Fractional shares are what let a single dollar buy anything at all on Stash: a dollar gets a sliver of a stock priced at $1,000 or more, and there's no investing minimum to clear first.
Wealthfront's automated investing account doesn't open until $500 is in it. Fees, tax features, and account types diverge from there.
Stash Lets You Pick, Wealthfront Picks for You
Stash is an investing app where you can buy individual stocks and ETFs yourself. It also offers a Smart Portfolio, a diversified portfolio Stash manages on a discretionary basis, with rebalancing and dividend reinvestment handled for you. So you can be hands-on, hands-off, or both.
Wealthfront is a robo-advisor. Rather than talking to a human planner, you answer questions about your goals and risk tolerance, and the platform's technology builds and maintains a portfolio of ETFs.
There's still room to steer: you can customize a recommended portfolio, build one from scratch, transfer in a portfolio from another brokerage, or add categories such as socially responsible investing, technology ETFs, or healthcare ETFs.
Wealthfront has also added cryptocurrency funds. What you can't do is call a dedicated advisor for personal financial advice.
One wrinkle worth knowing: Wealthfront is mainly an ETF platform, but its U.S. Direct Indexing feature does allow ownership of individual stocks. Stash is the one built around picking names one at a time, with thousands available.
$12 a Month vs. 0.25% of Assets
Stash charges $12 per month. Wealthfront charges a 0.25% annual advisory fee. One is a flat subscription; the other takes a slice of whatever the account holds.
A flat subscription costs the same dollar amount no matter how much is in the account. Two Stash users, one holding a few hundred dollars and one holding several thousand, pay the identical $12 each month, so the fee eats a bigger share of the smaller balance. A percentage fee moves with the account: small in dollar terms early on, larger as the balance grows.
For context, human financial advisors commonly charge around a 1% annual advisory fee, which is the comparison that makes 0.25% look small. On either platform, the ETFs inside a portfolio carry their own fund expenses on top of the platform's fee.
Stash and Wealthfront, Side by Side
| Stash | Wealthfront | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | $12 per month | 0.25% a year on the balance |
| Money needed to open | $1 | $500 |
| Who chooses the holdings | You do, or Stash does inside a Smart Portfolio | The robo-advisor, from your questionnaire answers |
| What's available to buy | More than 3,000 stocks and ETFs, the funds reaching bonds, commodities, global markets and other categories | ETFs holding U.S., foreign and emerging market stocks, dividend payers, real estate, natural resources, TIPS, and municipal, corporate, government and emerging market bonds, plus cryptocurrency |
| Tax-loss harvesting | Not offered | Automatic, with stock-level harvesting at $100k plus |
| Cost of moving the account elsewhere | $75 outgoing automated customer account transfer fee | No fees to withdraw funds |
Tax-Loss Harvesting Shows Up Only on Wealthfront
Wealthfront runs automatic tax-loss harvesting, and at balances of $100k plus it adds stock-level tax-loss harvesting. Stash lists no tax-saving benefits.
How much that matters depends on the account. Tax-loss harvesting works inside taxable accounts, where realized gains and losses hit a tax return.
Inside an IRA, it isn't doing anything, because the account already has its own tax treatment. An investor whose money is going entirely into a Roth IRA is weighing a feature that won't apply to those dollars.
Wealthfront's Higher-Balance Features Start at $100K and $500K
Beyond tax-loss harvesting, Wealthfront layers in strategies as balances grow: risk parity at $100k plus and smart beta at $500k plus.
Everyone gets automatic rebalancing and financial planning tools. Stash also rebalances Smart Portfolios automatically, but it doesn't have a tiered set of strategies that unlock at higher balances.
Account Types: 529S and SEP IRAs vs. Custodial Accounts
Wealthfront has the longer list. It offers traditional, Roth, and SEP IRAs, 401(k) rollovers, a 529 college savings account, individual or joint accounts, trust accounts, and a cash account.
Stash offers individual accounts, traditional and Roth IRAs, a custodial account, and a banking account. The custodial option is the notable one Wealthfront's list doesn't include; the 529, SEP IRA, and trust accounts are the notable gaps in Stash's.
Both Offer a Cash Account With Early Direct Deposit
Each platform pairs investing with somewhere to keep cash, and both can make direct-deposited paychecks available up to two days early. When that happens depends on when the payor sends the payment file.
Stash's banking account, provided by Stride Bank, N.A., Member FDIC, comes with no overdraft or minimum balance fees, plus budgeting and savings tools. Eligibility is tied to also having opened a taxable brokerage account on Stash.
Wealthfront's cash account pays interest, at a rate the company describes as above the national average, and comes with a debit card and fewer of the standard fees big banks charge.
It also has an automatic sweep: link an external checking account or the Wealthfront Cash Account, set a maximum balance you want to keep there, and anything above that threshold moves into the Wealthfront account you choose.
One line applies to both: investment products aren't the same as bank deposits. Stash's investment products and services are provided by Stash Investments LLC, not Stride Bank, and are not FDIC insured, not bank guaranteed, and may lose value.
Stash's Stock-Back Card Turns Spending Into Shares
The Stash Stock-Back Debit Mastercard, issued by Stride Bank, gives stock rewards on qualifying purchases: shares of the company you shopped at when it's publicly traded and available on Stash, or an ETF or other investment you choose from Stash's list when it isn't. Rewards land in your Stash Invest account and, like any investment, may lose value.
Several transaction types don't earn: cash withdrawals, money orders, prepaid cards, and P2P payments. The earning rate is also relatively low next to what the strongest cash back credit cards pay, so it works more as a nudge toward investing than as a rewards strategy.
Stash pairs it with Round-Ups, which rounds up Stock-Back Card purchases and invests the spare change, drawn from your Stash Banking account.
Both companies also advertise new-account promotions: Stash offers $25 to make a first investment with a $5 minimum deposit, and Wealthfront offers a $50 bonus for funding a first taxable investment account. Promotions come with their own terms and can change.
$75 to Transfer an Account Out of Stash
Moving an account to another brokerage costs $75 on Stash, its outgoing automated customer account transfer fee. Wealthfront charges no fees to withdraw funds. The $75 is charged on a transfer out to another firm.
Low Minimums, ETFs, and Early Paychecks on Both Sides
Both platforms keep the entry price low, Stash with no investing minimum and Wealthfront at $500. Both build portfolios out of ETFs, which bundle many holdings into a single investment and are a common building block for diversification.
And on both sides, early paycheck access runs through the cash and banking accounts, subject to when the payment file arrives.
Paying $12 a Month to Choose, or 0.25% to Delegate
Stash is aimed at someone who wants to choose specific holdings, is starting with less than $500, or likes a debit card that drips stock rewards and round-ups into a brokerage account. It assumes that person is fine paying a fixed $12 a month at any balance.
Wealthfront is aimed at someone who would rather answer a questionnaire once, hand over allocation and rebalancing, and get tax-loss harvesting and a wider set of account types, including a 529 and SEP IRA, for 0.25% a year.
Neither company promises any level of performance, and neither can. Investments may lose value whoever is choosing them, and diversification and asset allocation don't guarantee a profit or remove the risk of losing principal.
The fees, features, and promotions described here are the ones in place now; whatever the current disclosures say is the version that governs.
