Betterment offers several fee plans for our investing services. Below we’ve listed a pricing breakdown according to account type and additional fee information.
Stocks and Bonds Investing Accounts
Betterment’s investment advice is available for 0.25% (25 bps) per year with no minimum balance. We call this our Digital plan because you receive our advice online. For 0.40% (40 bps) per year, you can also gain over-the-phone and/or email access to our team of CFP® professionals and licensed financial experts who can provide in-depth advice on all your investments as well as help you manage your Betterment account by making changes for you, based on your directions. This Premium plan requires a minimum investing balance of $100,000 (based on your combined balance across any stocks and bonds investing accounts and crypto accounts you hold at Betterment). Learn more about our pricing.
Crypto Investing Accounts
Crypto investing accounts are charged a monthly Digital management fee of 1% (100 bps). If you receive Premium plan services in connection with your crypto investing account, the monthly Premium management fee is 1.15% (115 bps). The management fee will be charged on the full crypto portfolio.
Balances in excess of $2M
If the balance of your stocks and bonds investing account(s) and crypto investing account(s) are in excess of $2 million (excluding cash balances held in Cash Reserve, cash goals, Betterment Checking, HSA balances, and 401(k) balances through Betterment at Work), you will receive a 10bps discount on the portion of your balance above $2 million:
Stocks and Bonds Investing Accounts
Digital: 0.15% (15 bps) per year
Premium: 0.30% (30 bps) per year
Crypto Investing Accounts
0.90% (90 bps) per year
Balances are calculated based on household. If you qualify for part of your balance to be managed free and have a balance above $2 million, the dollars managed free will be those with the higher fee.
Calculating Fees
We calculate your fee daily so we can accurately account for deposits, withdrawals, and market fluctuations that occur. We then total the fees from those daily calculations each month, billing you a fraction of the total annual fee. This means that if you withdraw your balance before the end of the month, you’re only charged the fee for the days your money was managed by Betterment.
What does the fee get you?
For traditional securities investing accounts, Betterment’s fee covers the investment advice you receive, your portfolio management, all trading and custody fees associated with your account, transfers, and all other account administration.
For crypto investing accounts, Betterment’s fee covers the investment advice you receive, and your portfolio management.
Are there any transaction fees?
We do not charge you additional transaction fees to buy and sell securities within your stocks and bonds portfolios. Any fund held in this type of portfolio at Betterment will assess fund-level fees, called expense ratios, but Betterment aims to keep these costs low, and we receive no part of these fees. Learn more about each fund fee here.
For crypto transactions (including rebalancing), Betterment’s crypto custodian, Gemini, charges a crypto trading fee that fluctuates based on trading volume, up to 0.15% per trade. You can review your per-trade fees paid to Gemini on your crypto account statements, within the transaction Activity portion of your Betterment account, and as a separate fee line item within the balance breakdown of your portfolio’s Performance page. Betterment does not receive any portion of the trade fees paid to Gemini.
Fees on Cash Accounts
Finally, Betterment does not charge any account fees for Betterment Checking or Cash Reserve. In regards to Cash Reserve, Betterment LLC only receives compensation from our program banks.
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