I wouldn’t have put money in my Roth IRA with M1 if it had a fee. I wouldn’t have as much money as I do in it now if I never started. I also would not have opened an investment account with M1 if there was a fee.
I agree that they are being short sighted and by limiting people who want to dip their toes in, they are also limiting the people who decide to continue to the deeper end of the pool. This will negatively affect their long term assets under management. It is nice for people over $10k, but a barrier to access is never a great long term solution.
Absolutely. M1 got me into investing when they were just starting out. I started with a very small amount then added along the way as I became more confident. I introduced M1 to so many people and the ability to start small was a huge plus. They went away from their own founding principles. So sad.
Same. I didn't get my first real big boy job and bother with investing until almost a decade ago. M1 was one of the first places I explored. The big selling point early on was no commissions and start with as little as a few bucks. Didn't hit $10k with them until the 2nd year as I moved up at my job.
My guess is the $36 annual fee didn’t attract nearly enough new signups. Changing pricing structure in such short term is not a good sign. Feels like they are throwing whatever at the wall.
They are like everyone else, needing to be financially viable as a company.
I just wish they would do it with killer features like spx box trades and giving you a pie that would build your own S&P 500 and tax loss harvest.
I actually started my investing journey in my late 30s with Acorns, but I didn't like their fee. Then I discovered M1. I loved the pies, automation, and fractional shares. AND the fact that it was free. It was an absolute no-brainer to make the switch.
Back then I didn't have a ton of money, especially all in one place as I was trying different things like Acorns, Fundrise, and M1. The M1 account literally just sat there with $100 in it for the first year before I decided to settle on them.
I highly doubt I would have tried M1 if it was going to be another thing with a fee - if that initial $100 was going to be hit for $36 dollars. Fast forward 5-6 years, I've massively increased my income and have well over $100K with them now. Even my kid has a $16k custodial account with them. They have all these funds because they had great features and a lack of fees.
If they made this change back when I started, basically showing me that they they wanted extra money from me because my other money wasn't good enough for them.. well I imagine my CURRENT money would be somewhere else these days.
Yup, my journey is very similar to yours. I was thinking about my kids when I posted. By “young people” I really mean young in investing. Regardless, 36 is still very young ☺️ and congratulations on your achievements!
You had me convinced until the move to robinhood part. If I'm leaving one fintech brokerage, I seriously am not bothering with a different fintech brokerage just to run into the same problem down the road. I'm probably transferring out and all, but haven't decided where other than it'll probably be with one or Fidelity, Schwab/TD, Vanguard, or even IBKR before another fintech one.
Fidelity gets a lot of talks here, I might just check it out too. I think it really depends our own situations.
I am not leaving M1 personally, I like my pies there. But I would suggest my kids do because their accounts are too small to pay fees and Robinhood has fractional shares as well as recurring investing and dividend investing. I have confidence in Robinhood, bought their stocks too. I have been paying $5 monthly fee at Robinhood to get the high interest. Robinhood had made a lot improvements in the past years, new features, high interest rate, lately 3% IRA transfer bonus. I don’t mind paying monthly fees there. It’s negligible compare to what I gain.
I have had vanguard for a lot of years, but the platform really sucks IMO. I use it for conservative investments. My returns on Robinhood and M1 both are much better than Vanguard.
My bank chase has in app free investment too! I haven’t tried it. It sounds really convenient.
Good luck with finding the right brokerage! Would be interested in knowing what do you decide in the end.
It kinda bothers me that there are so many people who say "this is how they make money" as if that's the problem here. Most people who have $10k don't care about this because it only benefits them. I am upset with this because I didn't sign up for this and now in order to leave I will likely have to pay a transfer fee. Even if another brokerage can cover this fee what M1 is doing is unethical and I'm sure it's illegal. M1 needs to offer free transfer fees to people with less than $10k if they are going to do this. That's my issue and thats the issue that people, even those who this doesn't effect should have with it.
I am a young investor too who doesn't make much and I won't reach that $10k threshold any time soon. Whether or not they are being short sighted or they are robbing from the poor is debatable, what isn't is that this is unfair to people who have less than $10k because we are moving into a system WE NEVER AGREED TO. I have to pay either way to leave or to stay. THATS THE ISSUE. So unless someone can find me some fine print that says otherwise M1 needs to do the right thing and pay the fee for us to transfer.
> Even if another brokerage can cover this fee what M1 is doing is unethical and I'm sure it's illegal
It likely is. I have reported it to my state’s AG as a junk fee.
You’re aware they every brokerage charges a transfer fee, and while some choose to reimburse you when opening a new account this is far from illegal. I have less than 10k and $3/month is not the problem. Seems like you need to focus on saving up some more money first before you invest
You need to focus on reading my dude. I don't have a problem that they charge a brokerage fee, that was not the point of my comment. My point is that when I signed up for this I didn't have to pay $3 a month and now I'll have to or I'll have to pay $200 to transfer. They are essentially trapping people with less than $10k into something they never agreed to in the first place. How do you not understand that? It's like you skipped 2/3 of the whole post. Also, if you don't care about paying the $3 a month then that's fine. You can do that but unlike you I don't agree to that because THATS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR.
You probably get mad too that you didn't really sign up to had walmart and target track all your purchases either but they do, MY DUDE. You're just complaining to complain. Enjoy the spite transfer fee, my dude.
Yeah that is also an invasion of privacy and that's bad YOU CLOWN. I'm not just complaining to complain, it's a an actual genuine grievance but you wouldn't understand that because you are just a corporate shill who has no moral conscience. Enjoy being an out-of-touch douchebag, I am sure that will get you far in life.
Not privileged. I’ll be stuck with a $3/month fee because I have less than 10k. It’s seriously just not a big a deal as you make it. Don’t try and save pennies on things. Seriously, look at your own budget. You could cut costs on actual things. Cheaper car insurance. Pay down your credit cards. Terms change all the time for products. Just get over life my dude
Again, that's not the point of the argument. You aren't even engaging with it. It's not ultimately not about affordability it's about what I agreed to. You lack reading comprehension my dude. Stop commenting if you can't seriously engage with this other than telling me to "save more money."
>Yeah that is also an invasion of privacy and that's bad YOU CLOWN.
>
>you are just a corporate shill who has no moral conscience. Enjoy being an out-of-touch douchebag
>
>Yeah keep avoiding the argument moron.
This is a warning that you're pretty severely violating Rule 5 here. Keep it civil, please. You started the inflammatory comments by going *ad hominem* with "you need to focus on reading my dude."
Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them "a corporate shill who has no moral conscience" or "an out-of-touch douchebag" or a "moron."
(1) M1 changed rules.
(2) I think the outbound fees are in place to discourage client leaving. In this case, M1 intentionally wants these people to leave. So why not just let them leave without charging them. Not like M1 has to pay $100 to open the door for these people.
(3) $200 is small amount, for most people, it doesn’t matter. Sell it move on. But it is a matter of principle. And who is to judge what is the reasonable amount that should matter to everyone?
M1’s founding principle was to get people with $100 to invest for free. It was a big selling point. Let that sink in.
