Ellevest Review 2024: Pros, Cons and How It Compares

Where Ellevest shines

Ellevest specifically focuses on the needs of women: Gender-based investing at Ellevest means factoring women's generally lower incomes, different lifetime earnings curve and longer lifespans into portfolio construction. (Yes, men can be clients, too: They get recommendations that account for their salary curves and longevity data.)

Ellevest’s financial planning: Ellevest’s a la carte offerings help clients learn about retirement and building wealth — issues that can affect women differently than men.

Where Ellevest falls short

What type of investor should choose Ellevest?

• Goal-based investing.

• Hands-off investors.

• Beginning investors.

• Values-based investing.

• Financial planning sessions.

What the Nerds think 🤓

Ellevest at a glance

Reviewed: Oct. 2024.

Period considered: Aug. - Oct. 2024.

How to sign up for an Ellevest account

You can sign up for Ellevest through the company's website or app. You have to provide your email address before you're able to view a proposed investment strategy.

You'll then answer some questions about your personal information, savings goals, and how often and how much you'll contribute before you open your investment account. During the sign-up process, you'll also be prompted to link your bank account to pay your account fee and fund your account.

How much does Ellevest cost?

Account minimum

While there is no minimum to start investing with Ellevest, some portfolios do have minimums. Those minimums range from $1 to approximately $240.

Account management fee

Ellevest’s robo-advisor service costs $12 a month or $129 a year (which saves you $15).

All clients have access to a customized investment plan that, according to simulations, gives them a 70% likelihood of reaching a goal target. Another feature that increases the likelihood that you'll achieve your goals is auto-deposit, the ability to have a portion of your paycheck deposited directly into your Ellevest account. After all, it's harder to spend it if the money doesn't even make a pit stop in your checking account.

Clients also have access to all of Ellevest’s specific investing goals, including the Build Wealth goal, which offers an individual taxable investment account, the Retirement goal, which allows you to open an IRA and lets you see how your progress toward retirement impacts your ability to build wealth as your primary goal, and the buying a house or starting a business goals.

The plan also provides a dose of reality in terms of trade-offs that may be necessary to achieve multiple goals — for example, how buying a house this year might delay starting a business.

Investment expense ratios

An expense ratio is an annual fee charged by mutual funds, index funds and ETFs as a percentage of your investment in the fund. If you invest in a mutual fund with a 1% expense ratio, you’ll pay the fund $10 per year for every $1,000 invested. If these fees are high, they can significantly drag down your portfolio returns. But Ellevest’s core portfolios have reasonably low expense ratios in comparison with other robo-advisors, ranging from 0.05% to 0.10%. Expense ratios are paid in addition to your Ellevest membership fee.

Account fees

Some robo-advisors offer zero additional fees, but Ellevest is not one of them. Goldman Sachs Custody Solutions, a third-party custodian, charges $100 for full account transfers out of an Ellevest account and $25 for partial transfers.

Ellevest's portfolio selection

Like its peer robo-advisors, each Ellevest portfolio has specific target allocations: more aggressive funds for long-term goals and more conservative ones for the short term. Customers are, however, given some measure of control over how aggressively their money is invested and can toggle their exposure to stocks up or down within reason (between 5% or 10%, depending on the goal).

Ellevest portfolios are composed of a mix of ETFs that cover more than 17 asset classes. For its core portfolios, Ellevest chooses from 17 ETFs. Many of the funds Ellevest uses are from Vanguard, a leader in low-cost ETFs.

Ellevest clients can invest in up to six investment portfolios, including one for retirement.

Ellevest’s Impact Portfolios invest up to around 55% of a portfolio into ESG and impact funds that promote positive social change and the advancement of women on boards and senior leadership teams. Impact Portfolios draw from 23 ETFs and mutual funds.

Other key Ellevest features

Accounts supported

Ellevest offers only individual taxable accounts and IRAs (Roth, traditional and SEP). Ellevest doesn’t offer joint taxable accounts, but it does offer 401(k) and 403(b) rollovers and allocation guidance for external 401(k) plans.

Automatic rebalancing

Automatic rebalancing is regular rebalancing of your portfolio in response to market fluctuations or other factors that shift your portfolio out of its intended investment allocation. The market moves and over time, your allocation will move, too. So if your target was having 60% in stocks and 40% in bonds and stocks are doing well, you could end up having 70% in stocks, which may be more risk than you are comfortable with. With automatic rebalancing, the computer monitors your allocation and will automatically adjust your investments if they get out of line. Ellevest offers this service for no additional fee.

Human advisor option

Ellevest gives all clients and non-clients access to a free 15-minute call with a CFP. Clients can also purchase a variety of sessions (everything from a one-time session on budgeting to unlimited access to a CFP) at a 50% discount. Even if you’re not an Ellevest client, you can purchase sessions at their retail price.

With unlimited access, phone calls are scheduled quarterly, but you get unlimited email access. If you need to, you can request more calls (though other planners may assist you with urgent questions if your advisor isn’t available, and it may incur an extra fee).

Clients also have access to free, digital workshops with Ellevest’s team of financial planners, in-app learning which includes useful videos, articles, guides and email courses, and personalized progress reports with tips to keep their money goals on track.

Customer support options

Ellevest has the standard phone and email support during business days, as well as Instagram direct message and Facebook Messenger support. There is also email support for urgent matters on weekends.

Good to know about Ellevest

Tax strategy

Tax-loss harvesting is an investment strategy that can significantly reduce capital gains taxes. In taxable accounts, the practice involves selling losing investments to offset the gains from winners. In contrast to its larger rivals, Ellevest doesn't offer automated tax-loss harvesting. That could be a turnoff for the wealthiest investors with high balances in taxable accounts. Like most robos, Ellevest aims to put any securities that might generate taxes into tax-deferred retirement accounts and puts investments that tend to have low tax burdens into taxable accounts. And the company’s Tax Impact Alerts warn about potential taxes triggered by portfolio changes.

» Want to check out other providers? Here are our top picks for best robo-advisors.

Savings account/cash management options

Ellevest does not offer any type of banking services. Many robo-advisors offer comprehensive banking services in addition to automated investing.

Is Ellevest safe?

While investing always comes with a degree of risk, assets at Ellevest are covered under the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). This coverage means that in the event that Ellevest were to fail, up to $500,000 in securities and $250,000 in cash would be protected.

Ellevest Wealth Management

Ellevest also has a wealth management option for clients with over $500,000 in assets. The wealth management service offers personalized planning, access to a dedicated team that will coordinate with accountants and estate attorneys and impact investing and offers investment opportunities that help address gender inequality, racial injustice and climate change.

» Want to compare options? Check out our roundup of the best wealth advisors.

Reviewed in: Oct. 2024

Period considered: Aug. - Oct. 2024.

Is Ellevest worth it?

Ellevest is a good choice for beginning investors looking for help reaching their financial goals.

It offers free educational materials on topics ranging from retirement to interview coaching and budgeting, and it also provides access to financial planners for an added fee. Ellevest is also a good fit for values-based investors and people who want to invest their dollars in companies that have policies and practices that advance women.