The app also offers banking products including a debit account, educational resources, custodial accounts for kids and automated retirement account options.
Stash also offers access to a debit account for a month, making it more economical than Acorns if these features are important to you.
Cons
Pros
Stash vs. Acorns Summary
Either way, Acorns and Stash both provide safe and simple platforms ideal for new investors who want to get their money in the stock market.
Remember, investing involves risk. Even though you’re only investing small amounts of money in these apps, there’s always a chance you could lose money in the stock market.
Feature | Stash | Acorns | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Account minimum balance | $0 to open, $5 to invest | $0 to open, $5 to invest | |||
Monthly fees | $1 to $9 a month | $3 to $5 a month | |||
Robo-advisor service? | Yes | Yes | |||
Round-ups and recurring transfers? | Yes | Yes | |||
Traditional IRA offered | Yes | Yes | |||
Roth IRA offered | Yes | Yes | |||
SEP IRA offered | Yes | No | |||
Bank/checking account | Yes | Yes | |||
Debit card | Yes | Yes | |||
Custodial accounts for minors | Multiple | Two | |||
Access to life insurance | Yes | No | |||
Human advisor option? | No | No | |||
Can you pick your own investments? | Yes | No | |||
Socially responsible investing? | ETFs available | Automated ESG portfolios | |||
Customer service | 800-205-5164 | 855-739-2859 |
What to Know About Stash
Round-ups put your spare change into the stock market when you make purchases with a linked card. Acorns will round your purchases to the nearest dollar, then sweep the change into your investment account once it hits or more.
Or, you can take a more DIY approach and buy fractional shares of more than 3,000 individual stocks and ETFs.
Stash Beginner is the most affordable option at just a month. (Acorns used to offer a option, called Acorns Lite, but phased this plan out in September 2021.)
Smart Portfolio, Stash’s robo-advisor option, is available with Stash Growth and Stash+.
For environmentally-conscious investors, Acorns offers an ESG (environmental, social and governance) portfolio, which allows you to invest in businesses that prioritize sustainability.
Stash can create a diversified portfolio for you based on your financial goals and risk tolerance, the way Acorns does.
From there, Acorns uses computer software and algorithms to select a pre-made portfolio for you.
These features help set your finances to autopilot. We love that convenience.
Acorns is a better fit if you prefer a simplified, set-it-and-forget experience. It’s also a good choice if you’re looking for a SEP IRA or multiple custodial accounts for children.
Stash Subscription Prices
Stash Beginner: $1 per month
- You get access to a personal portfolio investment account, a Stash online banking account and a debit card.
Stash Growth: $3 per month
- If you want access to an IRA, or the Smart Portfolio automated investing feature, you’ll pay $3 a month for a Stash Growth plan.
Stash+: $9 per month
- You get access to two UTMA/UGMA investment accounts for children and a metal debit card that earns double Stock-Back® rewards. Stash+ users also get $10,000 worth of life insurance from Avibra.
Stash Pros and Cons
Stash vs. Acorns: How Do They Compare?
- No minimum balance required and you can start investing with just $5.
- The option to handpick your own stocks, bonds and ETFs.
- Stash offers thematic investing that groups similar assets together so you can make investment choices based on your interests or beliefs.
- Easy-to-navigate app you can access on your desktop or mobile app.
- Robo-investor portfolio option.
- Auto-Stash, which helps you automatically invest via round-ups and recurring transfers.
- Access to other financial services, including a checking account, Visa debit card and custodial accounts for kids.
- No account minimums and you can start investing with just $5.
- Easy-to-navigate interface you can access online or via mobile app.
- Educational tools and resources.
- Diversified portfolios with risk-appropriate, low-cost investment options.
- Socially responsible investing portfolio available.
- Round-ups to the nearest dollar and recurring transfers from a linked debit or credit card.
- Access to other financial services, including a checking account.
- You can’t handpick individual investments inside your portfolio. Instead, Acorns curates your portfolio for you.
- Acorns’ monthly management fees can be high for accounts with low balances.
- No tax loss harvesting feature.
- No access to human advisors or personalized retirement advice.
Features Acorns and Stash Both Share
Stash is also a micro-investing app with a user-friendly interface and Portfolio options include:
- You can invest very small sums of money automatically via round-ups and recurring transfers.
- Mobile app and website versions.
- Available on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
- Educational tools and personal finance resources.
- An automated portfolio feature.
- Fractional share investing.
- Automatic dividend reinvestments.
- No account minimums and $5 to start investing.
- UTMA/UGMA accounts for children.
- Traditional or Roth IRA option.
- Bank accounts.
- Access to a debit card.
- No personalized investment advice or tax loss harvesting.
Features Unique to Acorns
Acorns helps you automate investing and save money in a few different ways, including its hallmark round-up feature.