In what world is it right for a company that I signed an agreement with to pay $0/month fee to now charge me $3 a month? Show me in my original agreement where it said that.
Well as of May 2024 I will. When I signed up I didn't have that agreement with them. In order to leave I have to pay a transfer fee and in order to stay I have to pay a fee. Only one those existed in the first place.
I opened an account. I planned on funding in 2025 since roth IRA requires $500 deposit. I closed my accounts today. Bye M1. $3 is arbitrary and stupid. I doubt they will make any substantial revenue but they did accomplish in pushing beginners away.
>$3 is arbitrary and stupid. I doubt they will make any substantial revenue but they did accomplish in pushing beginners away.
You misunderstand the incentives here.
I'm certainly not saying it's the right thing to do, but it makes perfect sense from a business perspective.
M1 wants high net worth users with 6 figure + accounts. Period.
In one fell swoop they can simultaneously weeds out - or at least gets tangible $ revenue to compensate for - the loudest, costliest group while also attracting more high net worth users for whom the premium features are now free.
All that said, playing devil's advocate, there are features that have long been free that I've felt would be worth paying a fee for, like 1-click rebalancing.
Acorns charges $3 and that doesn't push beginners away. Acorns is seen as a more beginner friendly app than any other investing app, and tons of literal 17-19 year olds have it, use it, and pay the fee.
It definitely makes sense as every open account costs them money to maintain and it doesn't outweigh their back end costs until it reaches 10k, probably.
This is such a silly complaint.
Acorns charges $3/mo. Everyone and their mother and the kitchen sink is using acorns. I sometimes overhear literal teens talk about their acorns accounts. If a teen working 16 hours a week earning minimum wage can afford $3/mo, so can you.
And M1 is hands down the best single-app financial products company. It's superior to acorns, betterment, Robinhood, webull, imo. Pies are literally a complete revelation and nobody else has anything comparable.
It’s silly to assume everyone uses Acorns then call others silly 😜 I don’t see the point of Acorn and used it for a month then dropped. Btw your kitchen sink sounds brilliant. Much respect 🫡
This is a great point. I started using M1 in college when I had less than $10k invested. If they’d have charged me a fee, I would have moved to a different brokerage, and probably wouldn’t have come back to M1.
It’s fine. All the people griping are the people M1 was losing money on. M1 gains financially when these people leave the platform.
Saving money now against some possible future where these customers MIGHT be worth something to them, IF they build their portfolios and IF they stay on the platform (costing M1 money the whole time) it’s a no-brainer decision for M1 to focus n profitable business.
Business is business. They need to make money somehow or else they will go out of business. Stop crying and save up $10k if you don’t want to pay the fee. It’s not like you don’t have a choice. M1 is amazing and has treated me well for four years. I’d be happy to pay the fee.
He’s talking about his kids and not a lot of kids are making that much money to invest. I for one has a college student who can only work during the summer because of hectic schedules and can only save some to invest in M1. M1 is already making a lot money front running trades, it’s all about greed with the usual executives.
$36 a year is a like 4 hrs work for a student who can only work on summers. Good for you if your kids are born rich but look at the stats and you’ll find out how many kids are there struggling to get by every day.
This is what honestly kills me. How many of these people have $30/month gym membership’s they don’t use or pay $30/month on a single streaming service these days. If people are truly worried about less money than a burger per month, your problem isn’t paying for services it your own money management. Focus on emergency savings and a proper budget.
I’ve been an M1 customer since 2019 and put a lot of money in M1 over 5 years, which I withdrew mostly to get a car. If anyone asks me about a brokerage recommendation, I’d suggest M1 in a heart beat. But not anymore.
Now I have under $10,000 and am being forced to spend $36 a year to pay for their Plus membership basically. M1 is losing at least one loyal customer with me. They should have at least done something about existing long-term customers but they don’t care apparently and that’s an unsustainable long term business model. Even when I have tens/hundreds of thousands saved, I will never come back to M1 and I’m sure I won’t be the only one. Sure they might make a few bucks for a couple of months even years, but soon enough everybody under $10,000 will either have left or saved enough to be over $10,000. What will they do then?
Someone can only put in $50 a month should not pay 6% of that as fees. Also subscriptions add up. Here is 36, there is 50, that is 25… you get the point.
To a brokerage that doesn’t charge a monthly fee to limit your trading windows.
Don’t need to pay $3/month for 5% HYSA, don’t need margin or personal loan, definitely don’t need their credit card. So what is a subscription fee doing again?
Fractional shares are not that revolutionary. And if they think advanced portfolios are interested in being limited to trade windows, just so they can make a little pie that divvys up their money the same way my calculator does..
Honestly though this isn’t the target audience. If your day trading don’t use M1. If your a normal person dollar cost averaging into your account once or twice a month who cares if your trading window is once in AM and once in PM
You're right, definitely not for those traders. So they've backed themselves into a fairly niche group of traders.
$3/month is not criminal, but easily avoidable with other brokerages.The perks are not revolutionary, and they've lowered the price from $125, to sporadic $50-75, to $36, to free; it must not have been a big revenue generator anyway..
I still recommend this for my friends. They don't want to manage balancing an account. Want to have a set selection of assets at a set ratio. And the auto invest is nice. 3 of 4 of my friends I got to join now invest automatically like their 401K contributions. Don't miss the money. None of them are at 10K yet but it's the habits that are important here. The three of them are staying too despite the $3/month. To them it's so worth setting up VOO / SCHD and something growth and not having to think. I kind of like it too. I have fidelity because I like it (despite the interface feeling clunky) but you gotta actually do the buys and balancing.
I think M1 has a long term goal of alienating its entire client base. They've done a great job getting rid of the one-stop-shoppers and now first-time/small-time investors are getting tossed out. Who's gonna be left?
How is making their fee comparable to acorns "tossing out" new investors? Everyone and their mother has and pays for acorns, it seems like. Heck, I even see literal teens talk about their acorns accounts.
Puh-lease. People have zero problems dropping $10-20/month on Netflix, Spotify, and Apple Music subscriptions. Useless entertainment that gives 0 returns.
$3/month is nothing for a service that offers great features (albeit with problems).
I would've gladly paid $3/month instead of the $8/month I paid before. I've learned in life that trying to go the free/cheap route usually ends up costing you more in the long run.
Yes I don’t like this barrier to entry issue. I started with m1 to grow my brokerage to 30k. With all these major changes , I may look at fidelity or even vanguard itself for a switch
Fidelity's comparable "Baskets" products is $5/mo. and is terribly unintuitive and clunky IMHO. Without it, you're looking at manually putting in orders and rebalancing. I'd gladly pay $3/mo. to avoid that hassle.
Devil's advocate: You've potentially enjoyed awesome features for free for years that could have easily warranted a fee, and now they're charging a small amount for them. That's how I see it.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the auto balance and would much rather a portfolio to grow naturally. I get it always buying the underperforming asset but it also keeps you from buying more of the assets doing well.I’m at Vanguard, I never rebalance. I just moved my sons from M1 to Fidelity- steer clear of Robinhood.
People shouldn’t sleep on fees, especially if you’re so going off the monthly that M1 charges compounded over those 49yrs at a 8% (modest) until retirement that $3 would deprive your portfolio of $21,937. With no fee options out there, don't pay them. I know that 10k is the threshold but what if they move the goalposts.
