Depending on your membership, Ellevest offers individual taxable accounts, and traditional, Roth, and SEP IRAs. At first, we were a little disappointed in the simplicity of portfolio offerings. Ellevest doesn’t offer specialized accounts like 529 educational accounts or joint or custodial funds. While this is a bummer, it’s this simplicity that makes investing with Ellevest easy.
In all honesty, we love Ellevest. With goal-focused investing, Ellevest makes investing manageable and achievable. We do wish they’d have more options for account types, missing joint, custodial, and 529s, but we applaud the simplicity.
Ellevest Executive allows for more customization with the ability to save for multiple goals with different levels of risk at the same time. For a month, you can now create high risk accounts and low risk accounts for different goals based on your timeline and risk tolerance. Plus, the added benefit of 50% off financial planners and career coaches let’s you take advantage of more of these services, so you can build your wealth or reach your goals faster. We love Ellevest memberships options because of their straightforward and simple membership-based model. You know exactly what you’ll be paying and what you’ll be getting. Just pick and start investing.
Ellevest Executive
Ellevest Executive is perfect for those with bigger financial goals. You get all the benefits of the previous two memberships — retirement accounts, learning resources, a savings account, and a checking accoun t— and now six customizable investing accounts.
How Does Investing With Ellevest Work?
Ellevest’s top competitors include Betterment, Edify, Huatai Securities and Federated Hermes.
Sallie L Krawcheck is the CEO and co-founder of Ellevest. She formerly led Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Smith Barney and was the CFO of Citigroup. Her co-founder is company president Charlie Kroll. Kross was the architect of the start-up Andera, an online banking software company.
Ellevest uses a robo-advisor to develop an investing portfolio that matches your targeted goals and timeline. You simply download the app, enter some basic information like your age, gender, income, etc, and then set a financial goal.
Management or advisory fees When it comes to the banking side of things, Ellevest is similarly protected. It’s FDIC insured and includes such safety structures as a 256-bit account encryption and locked lost card on the app.
Ellevest Plus includes everything that Ellevest Essential has, plus access to a personal retirement plan and further discounted financial planners and coaches. At a month, we like the specialized help to start saving for retirement.
Minimum opening deposit
We know most people aren’t looking into Ellevest for the bank access alone, so it’s up to you if you use it or not. Still, it’s nice to know it’s available.
Plus, Ellevest tackles sometimes ignored gendered issues like longevity and career breaks and make gaining wealth approachable, achievable, and – with the impact portfolio option – socially responsible.
Ellevest Membership Choices
Key Features
Ellevest uses Folio Investments, Inc., an SEC-registered broker-dealer and custodian.
Ellevest Essential
Ellevest Plus
Ellevest Executive
4 out of 5 Overall
Ellevest Essential
Cons
Ellevest Essential is Ellevest’s basic investing plan that starts you investing at a low monthly fee of a month. With membership, it offers access to Ellevest learning resources and workshops, plus 20% off financial planner or career coaches. Its bare-bones approach is missing access to retirement accounts, offering no 401k or IRA. But at this price, it’s still not a bad way to just start investing.
Contributor Whitney Hansen writes for The Penny Hoarder on personal finance topics including banking and investing.
20% off financial planners and career coaches
Access to learning resources
Savings and checking accounts
Contributor Whitney Hansen writes for The Penny Hoarder on personal finance topics including banking and investing.
20% off financial planners and career coaches
Same features as Ellevest Essential
Access to retirement accounts
Contributor Whitney Hansen writes for The Penny Hoarder on personal finance topics including banking and investing.
50% off financial planners and career coaches
Same features as Ellevest Plus
Six customized investing accounts
More Information about Ellevest Plus
Each of these plans include discounted access to financial planners and career coaches, free educational resources, and an Ellevest savings account and checking account with debit card. The differences come down to access to retirement accounts, the discount on one-on-one help, and the number of accounts you can set up.
Once you’ve signed up for your membership, you’re ready to invest. With Ellevest, you don’t get to choose individual stocks or bonds; instead, you simply pick between their two portfolio offerings:
Best for Basic or Beginning Investors
Ellevest Essential
What Broker Does Ellevest Use?
Before moving onto the portfolio specifics, however, you have to sign up for the specific Ellevest membership that you want. Starting at just a month, Ellevest offers three membership tiers with different costs and perks for each. Jump to the next section if you’re curious which one will work best for you.
Ellevest Account Offerings
While both are created with your particular risk tolerance and financial goals in mind, the Ellevest Impact Portfolios are focused on furthering positive social impacts and advancing women’s leadership positions.
