Titan Review 2024: Pros, Cons and How It Compares
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Our Take
4.2
Reviewed in: Oct. 2024
Period considered: Aug. - Oct. 2024
The bottom line:
Unpaid non-client promotion
Pros & Cons
Pros
Low-cost automated stock and bond portfolios.
Crypto management available.
Actively managed stock and alternative asset portfolios.
High interest rate on uninvested cash.
Cons
Customer service not available by phone.
No intentional tax strategy.
$100 account minimum.
Compare to Other Advisors
Fees 0.25% management fee | Fees 0.25% management fee | Fees 0.25% with a balance over $20K or qualifying recurring deposit. Otherwise, $4/month. |
Account minimum $50 | Account minimum $500 | Account minimum $0 $10 to start |
Promotion 1% match on rollovers and contributions Terms and conditions apply. Roll over a minimum of $20K to receive the 1% match offer. Matches on contributions are made up to the annual limits. | Promotion Get a $50 customer bonus when you fund your first taxable investment account | Promotion Get 1% match of your net Roth and traditional IRA contributions until December 30, 2024. Terms apply. |
Learn more on SoFi Invest's website | Learn more on Wealthfront's website | Learn more on Betterment's website |
AD Paid non-client promotion | AD Paid non-client promotion | AD Paid non-client promotion |
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Full Review
Where Titan shines
Active management strategy: Titan should not be thought of as a typical robo-advisor: While Titan does give investors free access to automated stock and bond portfolios, it also gives investors access to actively managed portfolios and alternative investments. These strategies can involve a high amount of risk, which should be taken into consideration.
Crypto and alternative assets: Titan gives investors access to crypto in their managed portfolios, as well as alternative assets like venture capital, real estate and private credit.
Where Titan falls short
Few additional services: Titan offers stock and alternative investment management — but that’s about it. Other investment management firms include features such as banking services, financial planning tools and socially responsible investment portfolios.
High account minimums: Titan accounts have a $100 minimum, and many portfolios (including some of the free ones) have minimums of $500 or more.
Alternatives to consider:
For additional services: E*TRADE Core Portfolios, Fidelity Go
For low account minimums: BettermentEllevestSoFi Automated Investing
What type of investor should choose Titan?
Alternative asset investors: Not every robo-advisor we review offers access to crypto and other alternative assets. If you're looking for crypto or alt asset choices within a full-service robo-advisor platform, Titan might be the robo-advisor for you.
Active investors: Between its active stock portfolio management offerings, and its pick-your-own-investments option, Titan is a good choice for investors who believe in active stock-picking.
What the Nerds think 🤓
Sam Taube, lead investing writer
"Some of the robo-advisors we review cater to beginner investors. Titan is different — it's built for investors who expect a greater degree of sophistication in their strategy than a mix of index funds. The active stock strategies and crypto, venture capital, real estate and private credit strategies may appeal to those who can stomach a little more risk than a typical robo-advisor portfolio.
"Smart Cash, which optimizes Titan users' yield on uninvested cash by automatically moving funds between money market funds, is also a nice touch. However, Titan is somewhat lacking in other features. Its retirement planning tools are limited, and its socially responsible investing options are nonexistent."
Titan at a glance
Account minimum | $100 for personal trading accounts. $500 for investment strategies. |
Account management fee | Membership cost: 0.2% of assets under management, plus $25 per month or $250 per year. |
Investment expense ratios | Automated stock portfolio: 0.039%. Automated bond portfolio: 0.10% to 0.12%. Most active strategies have fees that range from 0.70% to 0.90% depending on your assets under management. Smart Cash: 0.08% to 0.58%, depending on optimal money market funds based on client tax status. Private credit, venture capital strategy and real estate funds: 1.71% to 6.47%. |
Account fees | Outgoing account transfers are $100. IRA account closures are $100. |
Portfolio mix | Titan's automated stock and bond portfolios utilize equity and bond exchange-traded funds. Clients can opt into as many or as few of the strategies as they'd like, including three actively managed stock portfolios, treasury money-market funds, private credit, real estate, venture capital and crypto. |
Socially responsible portfolio options | None. |
Accounts supported | Taxable accounts. Traditional, Roth and inherited/beneficiary IRAs. Titan can accommodate rollovers for all retirement accounts. |
Tax strategy | All-stock portfolios can naturally isolate individual investments and harvest losses. |
Automatic rebalancing | Automated stock and bond portfolios and the crypto strategy offer quarterly rebalancing. Actively managed stock strategies are rebalanced when the weights deviate widely. Private credit funds and real estate fund offer frequent rebalancing. |
Human advisor option | Unlimited access to licensed advisors, who can provide personalized investment advice. |
Bank account/cash management account option | Titan's Smart Cash automatically moves your money into either mutual funds or cash when there is a better rate. Current gross yield: 4.78%. |
Customer support options (includes how easy it is to find key details on the website) | Titan customer service is available by email and chat Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern on weekends. Titan Virtual Assistant is available 24/7. There is also support via X (formerly Twitter). |
How to sign up for a Titan account
Titan's sign-up process directs you to its mobile app, which collects information from you, such as contact information and a Social Security number, as it walks you through account setup.
In terms of account minimums, the cheapest option available at Titan is the "personal trading" (pick-your-own-investments) account, which has a $100 minimum. However, Titan's investment strategies have a $500 minimum. That means to get started with Titan's advisory services, even with their free portfolios, you have to have at least $500.
How much does Titan cost?
Titan says that its pricing structure is much like the "Costco model" — clients pay a membership fee consisting of 0.2% of assets under management (except those in personal trading accounts or the ARK Venture strategy) plus $25 per month, or $250 per year. After that, in Titan's words, "everything in the store is at cost or as cheap as we can make it."
