Autopilot Review: Trade Like Pelosi, Buffett, And More

Autopilot is an investing app that allows you to copy the trades and portfolios of famous investors, such as Warren Buffett, and politicians like Nancy Pelosi. 

The "copy trading" phenomenon has gained significant popularity in recent years, with several platforms offering similar features. 

But how does Autopilot enable investors to replicate the portfolios of renowned investors, and is it wise to follow its approach? Not only that, but are the fees worthwhile? We cover all that and more in this full review. 

What Is Autopilot?

Autopilot was launched in 2023 by the team behind the viral Pelosi Tracker account. Since then, over 100,000 investors have executed more than $2 billion in trades through its platform. Autopilot differs from a typical online brokerage in that it does not hold your investments. Instead, it connects to your existing brokerage account, then notifies your brokerage to place trades based on the investment amount and Autopilot portfolio(s) you've chosen. The idea is to copy the trades of successful investors. 

What Does It Offer?

Autopilot allows you to copy the trades of famous investors. All you need to do is choose a portfolio you would like to mimic, connect your online brokerage account, and authorize Autopilot to place trades to closely match the portfolio(s) you've chosen. You have the option to copy one or multiple portfolios, at an additional cost. 

Autopilot Portfolio Options 

Autopilot offers a wide range of portfolios that you can choose from. Featured portfolios are displayed prominently on the app, or you can search using the following categories: Top Performers, Trending, Popular, New, Crypto, Politician, Bearish, Hedgefund, Retirement, Featured, Ai, Pilots. 

Here are some of Autopilot's most popular portfolios, along with the amount currently invested: 

• Pelosi Tracker ($445.7M invested) 
• Buffett Tracker ($16.3M invested)
• Burry Tracker ($64.8M invested) 
• Inverse Cramer ($29.8M invested) 
• Crenshaw Tracker ($20.6M invested) 
• Jim Simons Tracker ($83M invested) 
• Citadel Tracker (popular hedge fund - $30.5M invested)
• Top Political ITF ($2.8M invested) 
• GPT portfolio (AI-Built portfolio — $43.6M invested)
• World War III Portfolio ($10.5M invested)

Portfolio Performance

Autopilot lists the historical performance of all of its portfolios on its app, in periods ranging from 1 Week to All-time performance. The performance published on the app reflects the performance on Autopilot, which accounts for any delays between when the investor places and files their trades. For example, the average delay of the Pelosi Tracker portfolio is two weeks. 

How Does Autopilot Get Its Portfolio And Stock Positions?

Wondering how Autopilot is not only able to acquire the portfolio details of famous investors but also follow their positions, which constantly change as they place trades? It varies by portfolio, but here are a couple of examples:

Pelosi Tracker Portfolio: According to Autopilot, all members of Congress must publicly file and disclose any financial transaction of stocks, bonds, commodities futures, and other securities within 45 days of the transaction date.  Autopilot utilizes this publicly available information to construct the Pelosi Tracker portfolio, as well as those of other politicians.

Buffet Tracker: Autopilot uses the 13F filings to identify the top 15 holdings of various investors, including Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) and Michael Burry (Scion Asset Management). Each time a new 13F filing is made, Autopilot rebalances its portfolio holdings to ensure they remain in line with the investor's top 15 holdings.

How Does Autopilot Place Trades? 

When you connect your brokerage to Autopilot, it uses your broker's API and the authentication tokens it's provided to place trades on your behalf. Autopilot never has access to your username or password. 

Are There Any Fees?

While Autopilot offers a free version, it's pretty limited. It will allow you to invest in an Autopilot portfolio, but you can't make any trades beyond the initial investment. To unlock all of Autopilot's features, you need to pay $29/quarter, or $100/year. However, there's a catch. This fee applies to every portfolio you invest in. For example, if you wanted to invest in the Pelosi Tracker and the Buffett Tracker, you would have to pay the fee twice. You would also have to invest a minimum of $500 into each portfolio. 

How Does Autopilot Compare?

Autopilot allows you to invest like the top investors, but it's not an actual brokerage. It connects to your brokerage account and triggers trades based on the portfolio(s) you've chosen and your investment amount. If this isn't for you, you might want to consider other options. Wealthfront is a low-cost robo-advisor that also allows you to purchase baskets of individual stocks, called stock collections. Collections include names such as "Semiconductor Leaders", "Dividend Blue Chip Stocks", "Wide Moats", "Cloud Computing", and more.

M1 Finance is an investment app that lets you build customized portfolios, called "Pies." The individual funds, stocks, or crypto in your pie are known as slices. You have complete control over how you build your investment pie. In addition, there are no trading fees, and your portfolio, or pie, is automatically rebalanced for a hands-off investing experience.  

How Do I Open An Account?

You can open an account by downloading the Autopilot app for your iOS or Android device. Once set up, you can choose the portfolio (s) you wish to invest in and connect one or more brokerage accounts. Supported brokerages include Robinhood, Public, and Webull. Finally, choose the amount you want to invest, and Autopilot will automatically place trades on your behalf. 

Is It Safe And Secure?

You can consider Autopilot safe to deal with. For starters, your investments are not held with Autopilot, which also means that you don't need to transfer any money back and forth between Autopilot and your brokerage account. Furthermore, any information transferred between Autopilot and your brokerage, such as trade instructions, is done using Plaid, a highly secure third-party data-sharing platform used by thousands of financial institutions. 

How Do I Contact Autopilot?

You can contact Autopilot via email at [email protected]. The platform does not offer telephone or live chat support. 

Is It Worth It?

The opportunity to copy the stock trades of the most successful investors in the world (at least the most famous ones) can be very tempting, especially for inexperienced investors who don't truly understand how to build wealth over the long term. I perused several Autopilot Reddit threads, and I couldn't tell you the number of commenters who said the app was terrible because they had invested a certain amount and didn't make any money in the first few months. On the other hand, many commenters reported significant gains over the same period, so it must be the greatest thing ever. 

If you base success or failure on a portfolio's performance after three or four months, you probably shouldn't be investing in stocks at all.

I think Autopilot is best suited for investors with large portfolios who can allocate a portion of their investments to an Autopilot portfolio (enough to minimize the fees). You should also adopt a long-term mindset for most of these portfolios, as they tend to be high-risk and many are not particularly well-diversified.

If you only have a small amount to invest, Autopilot is not worth it due to the fees. For example, let's say you invest the minimum of $500 in one portfolio. The fee will be at least $100 per year, or 20% — an enormous expense — and one you're unlikely to overcome regardless of the returns your portfolio generates. 

Check out Autopilot here >>

Autopilot Features