"Best financial advisor app" is three different questions wearing one coat, which is why most roundups of them are useless.
Some want software that moves the money — invests it, rebalances it, harvests the losses. That's a robo-advisor: Betterment, Wealthfront, Fidelity Go, Schwab, Vanguard Digital Advisor. Some want to talk to a human who is licensed and accountable: Facet, Empower, Vanguard Personal Advisor Select, Range, Zoe. And some want guidance without handing over a percentage of their assets every year for as long as they hold them — a smaller lane, where Ed and Origin sit.
Those three needs don't share a winner. A list that ranks them together has to pretend they do.
So this page separates them, then prices everything. Every fee below was checked on 1 September 2026 against the company's own pricing page or its SEC filing. Where a figure couldn't be confirmed, it says so instead of guessing — and one product's price is missing entirely, for a reason we explain.
Transparency: Ed Wealth publishes this page and Ed is one of the products on it. Three things keep that honest: the list is alphabetical, not ranked; every product gets the same "wins / loses" treatment, including Ed's; and the arithmetic showing where Ed is the more expensive choice is in the body, not a footnote.
The whole list, alphabetically
|
Price (checked 1 Sep 2026) |
Minimum |
Manages your money? |
Human advisor included? |
| Betterment |
$5/mo ($60/yr) under $24k; 0.25%/yr at $24k+ or with $200/mo deposits; Premium 0.65% |
$0 to open, $10 to invest; $100k for Premium |
Yes |
Premium only |
| Ed (Ed Wealth) |
$299.99/yr or $39.99/mo; free tier at $0 |
n/a — holds no assets |
No |
No |
| Empower (advisory) |
0.89% at $100k–$999,999; Private Client $1M+: 0.79% on the first $3M, then 0.69% / 0.59% / 0.49% |
$100,000 |
Yes |
Yes |
| Empower Personal Dashboard |
Free |
None |
No |
No |
| Facet |
Core $2,400/yr ($2,600 list) · Plus $5,000 ($5,500) · Complete $7,900 ($8,700) — promotional |
None; $500 to fund investing |
Yes, included |
Yes |
| Fidelity Go |
$0 under $25,000; 0.35%/yr above |
$0 to open, $10 to invest |
Yes |
Coaching at $25k+ |
| Origin |
$99/yr or $12.99/mo; CFP session $119 |
None |
Only in its own portfolios |
Per session, extra |
| Range |
Check with provider — see below |
None published |
Yes |
Yes |
| Schwab Intelligent Portfolios |
$0 advisory fee — funded by a 6%–30% cash allocation |
$5,000 ($50k for tax-loss harvesting) |
Yes |
No |
| Vanguard Digital Advisor |
~0.16% net (0.20% gross, all-index) |
$100 |
Yes |
No |
| Vanguard Personal Advisor |
~0.31% net (0.35% gross, all-index) |
$50,000 |
Yes |
Yes, a team |
| Vanguard Personal Advisor Select |
0.30% below $5M, marginal above; +$75/quarter under $450k |
$500,000 |
Yes, non-discretionary |
Dedicated CFP |
| Wealthfront |
0.25% Automated Investing · 0.15% Bond Ladder · 0.09% S&P 500 Direct · 0.12% Nasdaq-100 Direct |
$500 ($5,000 Direct) |
Yes |
No |
| Zoe Financial |
$0 to you — the matched adviser pays Zoe a share of its fee |
None |
Its own programs only |
That is the product |
Three things most 2026 roundups still get wrong
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium no longer exists. Schwab retired it in early 2026. Until then it cost $300 upfront plus $30 a month for unlimited CFP access at a $25,000 minimum — the best-value human tier in this category, and review sites still list it as though you can buy it. Schwab's current Form ADV Part 2A, advisory section dated 30 June 2026, mentions "Premium" zero times across seventeen pages, and its Client Relationship Summary jumps straight from Intelligent Portfolios to $500,000-minimum services. InvestmentNews dated the shutdown 11 March 2026. Schwab published no announcement of its own, and we could not confirm the closure date or where existing clients went — so this rests on the filing's silence plus dated reporting, and we're saying so. Schwab's cheapest door to a human moved from $25,000 to $500,000, and Fidelity folded its equivalent hybrid into Fidelity Go's coaching.
