A Modern App That Helps You Invest More, Faster

Emphasis on automation

All robo-advisors are designed to make investing easy, but Acorns takes it a step further and makes investing automatic. Users link their other financial accounts (debit cards, checking, credit cards) to the Acorns app, and purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar. For example, if you spend $4.79 on a coffee, Acorns rounds that up to $5 and puts $0.21 into your investment account. It’s worth noting that even though you can connect credit cards, Acorns takes investment funds from a single linked checking account. To be clear, you can also set automatic recurring investments in addition to the round-ups.

Easy-to-use app

Acorns is an app-based investment platform. It has a user-friendly app with high ratings. On the App and Google Play stores, the Acorns app has a top-tier 4.7 out of 5-star rating.

Automatic rebalancing

Most robo-advisors rebalance clients’ portfolios over time, and Acorns is no exception. In other words, once you choose one of Acorns’ ready-made portfolio options, it automatically maintains your desired allocation.

Several account types

Acorns offers individual (taxable) investment accounts, and IRAs (traditional, Roth, and SEP). It also offers custodial accounts for kids. It does not offer trusts, 529 accounts, SIMPLE IRAs, solo 401(k)s, or joint investment accounts. But the account types offered should meet the needs of most investors.

Straightforward pricing

Most robo-advisor platforms charge a percentage of client assets, such as 0.25%, as their management fee. This can be difficult for many investors to fully understand. Acorns’ pricing consists of a straightforward monthly management fee of $3, $5, or $9, depending on the level of account features. The all-in-one Acorns monthly fee is a big differentiator, and can be an especially big benefit for larger accounts.

Checking account access

Acorns customers in all of its membership tiers get access to the Acorns Checking account. The account offers an Acorns debit card with no-fee withdrawals at more than 55,000 ATMs, mobile check deposits, and no overdraft fees. Customers can get paid as much as two days early with direct deposit. This is a big differentiator. Most robo-advisors don’t also offer checking accounts, so this can be very useful for investors who like to keep all their financial accounts in the same place.

Even more unusual, Acorns offers a market-beating APY on checking account deposits. It’s less than you’d get from a high-yield savings account, but most checking accounts don’t offer any interest.

Easy investing

Our general review of Acorns investing is that the process is very easy, and that’s true with portfolio selection as well. Acorns has five investment portfolio options customers can choose from, taking the guesswork out of the investment process. Unlike many competitors’ portfolios, they all have simple, easy-to-understand titles, like “aggressive” and “moderately conservative.” If you want more selection, check out our best brokers for beginners. But for investors who want to keep it simple, Acorns certainly does. Slightly-more advanced investors can even add specific stocks to their Acorns portfolios, though this feature is limited to Premium subscribers.

Partner offers

Acorns offers members a program called Acorns Earn, a promotional platform like those offered by most credit card companies. Only, instead of giving cash back for a purchase through one of Acorns’ partners, Acorns deposits the cash into the user’s investment account. For example, you might see an offer for $20 of investment cash if you make a $100 purchase at one of Acorns’ partners.

Acorns frequently offers its own deals and promotions for signing up or completing other activities. Check out our full Acorns promotions page for the latest.