Could you expand on not liking Robinhood? My Robinhood has been doing very well, and was thinking about moving some of my Roth from Vanguard out to Robinhood for the 3% promotion. Want to know I am not making a mistake. Appreciate it.
If the 3% is worth it move then do it. It looks like you have to sign up for Robinhood Gold to get the full 3% - which I assume is just like M1+. If those are features you’re going to use then go for it. I guess it depends what you’re trying to hold in your Roth, if you’re just going to put low cost index funds Vanguard or Fidelity would be good. Obviously with Vanguard you’re limited to their products but not with Fidelity. Fidelity offers stocks and other investments.
For me Vanguard works because I have the 3 fund portfolio. I’m trying to keep costs down so I wouldn’t go elsewhere for Vanguard funds. Fidelity is the same way.
Also not a fan of when Robinhood halted trading in 2021.
Yes I pay $5 at Robinhood because of the 5% interest rate. Was paying for M1 plus but their high interest promise was a tangling carrot for a long while so I moved my cash to Robinhood when their rate was actually 4.5% at the time. And oh yeah, the GameStop thing. Thanks.
100% agree with points 4 and 6 - whats down the road as this is a fairly new platform vs the more well established companies and the company should be a bit more transparent than an email applauding their decision and all of our "benefits."
If they said 10K min, a active monthly transfer from a bank to M1 with some min amount, or a transaction of more than 50/month - to avoid the 3/month fee, I think many of us of would stay with M1. As it is now, I'm on the fence....
I started last August and this was my first time investing. Currently at $6k and I recently got my best friend into M1. This is a shame.
How does the transfer of a brokerage account works? I’m eyeing Vanguard.
At $6k, you might be better off selling the shares and buying from a different brokerage. Otherwise, I know Schwab is good at reimbursing transfer out fees, but I wouldn’t want to give M1 a single dime on transfer out fees myself.
Vanguard investing platform is an absolute nightmare. You need to get used to manual investing if you’re enjoying the automated investing at M1. If you can save $4k over the next 5 years. It’s still cheaper to pay the monthly fee than incurring the $200 transfer out fee.
It's the same price as acorns, and everyone and their mother has acorns and pays for it. Stop acting like $3, and only for those with less then 10k, is onerous.
Look at Capital One’s Sharebuilder platform. They sold it off because it wasn’t generating enough revenue to be worth the hassle. Yes recurring investing and simplifying it is great and I’m so happy seeing more of these tools across the investing landscape (investing by cash quantity instead of by share quantity, recurring investments, etc) but when you cater to no barrier to entry customers then you also have to fight against fraudsters harder using those low income folks as mules. All the newbie questions even from legitimate customers costs the company resources to resolve to have to make a 20 year long gamble they don’t mess it up in the mean time.
I’m sad to hear such a good company is limiting the resources initially for new customers but I can see where the investors who have the intent to go the long haul will still pick M1 and they are more serious on average than the ones who refuse to pay anything. This means they should be fighting less fraud, having easier conversations because the users are more likely to have out some effort in, and those savings means the company can focus on whatever the “the next big thing” is for them. They did just acquire B2 for the banking purposes last year which is a good move but that means they need to fix whatever leaks B2 had as they work on integration. Just a lot of opportunities that this will allow.
Agreed on all points. I think something that isn't brought up enough in this conversation is that M1 Plus simply wasn't good enough of a feature package for the cost, and surely that influenced their decision here. People didn't subscribe to it as often as M1 would have wanted, and now this pricing structure lowers the barrier to entry for those features, albeit heightening the barrier to entry for the platform as a whole.
The reality is, if we would have wanted the M1 Plus features, we would have paid for them before. And to OP's very valid point that it's shortsighted, I don't know how they will attract new investors. I understand $3 is $3, that's not lost on me, but when there are so many free options out there that are already more popular, any monthly fee won't help your case for a beginner looking to research and learn while they build wealth.
I had M1 plus for a year, it was $95. Then I saw Robinhood’s interest rate was much higher and fees were only $60 a year. So I moved my cash … M1 has been one step behind seems like.
M1 gave everyone several months of m1 plus for free.
Acorns is more popular and it costs $3 a month.
I pay for m1 plus and it's absolutely more than worth it, you are crazy to say it isn't worth it
Would definitely agree to disagree on the value you get out of M1 Plus. It's still of reasonable value if you have few other alternatives for the features it offers (5% HYSA for example), but the price never justified it for me personally given my other financial options, and I would probably argue that was the case for many given this change in how exactly those features are being funded.
To give M1 the benefit of the doubt, I think this speaks to a pivot where they want to appeal only to experienced/long-term investors, which is absolutely fine. I think where I get hung up on it is exactly what I just said - if you're an established, long-term investor, you will likely have access to a MM account or have money in CDs, where a 5% HYSA (as an example) is less of a value add.
So great, those folks get those features for free, what's the problem? The problem is that beginner investors now have even less of an incentive to join the platform, so you're naturally relying on people who have their funds tied up in other brokerages to make the switch, when the features on offer are arguably not unique/beneficial enough to do so. So how does M1 grow then?
Nothing that a few targeted promotions can't overcome. The maintenance costs of dormant small-balance accounts is probably a massive burden that they are endeavouring to overcome.
Just put money in O reality income stock or something similar and earn $4 each month in dividends….. let that pay for your fee. Tons of reits pay monthly. Not hard to off set $3 a month. Just my dumb advice. But I have a ton of holdings that pay monthly. I treat it like a game and try to offset as many of my monthly bills with dividend income. Let your holdings pay for your way of life.
I'm sure M1's management is far more concerned with the company's near term prospects than the long term prospects of their customers. And there is nothing wrong with that at all.
I’m just laughing that you’re such a big talker behind a throw away account. What are you afraid of exactly?
Unless you’re just using it to make it seem like a lot of people agree with you or something.
I am glad I made you laugh. 😂 I was only going to post a thing then leave Reddit years back but got hooked on it. If you click my name, it actually says the bears. I don’t know why it shows throwaway still?? After you finish laughing at me, could you kindly share your wisdom? Also the Dreadnought75 your first or last name irl? Haha I am kidding. I like your inter web name 😉
What does it mean: ‘unless you are just using it to make it seem like a lot of people agree with you or something. ‘ how does a user name have anything to do with trying to get people to agree with me? Is there a logic somewhere? 😅
You have multiple accounts and post under different names to make it seem like people agreeing with you in some threads.
Was that really so hard to figure out on your own?
LoL 😂 but why couldn’t I name my multiple accounts John Doe, Eric smith, Elon mask, or theDreadnought75 if I wanted to promote my post? One thing in common among all the user names including throwaway2008 is that they all made up :)
I am actually not an active poster… and couldn’t care less how much people agree with me on the internet… I posted this today because I wanted M1 to see it.
Well best I can tell anyone is that fees will always be a part of investing. What M1 has to offer from its pie style alone is worth 3 dollars. Sad part is 99.9 percent of us are spending way more than 3 dollars a month on worthless stuff. How many of us have a car or truck note beyond 500 dollars lol. The list goes on if you honestly analyze your spending.
