Sign up with SigFig and you don't end up with a SigFig brokerage account. The service manages a portfolio held at Fidelity, Charles Schwab, or TD Ameritrade, and if you don't already have one of those, it opens a TD Ameritrade account for you. That arrangement shapes most of what follows, including which funds are available to buy and who insures the assets.
The First $10,000 Is Managed Free, Then the Fee Is 0.25%
SigFig charges no management fee on the first $10,000 it manages. Beyond that, the fee is 0.25% of assets under management on the amount above the initial $10,000.
The management fee isn't the only cost, though. Two others sit underneath it:
- ETF expense ratios. The funds SigFig picks carry their own internal costs, generally between 0.07% and 0.15%. The funds charge those, not SigFig.
- Transaction fees. Some trades can trigger a fee, particularly around tax-loss harvesting. SigFig says it only makes those trades when it judges the benefit to outweigh the cost.
So a small account can genuinely pay nothing in management fees while still carrying fund-level costs. Someone whose managed balance stays under the $10,000 mark falls into exactly that spot: no advisory fee, but the expense ratios inside the ETFs still apply.
Fidelity, Schwab, or TD Ameritrade Holds the Account
Most robo-advisors hold your account themselves. SigFig doesn't. It manages accounts at supported brokerage partners, meaning Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and TD Ameritrade, and invests through the ETFs available at each one. If you already hold an account at one of those firms, you give SigFig the credentials so it can manage the money in place.
SigFig deliberately leans on funds that don't carry transaction fees at the partner brokerage. That's a practical constraint worth understanding: the fund menu isn't universal, it depends on where your account lives.
Unlimited Human Advice Is Included in the Fee
Unlimited access to human financial advisors comes with the management fee rather than as a paid add-on. In the robo-advisor world, talking to a person usually costs extra or requires a bigger balance. Betterment's advice tier is gated that way: an account has to reach a certain size before a person is available, and the management fee attached to it runs above SigFig's.
Connect outside accounts through the portfolio tracker and the advice takes those holdings into account too, not only the slice SigFig manages.
A $2,000 Minimum, Standard Paperwork, and No Cash Products
You need $2,000 to open a managed account, and none of the fee structure applies until that minimum is met.
Beyond the minimum, the paperwork is routine. SigFig needs bank details, which is how money reaches the managed brokerage account, plus the usual identity items: Social Security number, date of birth, home address, phone number. Applicants have to be 18 or older.
Account types on offer:
- Taxable accounts: individual and joint
- IRAs: traditional, Roth, rollover, and SEP
There are no banking or cash management products. If you want a savings account or debit card sitting alongside your investments, this isn't the place to find them.
Stock, Bond, and REIT ETFs Fill the Portfolio
SigFig builds a recommendation around your goals, your time horizon, and your risk tolerance, then fills it with exchange-traded funds across three asset classes: stocks, bonds, and real estate investment trusts. The reason SigFig gives for building with ETFs comes down to price and maneuverability: the funds cost little to hold, and shifting the mix is a matter of trading shares.
Nothing obliges you to accept the mix SigFig proposes. The allocation can be reset to whatever spread of assets you'd rather hold.
Ongoing management includes:
- Portfolio rebalancing
- Tax-loss harvesting
- Dividend reinvestment
As with any invested portfolio, results depend on the assets held and the time frame involved, and returns are never guaranteed. Losses are possible.
Handing Over an Existing Portfolio Means Your Holdings Get Replaced
You can assign only part of your money to SigFig, which is useful if you split savings into buckets for different goals, but whatever you assign gets restructured. SigFig replaces your existing holdings with its own selections, so an established portfolio will look different afterward.
One consideration the mechanics raise: in a taxable account, selling appreciated positions to build a new allocation is a taxable event, which is a different situation from doing the same thing inside an IRA. It's the kind of thing worth raising with an advisor before the switch, and the included advisor access is at least the right place to ask.