It's worth noting that for small- to medium-sized balances, these fees aren't necessarily all that cheap. A $50,000 Titan account would cost $350 per year, or 0.7% per year, which is on the higher end among robo-advisors we review.
Titan’s no-additional-cost stock portfolio has an impressively low expense ratio, only 0.039%. The bond portfolio has a higher, but still decent, expense ratio of 0.10% to 0.12%.
Automated Stocks | Automated Bonds | |
|---|---|---|
Investment holdings | Large cap stock ETFs | Bond ETFs |
Investment minimum | $500 | $500 |
Expense ratio | 0.039% | 0.10% to 0.12% |
Titan Flagship, Opportunities, Offshore, and Crypto strategies have fees of 0.70% to 0.90%, depending on assets under management. More about what these offer below.
Flagship | Opportunities | Offshore | |
|---|---|---|---|
Investment minimum | $500 | $500 | $500 |
Portfolio focus | Large cap, U.S.-focused | Small and mid cap, U.S.-focused | International-focused |
Management fee | By account balance: $500 - $24,999: 0.90% $25,000 - $99,999: 0.80% $100,000 or more: 0.70% | By account balance: $500 - $24,999: 0.90% $25,000 - $99,999: 0.80% $100,000 or more: 0.70% | By account balance: $500 - $24,999: 0.90% $25,000 - $99,999: 0.80% $100,000 or more: 0.70% |
The private credit, venture capital strategy and real estate funds’ expense ratios range from 1.71% to 6.47%.
Smart Cash, Titan's cash management offering, uses money market funds with expense ratios that range from 0.08% to 0.58%.
Titan’s fees include a $100 for outgoing ACAT transfers (per account) and a $100 IRA termination fee. Those fees are higher than many other providers we review.
Titan's portfolio selection
Titan’s automated stock portfolio focuses on U.S. large cap equities in the form of exchange-traded funds, or ETFs. The automated bond portfolio invests in several bond ETFs that give clients access to a wide variety of bond types, such as U.S. municipal bonds and investment-grade corporate bonds. Similar to the automated stock portfolio, these are all ETFs you could buy on your own, but Titan takes the work out of doing so for free.
In addition to its automated portfolios, Titan offers several stock- and crypto-based active investment strategies: Flagship (large-cap stocks), Opportunities (small-cap stocks), Offshore (international stocks), Crypto, ARK Venture (venture capital), Apollo Diversified Real Estate and two private credit strategies, Apollo Diversified Credit and Carlyle Tactical Private Credit.
Titan’s private credit and real estate offerings require no accreditation and include quarterly liquidity. Typically, these types of offerings are only available to high net worth clientele.
The robo-advisor's automated stock and bond portfolios, and the crypto strategy, offer quarterly rebalancing. Titan’s actively managed stock strategies, Flagship, Opportunities and Offshore, are rebalanced when the weights deviate widely. The private credit funds and real estate fund are actively managed and are frequently rebalanced.
Titan’s alternative portfolios carry a lot of risk, and that risk doesn’t always pay off. Investing in a smaller number of stocks and crypto can be riskier than investing in a few broad-market index funds or ETFs, which can hold hundreds of different stocks within a single investment.
Titan does not offer a socially responsible portfolio option. If sustainable investing is important to you, you may want to consider other options.
Other key Titan features
Smart Cash
Titan's cash management feature, Smart Cash, automatically moves users' uninvested cash into money market funds that have the highest after-tax yield available given a user's location and tax status. Smart Cash currently offers a 4.78% gross yield. That's on the higher end of cash management yields among robo-advisors we review.
Tax strategy
Titan does not offer a tax strategy per se, but Titan’s all-stock portfolios are essentially direct indexing, minus the index. Direct indexing refers to buying individual stocks to isolate tax harvesting opportunities. Titan's portfolios do this naturally. The robo-advisor is also planning to launch new tax-loss harvesting features soon.
Human advisor access
Titan gives its investors unlimited access to licensed advisors (but not necessarily CFPs) who can provide personalized investment advice. The service also offers investors a window into the decision-making process behind their portfolios with videos and live updates.
These insights help investors understand how global events affect stocks in your portfolio and why Titan may or may not jump on board with new IPOs. You can also message the investor relations team through the app with any questions you may have about the investment decisions the team has made, but the team cannot give you personalized financial advice.
IRA account
Titan offers taxable accounts and traditional, Roth, and inherited/beneficiary IRAs. You can roll over an existing individual account or retirement account into an account with Titan. However, Titan's retirement planning tools are thin; the robo-advisor doesn't offer much beyond a "Retirement Report" automated portfolio analysis tool.
Good to know about Titan
No phone support
Titan customer service is available by email and chat Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern on weekends. Titan Virtual Assistant is available 24/7 and there is also support via Twitter. These aren't bad hours, but we have to ding Titan for not offering a phone number customers can call — something that is offered by many other robo-advisors we review.
Is Titan safe?
All investment comes with a risk of loss, but Titan accounts (including Smart Cash accounts) are all covered by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which protects up to $500,000 per account, up to $250,000 of which can be cash.
Is Titan worth it?
If you're interested in access to an active management strategy, Titan’s strategy may work well for you. If you think you may need financial planning help or socially responsible investing guidance, you may want to think about working with a more well-rounded robo-advisor or a financial advisor. Titan’s portfolios also have a lot of risk. Stocks, cryptocurrencies and other alternative investments carry a lot of risk, and Titan’s ambitious claims are not a guarantee.