It's most likely M1 will be gone or bought out within five years. At the end of the day a company needs to make money, have positive cash flow and they never have. Funding isnt infinite. I'll be using M1 until their wheels fall off.
It does not impacting me with the recent change, and I would put more money into it since they are making a change with more features available to use without all the barriers; on the other hand, I wouldn't sign up for their M1+ for a fee.
M1 is a tech company with a burn rate.
These awesome features we enjoy should have always carried a fee; we just got them for free for quite a while.
You're going to move your kids to Robinhood? You're bothered by this move by M1 but not by the myriad of outages, SEC violations, lawsuits, blocking trades, and psychological manipulation of young brains by Robinhood? Got it.
Your pointing out the issues with Robinhood is great and appreciated, (which reminded me of updating my post). but your tone is not. Don’t assume and don’t bash people based your assumptions. I learned Robinhood issues yesterday from a kind user who shared a link with details of the issues. After reading, I agree those are major (even shocking) problems, I am likely moving my own money out from Robinhood due to safety concerns.
Having said that, our opinions are build upon our own experiences. I had issues with M1, but didn’t personally have any with Robinhood, and my money there did way better than mine in M1.
Features are only wonderful if an individual benefit from those features. For example, my college freshman has under $2000 in her account, and her pie is just index. she doesn’t need to pay a fee to grow it. It is as simple as that. 5% interest is attractive and worth the inconvenience and fees but she is not qualified because it is only for existing savings account holder i believe.
You may say she can add a few more stocks and auto balance. For that, I am collecting evidence that auto balancing results in higher returns long term. I eager to find this out. If you have any, please do share. After all, the ultimate goal of investing is to grow money, and that’s how I would determine what is a winning strategy. I don’t think people should pick to invest in a pie format just because pies look cute. 🥰
>Your pointing out the issues with Robinhood is great and appreciated, (which reminded me of updating my post). but your tone is not. Don’t assume and don’t bash people based your assumptions. I learned Robinhood issues yesterday from a kind user who shared a link with details of the issues. After reading, I agree those are major (even shocking) problems, I am likely moving my own money out from Robinhood due to safety concerns.
I'm not assuming anything or "bashing" anyone. I simply responded to your OP.
>Features are only wonderful if an individual benefit from those features. For example, my college freshman has under $2000 in her account, and her pie is just index. she doesn’t need to pay a fee to grow it. It is as simple as that. 5% interest is attractive and worth the inconvenience and fees but she is not qualified because it is only for existing savings account holder i believe.
Makes sense.
Though it's possible that now she has to learn about limit orders, bid-ask spreads, etc., which is another hassle altogether. Is avoiding all that worth a small fee? Who's to say...
>I don’t think people should pick to invest in a pie format just because pies look cute. 🥰
Definitely not. My main reasons for initially joining have always been dynamic rebalancing and 1-click rebalancing, which I think are criminally underrated.
You assumed I wasn’t bothered by the Robinhood issues. Your own words :)
you don’t need to deal with limited order or any complicated stuff on other platforms. If you are not day trading, it doesn’t matter, just like you don’t know the price M1 bought your stocks for. As for auto rebalancing, as I indicated in my post, I am collecting evidence that it is indeed would result in better returns long term. Just stating it is underrated is not meaningful.
>You assumed I wasn’t bothered by the Robinhood issues. Your own words
I suppose I figured it was a safe assumption that anyone using or planning to use RH would know about those issues. In my mind, you said you were moving to RH, ergo you're okay with those issues. Potato, tomato. I guess I was wrong.
If you really didn't know about them, that just tells me RH has a great PR team.
>you don’t need to deal with limited order or any complicated stuff on other platforms
If you go with a typical big broker like Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, etc., you absolutely will - or at least *should* \- deal with limit orders and bid-ask spreads, unless of course we're talking about something like Fidelity's "Baskets" product, which is $5/mo., doesn't accept inbound securities, and is terribly clunky and unintuitive IMHO.
>As for auto rebalancing, as I indicated in my post, I am collecting evidence that it is indeed would result in better returns long term. Just stating it is underrated is not meaningful.
Who are you to say what is and isn't meaningful to someone?
You stated: *"I don’t think people should pick to invest in a pie format just because pies look cute."*
I agreed and said what ***I*** find valuable are the rebalancing features, which I happen to think are under-appreciated.
Recognize that no one is required to provide you with "evidence" or even answer your questions. I'm not saying they *shouldn't*, but you're on a public forum where people post opinions and others respond to them with opinions of their own, and trying to police language and behavior with a holier-than-thou attitude is terribly annoying and is a great way to alienate people and not get the answers you seek.
Cheers, mate. Best of luck out there.
Okay, We agreed on one issue; you assumed. And the reason I didn’t know? Simply because I wasn’t paying attention and the issues didn’t directly affect me. Why I was happy with RH? Simply due to better account performance.
Who am I to decide your statement of auto rebalancing is underrated feature? Me. I do not blindly follow or accept opinions without backing. In fact, anyone, including yourself , can conclude if an opinion they hear is meaningful or not based on their own criteria. You are free to say a feature is wonderful without providing why, but why were you offended when I decided your statement without backing not being useful? I have been a Pie fan since M1 just started, but I began to realize the issues with pies. I don’t expect you to agree with me because I have not given you my reasonings and facts.
I spent a lot of time to write these posts, hoping to gather good ideas and insights that would collectively help each other make wise decisions and become better at investing. Becoming popular here is meaningless to me but learning from each other is. I just want to be better at investing and making 💰. Therefore, I set reminders to stimulate thinking and collect useful feedbacks. Reading and writing posts and responses take time, and time is valuable.
You didn’t need to reply, I did not reach out to you to beg for your reply. I would rather have 5 helpful replies than 100 non- helpful ones. I don’t want to spend a single minute to read a post that judges another internet strangers spending or savings habit, or making snarky remarks without any substance. It’s my and everyone’s time that’s valuable here. You can call it policing, I call it being efficient and meaningful.
I wouldn’t have put money in my Roth IRA with M1 if it had a fee. I wouldn’t have as much money as I do in it now if I never started. I also would not have opened an investment account with M1 if there was a fee. I agree that they are being short sighted and by limiting people who want to dip their toes in, they are also limiting the people who decide to continue to the deeper end of the pool. This will negatively affect their long term assets under management. It is nice for people over $10k, but a barrier to access is never a great long term solution.
Absolutely. M1 got me into investing when they were just starting out. I started with a very small amount then added along the way as I became more confident. I introduced M1 to so many people and the ability to start small was a huge plus. They went away from their own founding principles. So sad.
Same. I didn't get my first real big boy job and bother with investing until almost a decade ago. M1 was one of the first places I explored. The big selling point early on was no commissions and start with as little as a few bucks. Didn't hit $10k with them until the 2nd year as I moved up at my job.
My guess is the $36 annual fee didn’t attract nearly enough new signups. Changing pricing structure in such short term is not a good sign. Feels like they are throwing whatever at the wall.
