare change and get the occasional retailer kickback, there’s really no better place to do that than Acorns. The automatic roundups at Acorns make saving and investing easy, and most investors will be surprised by how quickly those pennies accumulate.
But if you plan to invest only roundups, you should know that on small balances, Acorns' fees can cut into or completely wipe away investment returns. To get the most value out of Acorns, particularly the higher-priced plans, you'll need to take full advantage of all features, including the IRA match and the checking and emergency fund interest rates.
on Acorns' website