4 out of 5 Overall
Private Wealth Management
Once you’ve picked your portfolio, then you’re done–you’re officially an investor.
More Information About Ellevest Essential
Other Important Features
Banking
Ellevest offers three different membership plans:
a month Source: thepennyhoarder.com
In our Ellevest review, we’ll start with a quick rundown on how investing with Ellevest works, then walk you through the membership options, and finally flesh out each of the important features Ellevest offers so that you can get all the information you need to decide how best to start growing your money your way.
Coaching
Is My Money Safe with Ellevest?
It’s aggravating to earn money through investments and then watch it all disappear to capital gains taxes. Ellevest does its best to develop the best strategy to leave your money in your own hands through Ellevest Tax Minimization Methodology (TMM). Through TMM, Ellevest strategically reduces your taxes, when possible, through a combination of taxable and tax-deferred investments.
Taxes Optimization
Minimum opening deposit
Is There Risk with Ellevest?
Who Are Ellevest’s Competitors?
Pros and Cons of Ellevest
Ellevest offers coaching in an a-la-carte fashion that allows you to get exactly what you need. There are special coaching sessions for all your financial needs: how to find a job, negotiate your salary, create a budget, prepare for retirement, etc.
There are different perspectives on tax loss harvesting, but for Ellevest, it’s always about doing what’s right for each investor’s situation.
Low fees
Goal-focused investing
Takes into account previously ignored gendered issues
Impact portfolio options
Discounted access to career/financial coaches
A la carte one-on-one sessions with career and financial coaches and CFPs
Private wealth management
Individual taxable account
IRA only for upper member levels
No tax-loss harvesting automatically
Can’t trade yourself — no active management
No joint or custodial accounts
Membership fees can be high if not investing a lot of money
So is Ellevest worth it?
Ellevest also brings its belief that every dollar can have an impact to its private wealth management services by allowing you to share your values with your advisors and helping develop an intentional strategy for your wealth.
Best for Retirement Savers
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Ellevest
Do you want to buy a house in five years? Start a family? Create an emergency fund? Or build wealth in general? Ellevest will take specific goals into account and create a mix of ETFs (exchange traded funds) and mutual funds for you to invest in.
Basically, if you’re looking for every financial vehicle on the market, look elsewhere, but if you’re looking for an easy start, Ellevest is a good investing choice.
Ellevest uses Folio Investments, Inc, a SEC-registered broker-dealer and custodian, to safeguard the securities and cash in your account. Because of this, in the unlikely event that the brokerage fails, the Security Investment Protection Corporation (SIPC) will cover losses up to $500,000. n/a
Ind. taxable, traditional, Roth, and SEP IRAs
On the other hand, the Roundup feature is included with the account as a way to focus on saving and earning more. Ellevest’s Roundup setting rounds up each purchase made with the Ellevest debit card to the nearest dollar and deposits that extra change into your Save account or your investment account.
With any of Ellevest’s memberships, you get access to your own Ellevest Save and Spend account: a banking account run through Ellevest and provided by Coastal Community Bank. The accounts have no minimum balance fee, no transfer fees, no overdraft fees, and reimbursable ATM fees within the United States.
Minimum opening deposit
Even so, fewer investors are female, and the gender pay gap persists. That’s where Ellevest comes in.
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Because Ellevest’s first priority is helping you meet your financial goal, not all of your funds will be placed in impact investments if you choose the Impact Portfolio, but Ellevest will find the best way to balance your financial needs with positive social change. Socially conscious and fiscally responsible, we love it!
We know that’s a lot of information, so here’s the breakdown of how we think each feature and aspect of Ellevest stacks up.
Like Ellevest Essential, Ellevest Plus gets all the learning perks Ellevest offers to help you expand your financial know-how, but now you also get access to a retirement account to help you build a bigger nest egg. At a month, it’s still perfectly reasonable, but it’s worth noting that you’ll need to invest a decent amount to keep it affordable. Basically, if you’re only investing 0, then is a higher fee than most percentage-based fees that other robo advisor services offer on the market. If you’re looking to invest several thousand or more, however, then Ellevest’s affordability checks out.
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Who Is Ellevest Owned By? Ellevest also includes a complimentary cash back debit card with your account, where you’ll earn an average of 5% back on eligible purchases. Unfortunately, the savings account is not interest-earning, meaning that, unlike most savings accounts on the market, you won’t earn money on your funds sitting in this account. a month