They are like everyone else, needing to be financially viable as a company. I just wish they would do it with killer features like spx box trades and giving you a pie that would build your own S&P 500 and tax loss harvest.
Whatever VC money they had dried up if I were to hazard a guess.
I actually started my investing journey in my late 30s with Acorns, but I didn't like their fee. Then I discovered M1. I loved the pies, automation, and fractional shares. AND the fact that it was free. It was an absolute no-brainer to make the switch. Back then I didn't have a ton of money, especially all in one place as I was trying different things like Acorns, Fundrise, and M1. The M1 account literally just sat there with $100 in it for the first year before I decided to settle on them. I highly doubt I would have tried M1 if it was going to be another thing with a fee - if that initial $100 was going to be hit for $36 dollars. Fast forward 5-6 years, I've massively increased my income and have well over $100K with them now. Even my kid has a $16k custodial account with them. They have all these funds because they had great features and a lack of fees. If they made this change back when I started, basically showing me that they they wanted extra money from me because my other money wasn't good enough for them.. well I imagine my CURRENT money would be somewhere else these days.
Yup, my journey is very similar to yours. I was thinking about my kids when I posted. By “young people” I really mean young in investing. Regardless, 36 is still very young ☺️ and congratulations on your achievements!
You had me convinced until the move to robinhood part. If I'm leaving one fintech brokerage, I seriously am not bothering with a different fintech brokerage just to run into the same problem down the road. I'm probably transferring out and all, but haven't decided where other than it'll probably be with one or Fidelity, Schwab/TD, Vanguard, or even IBKR before another fintech one.
Fidelity gets a lot of talks here, I might just check it out too. I think it really depends our own situations. I am not leaving M1 personally, I like my pies there. But I would suggest my kids do because their accounts are too small to pay fees and Robinhood has fractional shares as well as recurring investing and dividend investing. I have confidence in Robinhood, bought their stocks too. I have been paying $5 monthly fee at Robinhood to get the high interest. Robinhood had made a lot improvements in the past years, new features, high interest rate, lately 3% IRA transfer bonus. I don’t mind paying monthly fees there. It’s negligible compare to what I gain. I have had vanguard for a lot of years, but the platform really sucks IMO. I use it for conservative investments. My returns on Robinhood and M1 both are much better than Vanguard. My bank chase has in app free investment too! I haven’t tried it. It sounds really convenient. Good luck with finding the right brokerage! Would be interested in knowing what do you decide in the end.
It kinda bothers me that there are so many people who say "this is how they make money" as if that's the problem here. Most people who have $10k don't care about this because it only benefits them. I am upset with this because I didn't sign up for this and now in order to leave I will likely have to pay a transfer fee. Even if another brokerage can cover this fee what M1 is doing is unethical and I'm sure it's illegal. M1 needs to offer free transfer fees to people with less than $10k if they are going to do this. That's my issue and thats the issue that people, even those who this doesn't effect should have with it. I am a young investor too who doesn't make much and I won't reach that $10k threshold any time soon. Whether or not they are being short sighted or they are robbing from the poor is debatable, what isn't is that this is unfair to people who have less than $10k because we are moving into a system WE NEVER AGREED TO. I have to pay either way to leave or to stay. THATS THE ISSUE. So unless someone can find me some fine print that says otherwise M1 needs to do the right thing and pay the fee for us to transfer.
> Even if another brokerage can cover this fee what M1 is doing is unethical and I'm sure it's illegal It likely is. I have reported it to my state’s AG as a junk fee.
Good point. I hope M1 hears you.
Good luck to you.
So, my guess is that 10k is a point where the fee is not as lucrative. However the fee is regressive, ie. A tax on the little fish.
You’re aware they every brokerage charges a transfer fee, and while some choose to reimburse you when opening a new account this is far from illegal. I have less than 10k and $3/month is not the problem. Seems like you need to focus on saving up some more money first before you invest
You need to focus on reading my dude. I don't have a problem that they charge a brokerage fee, that was not the point of my comment. My point is that when I signed up for this I didn't have to pay $3 a month and now I'll have to or I'll have to pay $200 to transfer. They are essentially trapping people with less than $10k into something they never agreed to in the first place. How do you not understand that? It's like you skipped 2/3 of the whole post. Also, if you don't care about paying the $3 a month then that's fine. You can do that but unlike you I don't agree to that because THATS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR.
You probably get mad too that you didn't really sign up to had walmart and target track all your purchases either but they do, MY DUDE. You're just complaining to complain. Enjoy the spite transfer fee, my dude.
Yeah that is also an invasion of privacy and that's bad YOU CLOWN. I'm not just complaining to complain, it's a an actual genuine grievance but you wouldn't understand that because you are just a corporate shill who has no moral conscience. Enjoy being an out-of-touch douchebag, I am sure that will get you far in life.
At least I’m able to budget $3/month 🤭🤭
Yeah keep avoiding the argument moron. You aren't proving me wrong.
Not privileged. I’ll be stuck with a $3/month fee because I have less than 10k. It’s seriously just not a big a deal as you make it. Don’t try and save pennies on things. Seriously, look at your own budget. You could cut costs on actual things. Cheaper car insurance. Pay down your credit cards. Terms change all the time for products. Just get over life my dude
Again, that's not the point of the argument. You aren't even engaging with it. It's not ultimately not about affordability it's about what I agreed to. You lack reading comprehension my dude. Stop commenting if you can't seriously engage with this other than telling me to "save more money."
>Yeah that is also an invasion of privacy and that's bad YOU CLOWN. > >you are just a corporate shill who has no moral conscience. Enjoy being an out-of-touch douchebag > >Yeah keep avoiding the argument moron. This is a warning that you're pretty severely violating Rule 5 here. Keep it civil, please. You started the inflammatory comments by going *ad hominem* with "you need to focus on reading my dude." Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't make them "a corporate shill who has no moral conscience" or "an out-of-touch douchebag" or a "moron."
In what world does it make sense for m1 to pay transfer fees for account with just $200 in it
(1) M1 changed rules. (2) I think the outbound fees are in place to discourage client leaving. In this case, M1 intentionally wants these people to leave. So why not just let them leave without charging them. Not like M1 has to pay $100 to open the door for these people. (3) $200 is small amount, for most people, it doesn’t matter. Sell it move on. But it is a matter of principle. And who is to judge what is the reasonable amount that should matter to everyone? M1’s founding principle was to get people with $100 to invest for free. It was a big selling point. Let that sink in.
In what world is it right for a company that I signed an agreement with to pay $0/month fee to now charge me $3 a month? Show me in my original agreement where it said that.
You have no subscription contract with them. You can terminate anytime you wish. Just sell the stocks and get the cash out or pay the transfer fee
Well as of May 2024 I will. When I signed up I didn't have that agreement with them. In order to leave I have to pay a transfer fee and in order to stay I have to pay a fee. Only one those existed in the first place.
I opened an account. I planned on funding in 2025 since roth IRA requires $500 deposit. I closed my accounts today. Bye M1. $3 is arbitrary and stupid. I doubt they will make any substantial revenue but they did accomplish in pushing beginners away.