If you're starting with nothing invested, none of that applies. SigFig builds from scratch.
The Portfolio Tracker Is Free With or Without Managed Assets
SigFig's tracker is free to use whether or not you hand over any money to manage. You connect outside accounts, including retirement accounts like a 401(k), and see the whole picture in one place, along with analysis tools that flag where you may be overpaying in fees.
That fee analysis is the interesting part. Plenty of people hold funds in an old employer plan without ever checking what those funds cost. A tracker that surfaces the number gives you something concrete to look at, even if you never become a managed client.
There's a mobile app for Android and iOS. It currently holds a 4.2 out of 5 rating on Google Play and 4.5 out of 5 on the Apple Store.
SIPC Coverage Comes From the Partner Brokerages
SigFig itself isn't a SIPC member. It doesn't need to be, because it isn't a broker; it manages portfolios that are held at a brokerage. All of SigFig's partner institutions are SIPC members, so assets in those managed accounts fall under that protection.
What SIPC coverage does and doesn't do matters here. It protects against the failure of the brokerage holding your assets. It does nothing about market declines or economic events, and it doesn't protect gains. Any investment can lose value.
Setting Up an Account, Step by Step
The signup flow is short and front-loads the questionnaire:
- Enter your age and pick a time horizon: short-term (less than five years), intermediate-term (five to 10 years), or long-term (more than 10 years).
- Answer questions on household income, savings rate, the value of your liquid assets, and risk tolerance.
- Review the portfolio SigFig recommends.
- Create a username, password, and email address.
- Verify your identity with your Social Security number, birth date, and home address.
- Provide bank credentials to fund the account, plus partner brokerage credentials if you already hold an account at Fidelity, Schwab, or TD Ameritrade.
Consumer-Tech Backgrounds Behind a Company Founded in 2007
The names on SigFig's leadership team and board come largely out of consumer technology: Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo!, and Google, with financial professionals and university professors filling in the rest. Co-founder and CEO Mike Sha's own résumé runs the same way, including work on the launch of the Amazon Visa credit card and on Amazon Prime, two products built to sign up ordinary customers in volume. That maps onto the mission the company states for itself, which is bringing high-quality investment advice to people at all wealth levels.
The firm has been working on some version of that from San Francisco since 2007, operating earlier under the names Nvest and Wikinvest.
How Betterment and Wealthfront Compare on Minimums and Extras
| Minimum to start | Cash management | Human advice | |
|---|---|---|---|
| SigFig | $2,000 | None | Unlimited, included in fee |
| Betterment | No account minimum | Savings product and debit card | Available, costs extra |
| Wealthfront | $500 | Banking products, portfolio line of credit | Not comparable to SigFig |
Betterment, one of the first robo-advisors to launch, sets no minimum at all, so the size of the opening deposit never decides anything. It also runs a savings product and a debit card next to the investment accounts. Planning and counseling from a person are available there, but they're billed on top of the management fee, and Betterment does less with accounts held elsewhere.
Wealthfront's entry point is $500, and it covers more account types than either of the others, 529 plans and trust accounts included. On the cash side there are banking products, plus a line of credit secured against the portfolio and calculators aimed at particular goals. Where it gives ground is people and outside accounts: no equivalent to SigFig's unlimited advisor access, and less coverage of holdings kept at other firms.
Who the Zero-Fee Tier Suits, and What SigFig Leaves Out
Under the $10,000 mark, the management fee is zero and the advisor access still applies, an unusual pairing at this price. It suits a balance of at least $2,000, a horizon measured in years rather than months, and a preference for hands-off management with a real person available when a question comes up.
The limits follow from the same design. Move an existing portfolio in and SigFig's holdings replace yours, which in a taxable account means selling and owing tax on the gains. Some trades carry fees. Nothing here does the job of a savings account or a debit card, and the $2,000 has to exist before any of it starts.
The tracker is the exception, free either way, and it will price the funds you already hold whether or not you go further.