Empower's fee schedule is misread almost everywhere. Review sites say "0.89% on the first $1M, then 0.79%." Its Form ADV, dated 18 May 2026, doesn't: once a household crosses $1M into Private Client, the first $3 million is billed at 0.79%.
Facet's dedicated planner doesn't start at Core. Core buys a shared CFP pool; the dedicated planner starts at Plus.
Betterment
Wins: $5 a month under $24,000, or 0.25% if you set up $200/month in recurring deposits. Above $24,000 it's 0.25%, the market rate, with a marginal 0.15% from $1M to $2M and 0.10% above.
Loses: as a percentage, the $5/month tier is the most expensive plan here — 1.2% a year on $5,000 — and Betterment's Satisfaction Guarantee explicitly excludes clients paying it. CFP access means Premium: $100,000 at 0.65%.
Ed (Ed Wealth)
Wins: $299.99 a year, or $39.99 a month, and the fee doesn't move when your balance does. Ed reads your whole picture — connected accounts, documents, goals — and tells you what to look at. The free tier gives one goal preview and three unlocks; there's a 7-day trial. No commissions, no ads, no product kickbacks.
Loses: Ed doesn't manage money, doesn't execute anything, and isn't a registered investment adviser, so no licensed human is accountable for what it says. Under $25,000, Fidelity Go is free, fully invested, and uses zero-expense-ratio funds — there is no argument to make here. Origin costs a third as much, includes free DIY tax filing, and holds an RIA registration Ed doesn't have. And below roughly $120,000, a 0.25% robo is cheaper than Ed and doing more with the money.
Empower
Wins: the free Personal Dashboard is the best net-worth aggregation anyone gives away. The paid service bundles a human — advisor team at $100,000, dedicated advisor at $250,000 — with a stated 0.06% average ETF expense ratio.
Loses: 0.89% is close to full traditional-advisor pricing, and there's no advisory service at all below $100,000.
Facet
Wins: flat annual fees with discretionary investment management included at no extra cost. At $5,000 with a dedicated CFP, a household holding $1.5M pays about a third of what 1% would cost.
Loses: those prices are promotional, struck through from $2,600 / $5,500 / $8,700 with no published end date, and Facet's own Form ADV puts its fee range at $900 to $10,000 annually — so don't assume the advertised tier is your quote. Estate planning costs extra at every level; the contract is annual and non-refundable.
Fidelity Go
Wins: under $25,000 it's free, and the Fidelity Flex funds it uses carry zero expense ratios — no management fees and, with limited exceptions, no fund expenses. No mandated cash allocation, $10 to get invested. For someone starting near zero this is the strongest offer here, and it isn't close.
Loses: at $25,000 the price jumps to 0.35%, above the market rate, and it holds Flex mutual funds only. Fidelity describes the coaching that unlocks at $25,000 as "a team of phone-based representatives" — it never claims they hold CFP designations, and the coaching explicitly excludes retirement income planning.
Origin
Wins: $99 a year, or $12.99 a month, for budgeting, free DIY tax filing and light AI guidance — and unlike Ed, Origin registered as an investment adviser (CRD 305353). CFP sessions cost $119 each. A first-year promotional price is running, with no published end date.
Loses: the advice is point-in-time rather than continuous, with no dedicated ongoing advisor, and its Form ADV Part 1, amended 26 March 2026, shows roughly $34.7M in assets. Its prices appear only on marketing pages, never in a filing.
Range
Wins: CFPs and CFA charterholders at every tier, CPAs from Platinum up, discretionary management included.
Loses — and why there's no price here: Range's pricing page displays two mutually inconsistent sets of prices at once, with no promotional labelling or billing toggle to explain the gap. One advertised tier sits above the maximum subscription fee in Range's own Form ADV, and the page contradicts Range's help centre on whether Platinum includes tax filing. We won't publish a Range price until a human confirms one with the company — check with the provider. The "0% AUM Fees" badge also covers Range's own fee only: its ADV notes funds carry three further layers of fees.
Schwab Intelligent Portfolios
Wins: $0 advisory fee and $0 commissions, which is real. Schwab is candid about what the service is worth: "In programs similar to the SIP Program, clients might expect to pay an annual fee of 0.30% of client assets."
