Here’s The Minimum You Need To Start Investing With A Robo Advisor

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Robo advisors have become useful tools for beginning and experienced investors. With robo advisor investment sites, you get to rely on software that pinpoints the best ways for you to invest your money. In many cases, investment plans run by robo advisors outperform plans run by individuals because they can process vast amounts of information that would boggle the human brain.

Before you can use a robo advisor, though, you will need a minimum investment that gets your account started. In this article, you’ll learn more about how much money you need and what you can expect to get in return.

Minimum Investments Differ From Company to Company

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to say precisely how much money you will need to start an investment account that uses a robo advisor. Since companies get to set their own minimums, the amounts vary significantly.

$0 Minimum Investment Robo Advisors

Some companies don’t set a minimum, so you can open an account with as little as $1. Companies that have $0 account minimums include:

• Betterment
• Bloom
• Ellevest
• Motif
• Wealthsimple

$100 to $500 Minimum Investment Robo Advisors

Some investors feel that they will get better services from robo advisors that require higher minimums. Luckily, you don’t need a lot of money to open accounts with these companies.

SoFi, for instance, requires an investment of at least $100.

Wealthfront has a $500 account minimum.

$1,000-$3,000 Minimum Investment Robo Advisors

Just a step above the $100-$500 minimum investment services are services such as Ally Invest, which has a minimum of $2,500.

$5,000+ Minimum Investment Robo Advisors

If you have enough money to invest more than $5,000, then you have a few robo advisors that are designed to match your needs. Ameritrade requires a $5,000 account minimum. Charles Schwab Intelligent Advisory, which gives you access to a human financial advisor as well as a robo advisor, has a $25,000 minimum.

At $50,000, Vanguard has one of the industry’s highest minimums; so does Personal Capital, at $100,000.

How Much Should You Invest?

The amount that you invest should depend on two factors:

• How much money you have now.
• How much you plan to earn from your investment.

If you don’t have any debt and you have enough money to pay for at least three months of expenses, then you should invest about $500. As long as you keep contributing a few hundred dollars each month, you should see your portfolio grow fairly quickly over the next couple of decades.

If you have a lot of high-interest debt, then you should eliminate it before you worry about investing. The high interest will inevitably cost more than you can make from your investments.

If you’re lucky enough that you can invest $1,000 or $5,000 today, then you can jump start your portfolio immediately to see faster returns.

No matter how much you choose to invest, remember that all investments come with a risk. If you can’t afford to lose the money, then you shouldn’t put it into an investment account.