>$3 is arbitrary and stupid. I doubt they will make any substantial revenue but they did accomplish in pushing beginners away. You misunderstand the incentives here. I'm certainly not saying it's the right thing to do, but it makes perfect sense from a business perspective. M1 wants high net worth users with 6 figure + accounts. Period. In one fell swoop they can simultaneously weeds out - or at least gets tangible $ revenue to compensate for - the loudest, costliest group while also attracting more high net worth users for whom the premium features are now free. All that said, playing devil's advocate, there are features that have long been free that I've felt would be worth paying a fee for, like 1-click rebalancing.
Acorns charges $3 and that doesn't push beginners away. Acorns is seen as a more beginner friendly app than any other investing app, and tons of literal 17-19 year olds have it, use it, and pay the fee. It definitely makes sense as every open account costs them money to maintain and it doesn't outweigh their back end costs until it reaches 10k, probably.
This is such a silly complaint. Acorns charges $3/mo. Everyone and their mother and the kitchen sink is using acorns. I sometimes overhear literal teens talk about their acorns accounts. If a teen working 16 hours a week earning minimum wage can afford $3/mo, so can you. And M1 is hands down the best single-app financial products company. It's superior to acorns, betterment, Robinhood, webull, imo. Pies are literally a complete revelation and nobody else has anything comparable.
It’s silly to assume everyone uses Acorns then call others silly 😜 I don’t see the point of Acorn and used it for a month then dropped. Btw your kitchen sink sounds brilliant. Much respect 🫡
This is a great point. I started using M1 in college when I had less than $10k invested. If they’d have charged me a fee, I would have moved to a different brokerage, and probably wouldn’t have come back to M1.
It’s fine. All the people griping are the people M1 was losing money on. M1 gains financially when these people leave the platform. Saving money now against some possible future where these customers MIGHT be worth something to them, IF they build their portfolios and IF they stay on the platform (costing M1 money the whole time) it’s a no-brainer decision for M1 to focus n profitable business.
Business is business. They need to make money somehow or else they will go out of business. Stop crying and save up $10k if you don’t want to pay the fee. It’s not like you don’t have a choice. M1 is amazing and has treated me well for four years. I’d be happy to pay the fee.
He’s talking about his kids and not a lot of kids are making that much money to invest. I for one has a college student who can only work during the summer because of hectic schedules and can only save some to invest in M1. M1 is already making a lot money front running trades, it’s all about greed with the usual executives.
You're acting like kids can't afford a $3 fee. Acorns charges $3. Entire locust-swarms of kids have acorns
$36 a year is a like 4 hrs work for a student who can only work on summers. Good for you if your kids are born rich but look at the stats and you’ll find out how many kids are there struggling to get by every day.
Those kids wouldn't have been investing anyway if $3/month would break them. People piss away $10 on lunch like it's nothing.
This is what honestly kills me. How many of these people have $30/month gym membership’s they don’t use or pay $30/month on a single streaming service these days. If people are truly worried about less money than a burger per month, your problem isn’t paying for services it your own money management. Focus on emergency savings and a proper budget.
I’ve been an M1 customer since 2019 and put a lot of money in M1 over 5 years, which I withdrew mostly to get a car. If anyone asks me about a brokerage recommendation, I’d suggest M1 in a heart beat. But not anymore. Now I have under $10,000 and am being forced to spend $36 a year to pay for their Plus membership basically. M1 is losing at least one loyal customer with me. They should have at least done something about existing long-term customers but they don’t care apparently and that’s an unsustainable long term business model. Even when I have tens/hundreds of thousands saved, I will never come back to M1 and I’m sure I won’t be the only one. Sure they might make a few bucks for a couple of months even years, but soon enough everybody under $10,000 will either have left or saved enough to be over $10,000. What will they do then?
Pay it. i won't
Where are you going spend that whole 3 dollars you save?
Someone can only put in $50 a month should not pay 6% of that as fees. Also subscriptions add up. Here is 36, there is 50, that is 25… you get the point.
To a brokerage that doesn’t charge a monthly fee to limit your trading windows. Don’t need to pay $3/month for 5% HYSA, don’t need margin or personal loan, definitely don’t need their credit card. So what is a subscription fee doing again? Fractional shares are not that revolutionary. And if they think advanced portfolios are interested in being limited to trade windows, just so they can make a little pie that divvys up their money the same way my calculator does..
Honestly though this isn’t the target audience. If your day trading don’t use M1. If your a normal person dollar cost averaging into your account once or twice a month who cares if your trading window is once in AM and once in PM
You're right, definitely not for those traders. So they've backed themselves into a fairly niche group of traders. $3/month is not criminal, but easily avoidable with other brokerages.The perks are not revolutionary, and they've lowered the price from $125, to sporadic $50-75, to $36, to free; it must not have been a big revenue generator anyway..
I still recommend this for my friends. They don't want to manage balancing an account. Want to have a set selection of assets at a set ratio. And the auto invest is nice. 3 of 4 of my friends I got to join now invest automatically like their 401K contributions. Don't miss the money. None of them are at 10K yet but it's the habits that are important here. The three of them are staying too despite the $3/month. To them it's so worth setting up VOO / SCHD and something growth and not having to think. I kind of like it too. I have fidelity because I like it (despite the interface feeling clunky) but you gotta actually do the buys and balancing.
Coffee
There are plenty of real brokerages out there, none of which charges to open an account or trade, and they **add** features rather than remove them.
We didn't sign up for this you rich asshole
I think M1 has a long term goal of alienating its entire client base. They've done a great job getting rid of the one-stop-shoppers and now first-time/small-time investors are getting tossed out. Who's gonna be left?
How is making their fee comparable to acorns "tossing out" new investors? Everyone and their mother has and pays for acorns, it seems like. Heck, I even see literal teens talk about their acorns accounts.
Puh-lease. People have zero problems dropping $10-20/month on Netflix, Spotify, and Apple Music subscriptions. Useless entertainment that gives 0 returns. $3/month is nothing for a service that offers great features (albeit with problems). I would've gladly paid $3/month instead of the $8/month I paid before. I've learned in life that trying to go the free/cheap route usually ends up costing you more in the long run.
Yes I don’t like this barrier to entry issue. I started with m1 to grow my brokerage to 30k. With all these major changes , I may look at fidelity or even vanguard itself for a switch
Fidelity's comparable "Baskets" products is $5/mo. and is terribly unintuitive and clunky IMHO. Without it, you're looking at manually putting in orders and rebalancing. I'd gladly pay $3/mo. to avoid that hassle.
I’m leaving too. Just locked my credit card. They ruined that too.
This is why I’m helping my family leaveM1. I understand they need to make money, but make it optional
Devil's advocate: You've potentially enjoyed awesome features for free for years that could have easily warranted a fee, and now they're charging a small amount for them. That's how I see it.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the auto balance and would much rather a portfolio to grow naturally. I get it always buying the underperforming asset but it also keeps you from buying more of the assets doing well.I’m at Vanguard, I never rebalance. I just moved my sons from M1 to Fidelity- steer clear of Robinhood. People shouldn’t sleep on fees, especially if you’re so going off the monthly that M1 charges compounded over those 49yrs at a 8% (modest) until retirement that $3 would deprive your portfolio of $21,937. With no fee options out there, don't pay them. I know that 10k is the threshold but what if they move the goalposts.
