New to investing? Sick of high account minimums? Tired of paying trading, management, and rebalancing fees? Axos Invest could be the solution to all of your investing frustrations.
After witnessing firsthand the often misaligned values of financial advisors and their clients, combined with too high minimum investment amounts, and unreasonable fees the idea for Axos Invest was born.
This company was founded by Herbert Moore and Vicki Zhou. It was previously called WiseBanyan before being acquired by Axos Bank.
Axos Invest (as it's now called) is a low-cost robo-advisor. But is it too good to be true? Let’s take a look.
Quick Summary
- Low-cost robo-advisor platform
- Very competitive to the existing main-stream platforms
- Previously known as WiseBanyan
Axos Invest Details | |
|---|---|
Product Name | Axos Invest |
Min Invesment | $500 |
Annual Fee | 0.24% AUM |
Account Type | Taxable, Roth IRA, Traditional IRA |
Promotions | Up to $20 |
How it Works
When you sign up to create an account with Axos Invest you’ll be put on a waitlist (which is pretty instant). You’ll be notified via email when you’re invited to create an account.
Upon creating an account you’ll be prompted to answer several investing related questions. These are scenario type questions in which you choose what you would do in the particular situation. Based on your answers Axos Invest will assign you a risk score from 1-10 with 1 having a low risk tolerance and 10 having a high risk tolerance.
But don’t worry - if you’re not comfortable with the risk score Axos Invest assigned you, you can change it.
Based on your risk score Axos Invest will automatically invest your money for you into a diversified portfolio..
Different Accounts & Initial Investment Amounts
Axos Invest offers several different types of investing accounts you can open, such as:
- Personal Investment
- Roth IRA
- SEP IRA
- Traditional IRA
The minimum investment is only $500 and you can create automatic contributions. Axos Invest will do the rest for you.
Axos Invest Pricing And Fees
Axos Invest is no longer free for users. Beginning August 1, 2020, accounts over $500 will be charged a 0.24% AUM (asset under management) advisory fee. If you have under $500, you'll be assesed a $1 per month charge.
The amount you pay is based on how much you have in your account. For example, if you have a $1,000 balance, your annual fee will be $2.40.
Compared to other robo-advisors (like Betterment), this fee is slightly cheaper. However, if you're under $500, the $1 per month fee is a bit rough. We'd recommend account owners with less than $500 either increase their positions or close their account.
Axos Invest in Action
After answering the initial investing questions Axos Invest assigned me a risk score of 7.7. I felt that this was accurate.
Upon creating my account I chose to open up a personal investment account. Since I wasn’t sure how my money would be invested and was slightly skeptical, I chose to only deposit $10.
It took around 2 weeks for my initial deposit to be transferred to my Axos Invest account. I received correspondence letting me know that future transfers would only take around two days, which was reassuring.
After my money was deposited I logged back in to my account to see how it was invested. Here’s exactly where my money went:
I was very impressed. I didn’t know that $10 could be this well diversified!
I think Axos Invest is very cutting edge. With my personal investment account I’ll probably keep the stock picking to myself. However, I am going to set up my retirement accounts with Axos Invest and let them do the legwork for me.
From what I’ve seen and experienced so far I’d definitely recommend Axos Invest to others. Sign up for a Axos Invest account for free and get $20 when you sign up and stay for 6 months.
Would you give Axos Invest a try? Any thoughts on their services?
Axos Invest Review
- Commissions & Fees
- Customer Service
- Ease Of Use
- Tools & Resources
- Investment Options
- Specialty Services
Overall
Summary
Axos Invest is a low-cost robo-advisor that seeks to improve the automatic investing experience by making things simple.
Pros
- Easy to use robo-advisor with tax loss harvesting and automatic rebalancing
- Avoid wash sale rule issues
- Lots of account types
Cons
- Low minimum, but higher than other robo-advisors
- No longer free, but still a competitive fee structure
- One of the smallest robo-advisors by Assets Under Management (AUM)
Alexa Mason is a freelance writer and wanna be internet entrepreneur. She is also a newly single mom to two beautiful little girls. She chronicles her journey as a single mom trying to make it big at www.singlemomsincome.com.