

Robo-advisors make it easier to invest money in the financial markets and avoid common investing mistakes. The best robo-advisors align your goals with your investing abilities.
A robo-advisor is a platform that uses algorithms instead of humans to manage its clients’ portfolios. These platforms make it easy for beginners to create well-diversified portfolios, while charging lower fees than a typical human advisor.
If you decide that using a robo-advisor is the right choice for you, you will quickly find that there are many companies competing for your business and it can be difficult to compare apples to apples. But we’ve done the homework for you. Keep reading to see our list of the best robo-advisors available today.
Our picks for the best robo-advisors of 2026
We’ve taken the time to review your top robo-advisor options, rating them based on products, pricing, and features. Here are our recommendations for the best robo-advisors for fans of automated investing.
Best Overall: Wealth Facade
Wealthfront continues to impress with its excellent user interface, constant innovation, and diligent efforts to help investors take advantage of tax loss capture opportunities. This is especially useful for high-net-worth investors who have a lot of money in non-retirement accounts.
In addition to its tax loss harvesting component, Wealthfront is constantly innovating to provide investors with time-tested investment solutions including calculations that adjust for risk parity and algorithms that take into account “five-factor” investment models.
New automated planning tools make it easier for investors to see whether common goals like early retirement, college, homebuying, or traditional retirement are manageable given their savings rates. With an annual management fee of 0.25%, Wealthfront is also a low-cost leader.
Check out our full review of Wealthfront.

Best from full-service broker: Fidelity Go
Fidelity Go is Fidelity’s automated investing solution designed for hands-off investors who want professional portfolio management without high advisory fees. The tool creates and manages a variety of Fidelity’s low-cost mutual funds based on your goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance, and automatically rebalances over time.
With no advisory fees for balances under $25,000 and competitive rates as balances grow, Fidelity Go stands out in 2026 as a solid option for beginners and long-term investors who prefer automation while still benefiting from Fidelity’s scale, research, and reliability.
Read our full Fidelity review here.

Best Asset Allocation Service: Schwab Smart Wallets
Charles Schwab continually amazes with its low fees and wide offerings. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios are just one of the company’s many innovations that can help less experienced investors invest and stay invested for the long term. The account minimum at Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is $5,000.
The best part of Scwab Intelligent Portfolios is the price. Basic asset management services cost $0 per year. All trading and asset management fees are completely free. The only major criticism of the service is the amount of cash investors have to hold. Portfolios recommend cash positions ranging from 6% to 30% of investments. That’s too much money for most people with long-term investment goals.
In addition to the standard service, Charles Schwab investors can choose a premium service. This service costs $300 when you first sign up, then $30 per month after that. With premium service, you’ll have unlimited access to human financial planners.
See our full review of Charles Schwab.

Best for creating your own customization: M1 Finance
Some investors may not think of M1 Finance as a robo-advisor, and M1 does not provide advice. But the platform allows investors to create their own trading strategy. Whether your strategy involves individual stocks, low-cost ETFs, or a combination of the two, M1 Finance will allow you to automate your investment strategy (including rebalancing) for free.
Typical robo-advisors don’t allow for much customization. But the M1 Finance portfolio is infinitely customizable, perfect for investors who want to be personalized differently than the standard robo-advisory template.
The only risk with the platform is that it does not have the same guardrails that most robo-advisors offer. Users can end up trading their resources, or even borrowing money and losing money on margin. I recommend using M1 Finance for its automation capabilities, not as a platform for trading or borrowing on margin. It is important to remember that M1 Finance only offers self-directed brokerage services.
Learn more about M1 Finance in our full review.

Best for Socially Responsible Investing: Wealthsimple
Wealthsimple makes our top robo-advisors list because it is one of the first companies to specialize in environmentally and socially responsible investments. It offers a general “Western” approach to socially responsible investing as well as “halal investing” options (including excluding companies that derive significant income from interest on loans).
At a management fee of 0.50% (0.40% for portfolios over $100K), the fees are a bit higher than other robo-advisors on this list, but it also offers benefits that others don’t. For example, all investors with assets over $100,000 at Wealthsimple will receive a financial planning session. Those with assets over $500,000 will receive financial planning sessions on an ad hoc basis.
If you’re passionate about socially responsible investing, Wealthsimple may be the most straightforward way for you to invest.
Read our full Wealthsimple review to learn more.

Best for access to human advisors: Optimization
Wealthfront believes in the power of automated investing so much that it does not provide any access to financial advisors. While it’s admirable that Wealthfront has complete confidence in its algorithms, the truth is that sometimes it’s still nice to be able to talk to a human.
Tahseen understands that. So, although it has all the things you’d expect from a robo-advisor (like automated investing, rebalancing, and tax-loss harvesting), it makes our top robo-advisor list because it also offers multiple ways for clients to get human advice.
Premium plan customers get unlimited Access to CFP® professionals. But this plan, unfortunately, is only available to premium plan investors with a minimum balance of at least $100,000. For everyone else, Betterment offers one-time calls with financial experts starting at $299. Current packages include:
- Never
- Financial examination
- Marriage planning
- College planning
- Retirement planning
Betterment’s digital plan (no minimum balance) comes with an advisory fee of 0.25% while charging premium plan clients 0.65% of assets under management. If you have a balance of less than $20,000, you’ll pay a fee of $4 per month.
Read our full review of the improvement.
Other robo-advisors deserve attention
New robo-advisory companies are constantly entering the market. Many of them offer an amazing investment experience. Although the companies listed below didn’t make our list of the best robo-advisors, they are worth considering.
Final thoughts
Not every investor needs a robo advisor. But these platforms can help you invest, stay invested, and avoid big mistakes.
Although no platform is perfect, all of the above tools make better investing possible. When considering robo-advisors, be sure to compare fees, products, and investment strategies before committing to one tool.
If you don’t like the idea of a computer controlling your investments, even the best robo-advisors won’t be for you. Instead, choose a low-cost brokerage to implement your investment strategy.
methodology
College Investor is dedicated to helping you make informed decisions about complex financial topics like finding the best robo-advisor. We do this by providing unbiased reviews of the best brokerages and robo-advisor accounts to our readers, and then compiling those picks into this list.
We chose robo-advisors based on our opinions on how easy they are to use, their costs and fees, any interest rates and bonuses offered, and a variety of other factors. We believe our list accurately reflects the best robo-advisors on the market for consumers.
We’ve combined our opinions with The College Investor’s 2026 Investor Survey, which named these tools as popular robo-advisor products.
College Investor receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Advisers LLC (“Wealthfront Advisers”) for each new client who applies for a Wealthfront automated investing account through our links. This may create an incentive that creates a material conflict of interest. College Investor is not a client of Wealthfront Advisers. More information is available via our links to Wealthfront Advisers.