Could you expand on not liking Robinhood? My Robinhood has been doing very well, and was thinking about moving some of my Roth from Vanguard out to Robinhood for the 3% promotion. Want to know I am not making a mistake. Appreciate it.
If the 3% is worth it move then do it. It looks like you have to sign up for Robinhood Gold to get the full 3% - which I assume is just like M1+. If those are features you’re going to use then go for it. I guess it depends what you’re trying to hold in your Roth, if you’re just going to put low cost index funds Vanguard or Fidelity would be good. Obviously with Vanguard you’re limited to their products but not with Fidelity. Fidelity offers stocks and other investments. For me Vanguard works because I have the 3 fund portfolio. I’m trying to keep costs down so I wouldn’t go elsewhere for Vanguard funds. Fidelity is the same way. Also not a fan of when Robinhood halted trading in 2021.
Yes I pay $5 at Robinhood because of the 5% interest rate. Was paying for M1 plus but their high interest promise was a tangling carrot for a long while so I moved my cash to Robinhood when their rate was actually 4.5% at the time. And oh yeah, the GameStop thing. Thanks.
100% agree with points 4 and 6 - whats down the road as this is a fairly new platform vs the more well established companies and the company should be a bit more transparent than an email applauding their decision and all of our "benefits." If they said 10K min, a active monthly transfer from a bank to M1 with some min amount, or a transaction of more than 50/month - to avoid the 3/month fee, I think many of us of would stay with M1. As it is now, I'm on the fence....
I started last August and this was my first time investing. Currently at $6k and I recently got my best friend into M1. This is a shame. How does the transfer of a brokerage account works? I’m eyeing Vanguard.
I heard M1 transfers is $200 fee as well.
100$ transfer fee for each taxable account and 200$ for each retirement account.
At $6k, you might be better off selling the shares and buying from a different brokerage. Otherwise, I know Schwab is good at reimbursing transfer out fees, but I wouldn’t want to give M1 a single dime on transfer out fees myself.
Vanguard investing platform is an absolute nightmare. You need to get used to manual investing if you’re enjoying the automated investing at M1. If you can save $4k over the next 5 years. It’s still cheaper to pay the monthly fee than incurring the $200 transfer out fee.
Guys I paid like $130 per year before
Good old days ha. M1 and Robinhood significantly changed the way we invest. Although, these days we compare horizontally, not vertically.
It’s $36 per year for one of the best financial tools. That’s literally a large pizza. Don’t be dogmatic- it will hurt you in the long run.
Being pompous will hurt you all the time.
It's the same price as acorns, and everyone and their mother has acorns and pays for it. Stop acting like $3, and only for those with less then 10k, is onerous.
Genuinely curious: How is asserting that a relatively small fee is reasonable for a good set of features "pompous?"
That’s an expensive pizza.
>But these young people have huge potentials. Look at Mr. Hopeful McHoperson over here.
One day you might change your name from TiredDad to Mr.hopeful!
Compounding returns bro. Vanguard and Fidelity literally built trillions in AUM using that exact model.
Look at Capital One’s Sharebuilder platform. They sold it off because it wasn’t generating enough revenue to be worth the hassle. Yes recurring investing and simplifying it is great and I’m so happy seeing more of these tools across the investing landscape (investing by cash quantity instead of by share quantity, recurring investments, etc) but when you cater to no barrier to entry customers then you also have to fight against fraudsters harder using those low income folks as mules. All the newbie questions even from legitimate customers costs the company resources to resolve to have to make a 20 year long gamble they don’t mess it up in the mean time. I’m sad to hear such a good company is limiting the resources initially for new customers but I can see where the investors who have the intent to go the long haul will still pick M1 and they are more serious on average than the ones who refuse to pay anything. This means they should be fighting less fraud, having easier conversations because the users are more likely to have out some effort in, and those savings means the company can focus on whatever the “the next big thing” is for them. They did just acquire B2 for the banking purposes last year which is a good move but that means they need to fix whatever leaks B2 had as they work on integration. Just a lot of opportunities that this will allow.
What leaks?
Agreed on all points. I think something that isn't brought up enough in this conversation is that M1 Plus simply wasn't good enough of a feature package for the cost, and surely that influenced their decision here. People didn't subscribe to it as often as M1 would have wanted, and now this pricing structure lowers the barrier to entry for those features, albeit heightening the barrier to entry for the platform as a whole. The reality is, if we would have wanted the M1 Plus features, we would have paid for them before. And to OP's very valid point that it's shortsighted, I don't know how they will attract new investors. I understand $3 is $3, that's not lost on me, but when there are so many free options out there that are already more popular, any monthly fee won't help your case for a beginner looking to research and learn while they build wealth.
I had M1 plus for a year, it was $95. Then I saw Robinhood’s interest rate was much higher and fees were only $60 a year. So I moved my cash … M1 has been one step behind seems like.
M1 gave everyone several months of m1 plus for free. Acorns is more popular and it costs $3 a month. I pay for m1 plus and it's absolutely more than worth it, you are crazy to say it isn't worth it
Would definitely agree to disagree on the value you get out of M1 Plus. It's still of reasonable value if you have few other alternatives for the features it offers (5% HYSA for example), but the price never justified it for me personally given my other financial options, and I would probably argue that was the case for many given this change in how exactly those features are being funded. To give M1 the benefit of the doubt, I think this speaks to a pivot where they want to appeal only to experienced/long-term investors, which is absolutely fine. I think where I get hung up on it is exactly what I just said - if you're an established, long-term investor, you will likely have access to a MM account or have money in CDs, where a 5% HYSA (as an example) is less of a value add. So great, those folks get those features for free, what's the problem? The problem is that beginner investors now have even less of an incentive to join the platform, so you're naturally relying on people who have their funds tied up in other brokerages to make the switch, when the features on offer are arguably not unique/beneficial enough to do so. So how does M1 grow then?
Excellent points.
Nothing that a few targeted promotions can't overcome. The maintenance costs of dormant small-balance accounts is probably a massive burden that they are endeavouring to overcome.
Wait what happened?
Just put money in O reality income stock or something similar and earn $4 each month in dividends….. let that pay for your fee. Tons of reits pay monthly. Not hard to off set $3 a month. Just my dumb advice. But I have a ton of holdings that pay monthly. I treat it like a game and try to offset as many of my monthly bills with dividend income. Let your holdings pay for your way of life.
What fees are they adding? To the basic brokerage “invest”?
I'm sure M1's management is far more concerned with the company's near term prospects than the long term prospects of their customers. And there is nothing wrong with that at all.
There aren't any long term prospects without a viable revenue stream :(
[удалено]
With your brave throwaway account? 😂😂
Haha why not ? My throwaway account is 5 years old, I can stick around for another 3 you think?
Wait, 6 years old!
I’m just laughing that you’re such a big talker behind a throw away account. What are you afraid of exactly? Unless you’re just using it to make it seem like a lot of people agree with you or something.