- Acorns Earn, which gives you bonus investments when you shop with select brands.
- Access to a SEP IRA.
- Unlimited custodial accounts for minors.
- Automated socially responsible investing portfolio.
Features Unique to Stash
The Acorns app also offers a tax-advantaged retirement account and UTMA/UGMA accounts for minors.
- You can pick and choose your own stocks, bonds and ETFs.
- Curated Collections group similar stocks according to industry and sector.
- Stash renames ETFs with descriptive, catchy titles that make it easy for new investors to understand what’s inside.
- Stash Stock-Back® rewards let you earn stock investments when you shop.
- Ability to invest in select marijuana stocks and cannabis ETFs.
- $10,000 worth of life insurance coverage (available to Stash+ users).
Stash vs. Acorns: How Your Money Gets Invested
The most important part of investing is getting started, so it’s hard to go wrong with either app.
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Acorns
All Stash users can pick and choose from more than 3,000 stocks, bonds and ETFs.
Stash works better if you want control over the investments in your personal portfolio, or you’re looking to invest in specific stocks.
Cons
- Conservative.
- Moderately conservative.
- Moderate.
- Moderately aggressive.
- Aggressive.
If you’re looking for a truly simplified set-it-and-forget-it approach, it’s hard to go wrong with Acorns.
The “best” option for you really depends on what you want out of an investment app.
From there, the app gives you a list of investment options to choose from, including Curated Collections, which bundle assets from similar industries like health care and technology.
But unlike Acorns, Stash gives you the option to handpick your own stocks and exchange traded funds.
Stash
You can also automate investing by setting up recurring transfers from your bank account to your Acorns app on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
Here are the features you’ll only find on Acorns.
Stash also offers a less expensive debit card and banking options.
Pros
Acorns comes with a unique feature called Acorns Earn, which gives you investment bonuses and rewards when you shop with participating merchants.
Investment apps have to make money somehow, but the flat monthly management fees Stash and Acorns charge can eat into your returns, especially if you have a low account balance.
Similar to Acorns, Smart Portfolios take the guesswork out of investing by putting your money into a predetermined diversified portfolio.
Ready to stop worrying about money?
Here are other features both apps share:
Cost and Fees
Stash offers other financial products with its and per month accounts, including access to IRAs and UTMA/UGMA accounts for children.
Like Acorns, Stash charges a flat monthly fee for its services.
Acorns is a better deal if you want to open a custodial account for a child.
There’s no minimum amount to open an account and you need just to start investing.
Stash has a unique feature called Stock-Back® rewards, which lets you earn stock rewards when you shop with your Stash Visa debit card.
Both Acorns and Stash take a long view approach to investing. They want you to keep your money in the market long-term, and therefore discourage or even bar you from day trading.
Privacy Policy
Here’s how Stash differs from Acorns.
Acorns and Stash are popular investment apps aimed at beginners.
Acorns and Stash both use fractional share purchases, which allows you to buy pieces of an asset even if you don’t have enough money to purchase an entire share.
Acorns vs. Stash: Which Is Right For You?
These portfolios are comprised of exchange traded funds (ETFs), which bundle numerous stocks or bonds into a single fund. Aggressive portfolios are mostly stock ETFs while conservative portfolios are mostly bond ETFs.
*Offer is subject to Promotion Terms and Conditions To be eligible to participate in this Promotion and receive the bonus, you must successfully open an individual brokerage account in good standing, link a funding account to your Invest account AND deposit .00 into your Invest account.
Stash and Acorns both make investing accessible to everyday users — even if you don’t have any experience or much money to invest.
Many other robo-advisors charge a management fee as a percentage of your portfolio balance. For example, Betterment and Wealthfront charge a 0.25% annual fee, which is much more affordable for small accounts.
Acorns became one of the first automated investment apps to hit the market back in 2014.
Stash offers an easy way to invest but it’s important to weigh all the features.
Stash lets you decide how hands-on you want to be with your portfolio.
Smart Portfolios will also reinvest your dividends and periodically rebalance your portfolio if it drifts 5% away from its target asset allocation.
Acorns and Stash share more similarities than differences. They both simplify investing, and they both charge flat monthly fees for their services.
Stash and Acorns both help you take baby steps toward your financial goals.
Rachel Christian is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance and a senior writer for The Penny Hoarder.
Acorns Family lets you create multiple custodial UTMA/UGMA accounts for a month. At per month, Stash+ costs nearly twice as much and only lets you access two of these accounts.
Acorns takes a fully automated approach that doesn’t let users select their own stocks and ETFs, while Stash gives you the option to create your own investment portfolio or let a computer do it for you.
You can make automatic contributions to your Stash personal investment account via spare change rounds-up and Set Schedule, a recurring transfer feature. <!–
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However, these apps differ in a few key ways.