Loses: the fee is collected in cash. Schwab's brochure says the cash allocation "will generally range from 6% to 30% of an account's value," and that it charges no advisory fee "in part because of the revenue Schwab Bank generates from the cash allocation." Up to 30% of a long-term portfolio in cash isn't free — it's an invisible price. Minimum $5,000; tax-loss harvesting needs $50,000. Schwab also discloses that the SEC found its 2015–2018 disclosures about the arrangement misleading; it paid $186,536,861 in a settlement dated 13 June 2022.
Vanguard (Digital Advisor, Personal Advisor, Personal Advisor Select)
Wins: Digital Advisor is the cheapest managed option here — about 0.16% net after Vanguard credits back revenue from its own funds, $100 minimum. Personal Advisor adds human contact at $50,000 for about 0.31% net. Select gives a dedicated CFP at $500,000 for 0.30%, non-discretionary, so you approve the plan before anything happens.
Loses: the naming is a trap. "Vanguard Personal Advisor Services," the product every article cites, is now Personal Advisor Select at a $500,000 minimum — not the $50,000 "Personal Advisor." At that tier you get a team of VAI Financial Advisors, and Vanguard's brochure attaches no CFP credential to that role. Select adds $75 a quarter under $450,000, and drops you to an advisor pool below the same threshold.
Wealthfront
Wins: the cleanest pricing in the set — one rate per product, no balance tiers, no monthly-dollar alternative. 0.25% Automated Investing, 0.15% Bond Ladder, 0.09% S&P 500 Direct, 0.12% Nasdaq-100 Direct, $500 to start. Because the rate never moves, it's the yardstick for the arithmetic below.
Loses: no human advice at any price. Wealthfront's marketing gestures at "certified professionals standing by"; its Form ADV limits representatives to servicing matters, and the filing governs. The free Stock Investing Account isn't free either — Wealthfront Brokerage pays Wealthfront Advisers up to 10% of the net interest margin on the Cash Account stock investors must hold.
Zoe Financial
Wins: costs you nothing to use, no minimum, and it ends with an actual fiduciary human rather than software. If you've decided you want a person, a vetted shortlist for $0 is a good deal.
Loses: it isn't free, it's indirect. Zoe's Form CRS: "we do not charge you a fee; however, if you enter into an advisory relationship with a registered investment adviser in the Zoe Advisor Network, then that adviser will pay us a share of the fee it charges to you." Zoe also discloses that referral fees vary with the assets you place, that some network advisers own equity in Zoe, and that it is itself one of the firms you may be matched to. Its referral percentage isn't published, so we aren't.
The arithmetic: when does a flat fee actually win?
Ed's annual plan is $299.99. A 0.25% fee — Betterment above $24,000, Wealthfront Automated Investing — costs $0.0025 per dollar a year. They're equal when:
0.0025 × Balance = $299.99
Balance = $299.99 ÷ 0.0025 = $119,996
About $120,000. Below it the robo costs less; above it Ed does, and the gap widens without limit because Ed's number never moves.
| Balance |
0.25% robo |
Ed ($299.99/yr) |
Cheaper |
| $10,000 |
$25 |
$299.99 |
Robo, by $275 |
| $50,000 |
$125 |
$299.99 |
Robo, by $175 |
| $120,000 |
$300 |
$299.99 |
Dead heat |
| $250,000 |
$625 |
$299.99 |
Ed, by $325 |
| $500,000 |
$1,250 |
$299.99 |
Ed, by $950 |
| $1,000,000 |
$2,500 |
$299.99 |
Ed, by $2,200 |
The half against us. Below $120,000 the robo isn't merely cheaper — it's also doing more, because it actually invests the money. Ed doesn't. So above $120,000 the comparison is not "cheaper for the same thing": it's a different thing, priced flat, and anyone who blurs that is selling you something. Paying monthly makes it worse — $39.99 × 12 = $479.88 pushes the crossover to about $192,000.
The half for us. Run the same division against human advice. Kitces Research found advisory fees average 100 to 120 basis points under $1M, and that 62% of advisors charge at least 1% on a $1M portfolio. At 1.00%, $299.99 breaks even at $29,999; at Empower's 0.89%, $33,707.
So, plainly: the flat-fee argument is strong against human advisors and weak against robos. Against 0.25% software you need six figures before it's even a debate. Against a 1% human you need $30,000 — but you're giving up the human, which is often the wrong trade.
How to choose
Answer one question first: do you want something to move your money, or to tell you what to look at?
Under $25,000, moved: Fidelity Go. Free, fully invested, zero-expense-ratio funds. Nothing here competes at that balance, us included.