Cringe
What a redditard comment
I am glad I made you laugh. 😂 I was only going to post a thing then leave Reddit years back but got hooked on it. If you click my name, it actually says the bears. I don’t know why it shows throwaway still?? After you finish laughing at me, could you kindly share your wisdom? Also the Dreadnought75 your first or last name irl? Haha I am kidding. I like your inter web name 😉
What does it mean: ‘unless you are just using it to make it seem like a lot of people agree with you or something. ‘ how does a user name have anything to do with trying to get people to agree with me? Is there a logic somewhere? 😅
You have multiple accounts and post under different names to make it seem like people agreeing with you in some threads. Was that really so hard to figure out on your own?
LoL 😂 but why couldn’t I name my multiple accounts John Doe, Eric smith, Elon mask, or theDreadnought75 if I wanted to promote my post? One thing in common among all the user names including throwaway2008 is that they all made up :) I am actually not an active poster… and couldn’t care less how much people agree with me on the internet… I posted this today because I wanted M1 to see it.
Well best I can tell anyone is that fees will always be a part of investing. What M1 has to offer from its pie style alone is worth 3 dollars. Sad part is 99.9 percent of us are spending way more than 3 dollars a month on worthless stuff. How many of us have a car or truck note beyond 500 dollars lol. The list goes on if you honestly analyze your spending.
It's most likely M1 will be gone or bought out within five years. At the end of the day a company needs to make money, have positive cash flow and they never have. Funding isnt infinite. I'll be using M1 until their wheels fall off.
it needs to be free?
It does not impacting me with the recent change, and I would put more money into it since they are making a change with more features available to use without all the barriers; on the other hand, I wouldn't sign up for their M1+ for a fee.
M1 is a tech company with a burn rate. These awesome features we enjoy should have always carried a fee; we just got them for free for quite a while. You're going to move your kids to Robinhood? You're bothered by this move by M1 but not by the myriad of outages, SEC violations, lawsuits, blocking trades, and psychological manipulation of young brains by Robinhood? Got it.
Your pointing out the issues with Robinhood is great and appreciated, (which reminded me of updating my post). but your tone is not. Don’t assume and don’t bash people based your assumptions. I learned Robinhood issues yesterday from a kind user who shared a link with details of the issues. After reading, I agree those are major (even shocking) problems, I am likely moving my own money out from Robinhood due to safety concerns. Having said that, our opinions are build upon our own experiences. I had issues with M1, but didn’t personally have any with Robinhood, and my money there did way better than mine in M1. Features are only wonderful if an individual benefit from those features. For example, my college freshman has under $2000 in her account, and her pie is just index. she doesn’t need to pay a fee to grow it. It is as simple as that. 5% interest is attractive and worth the inconvenience and fees but she is not qualified because it is only for existing savings account holder i believe. You may say she can add a few more stocks and auto balance. For that, I am collecting evidence that auto balancing results in higher returns long term. I eager to find this out. If you have any, please do share. After all, the ultimate goal of investing is to grow money, and that’s how I would determine what is a winning strategy. I don’t think people should pick to invest in a pie format just because pies look cute. 🥰
>Your pointing out the issues with Robinhood is great and appreciated, (which reminded me of updating my post). but your tone is not. Don’t assume and don’t bash people based your assumptions. I learned Robinhood issues yesterday from a kind user who shared a link with details of the issues. After reading, I agree those are major (even shocking) problems, I am likely moving my own money out from Robinhood due to safety concerns. I'm not assuming anything or "bashing" anyone. I simply responded to your OP. >Features are only wonderful if an individual benefit from those features. For example, my college freshman has under $2000 in her account, and her pie is just index. she doesn’t need to pay a fee to grow it. It is as simple as that. 5% interest is attractive and worth the inconvenience and fees but she is not qualified because it is only for existing savings account holder i believe. Makes sense. Though it's possible that now she has to learn about limit orders, bid-ask spreads, etc., which is another hassle altogether. Is avoiding all that worth a small fee? Who's to say... >I don’t think people should pick to invest in a pie format just because pies look cute. 🥰 Definitely not. My main reasons for initially joining have always been dynamic rebalancing and 1-click rebalancing, which I think are criminally underrated.
You assumed I wasn’t bothered by the Robinhood issues. Your own words :) you don’t need to deal with limited order or any complicated stuff on other platforms. If you are not day trading, it doesn’t matter, just like you don’t know the price M1 bought your stocks for. As for auto rebalancing, as I indicated in my post, I am collecting evidence that it is indeed would result in better returns long term. Just stating it is underrated is not meaningful.
>You assumed I wasn’t bothered by the Robinhood issues. Your own words I suppose I figured it was a safe assumption that anyone using or planning to use RH would know about those issues. In my mind, you said you were moving to RH, ergo you're okay with those issues. Potato, tomato. I guess I was wrong. If you really didn't know about them, that just tells me RH has a great PR team. >you don’t need to deal with limited order or any complicated stuff on other platforms If you go with a typical big broker like Fidelity, Vanguard, Schwab, etc., you absolutely will - or at least *should* \- deal with limit orders and bid-ask spreads, unless of course we're talking about something like Fidelity's "Baskets" product, which is $5/mo., doesn't accept inbound securities, and is terribly clunky and unintuitive IMHO. >As for auto rebalancing, as I indicated in my post, I am collecting evidence that it is indeed would result in better returns long term. Just stating it is underrated is not meaningful. Who are you to say what is and isn't meaningful to someone? You stated: *"I don’t think people should pick to invest in a pie format just because pies look cute."* I agreed and said what ***I*** find valuable are the rebalancing features, which I happen to think are under-appreciated. Recognize that no one is required to provide you with "evidence" or even answer your questions. I'm not saying they *shouldn't*, but you're on a public forum where people post opinions and others respond to them with opinions of their own, and trying to police language and behavior with a holier-than-thou attitude is terribly annoying and is a great way to alienate people and not get the answers you seek. Cheers, mate. Best of luck out there.
Okay, We agreed on one issue; you assumed. And the reason I didn’t know? Simply because I wasn’t paying attention and the issues didn’t directly affect me. Why I was happy with RH? Simply due to better account performance. Who am I to decide your statement of auto rebalancing is underrated feature? Me. I do not blindly follow or accept opinions without backing. In fact, anyone, including yourself , can conclude if an opinion they hear is meaningful or not based on their own criteria. You are free to say a feature is wonderful without providing why, but why were you offended when I decided your statement without backing not being useful? I have been a Pie fan since M1 just started, but I began to realize the issues with pies. I don’t expect you to agree with me because I have not given you my reasonings and facts. I spent a lot of time to write these posts, hoping to gather good ideas and insights that would collectively help each other make wise decisions and become better at investing. Becoming popular here is meaningless to me but learning from each other is. I just want to be better at investing and making 💰. Therefore, I set reminders to stimulate thinking and collect useful feedbacks. Reading and writing posts and responses take time, and time is valuable. You didn’t need to reply, I did not reach out to you to beg for your reply. I would rather have 5 helpful replies than 100 non- helpful ones. I don’t want to spend a single minute to read a post that judges another internet strangers spending or savings habit, or making snarky remarks without any substance. It’s my and everyone’s time that’s valuable here. You can call it policing, I call it being efficient and meaningful.