$500 to $24,000: Wealthfront's flat 0.25% beats Betterment's $5 a month, which is 1.2% a year on $5,000.
Above $25,000: Wealthfront, or Vanguard Digital Advisor at ~0.16% net if you'll own only Vanguard funds. Schwab's $0 is real but paid in a 6%–30% cash allocation.
And you want a human: Vanguard Personal Advisor ($50,000, ~0.31% net) is the cheapest door — Betterment Premium and Empower both want $100,000, at 0.65% and 0.89%. Complicated situation? Facet's flat $5,000 beats 1% well before $1M. Want the human without the software? Zoe, free to you.
Guidance without a percentage: Ed and Origin — and Origin is cheaper at $99 a year, is a registered adviser, and includes free DIY tax filing. Ed's case is narrower: a large or complicated balance sheet, where you intend to keep making your own decisions and want a fee that doesn't grow when your balance does. Below $120,000, a robo is cheaper and more useful.
If you can't tell which of the three you are, your own numbers probably aren't clear enough yet. Ed's free Financial Reality Check names which part of your financial fitness is weakest — an input to this decision, not a substitute for it.
Conclusion
There is no best financial advisor app, because the three things people mean by that phrase are priced on completely different logics — only a best answer for a stated balance and a stated need. A page that names one winner without asking either question has told you about its business model, not the products.
One principle to carry out of here. A percentage fee and a flat fee aren't two prices for the same thing — they're two different relationships with time. A flat fee stays the number it is whether you double your money or halve it. A percentage is indexed to your success: charged on the whole balance every year, including the part that's just last year's growth, compounding against you for exactly as long as compounding works for you. On a portfolio that grows tenfold over thirty years, a 1% fee grows tenfold with it. A $300 subscription doesn't.
That doesn't make percentages wrong — below about $120,000, at 0.25%, it's the better deal, and it buys management a flat fee doesn't. It changes the question you ask a provider. Not "what does this cost?" but "what does this cost me in twenty years, and what does it buy that I couldn't buy for a fixed number?"
Ed's free Financial Reality Check gives you the numbers this decision depends on — your burn, your runway, what you actually own — in a few minutes. Start at edwealth.ai/check-up. If you want to see how we test our own answers, including the rounds we lose, that's MoneyBench.
Money at peace. Wealth in motion.
Ed Wealth is a research and self-reflection tool, not a registered investment advisor. Nothing here is financial, investment, or tax advice. All decisions are yours. Prices and fees were checked on 1 September 2026 and change without notice; confirm current pricing with each provider before you act.
Sources
- Betterment — betterment.com/pricing; Form ADV Part 2A dated 31 July 2026; betterment.com/legal/fee-disclosure
- Ed Wealth — edwealth.ai/pricing; EdWealth launch release, 15 July 2026
- Empower Advisory Group LLC — Form ADV Part 2A (Personal Strategy Wrap Fee Program), dated 18 May 2026; empower.com/tools
- Facet — facet.com/pricing; Form ADV Part 2A and Part 3, both dated 31 July 2026
- Fidelity Go — fidelity.com/managed-accounts/fidelity-go/overview; Strategic Advisers LLC Form ADV Part 2A, dated 30 March 2026
- Origin — useorigin.com; Origin Investment Advisory LLC Form CRS and Form ADV Part 1, amended 26 March 2026
- Range — Range Advisory LLC Form ADV Part 2A, dated March 2026; range.com/pricing (internally inconsistent as of 1 September 2026)
- Schwab — intelligent.schwab.com; Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Disclosure Brochure, advisory section dated 30 June 2026; Client Relationship Summary dated 12 December 2025; SEC Admin. Proc. 34-95087, 13 June 2022
- Schwab Premium retirement — InvestmentNews, 11 March 2026; Yahoo Finance, 17 December 2025
- Vanguard — Digital Advisor and Personal Advisor Brochure, dated 20 August 2026; Personal Advisor Select Brochure, dated 30 March 2026
- Wealthfront — wealthfront.com/pricing; Wealthfront Advisers LLC Form ADV Part 2A, dated 23 July 2026
- Zoe Financial, Inc. — Form ADV Part 3 / Form CRS, dated 12 August 2026; Form ADV Part 1, filed 12 August 2026
- Kitces, How Financial Advisors Actually Charge For Their Services, 16 June 2025 (2024 Kitces Research) — kitces.com
