How does Betterment work?

Betterment helps you manage your money through cash management, guided investing, and retirement planning. We are a fiduciary, which means we act in your best interest. We'll ask a bit about you when you sign up. We'll also gather information when you connect your outside accounts. Then, we'll help you set financial goals and set you up with investment portfolios for each goal. For your long-term financial needs (like retirement, next year's vacation, or a down payment), our investment strategy utilizes low-cost ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and an adjustable risk profile based on your goal type and how long you plan to invest. For your daily saving and spending, you can use our cash management products that include Checking (which is offered by nbkc bank, Member FDIC) and Cash Reserve, a high-yield cash account.

Will I have access to real humans?

Customer support team members are available five days per week to answer questions about your account. If you want in-depth financial advice, you can talk to a licensed advisor by phone for an additional cost. Our Premium plan provides you with unlimited access and costs an additional 0.40% on your invested balances (with a minimum account balance requirement of $100,000).

Is my money safe at Betterment?

Betterment Securities is a Member of SIPC, which protects securities of its members up to $500K (including $250K for claims for cash). Explanatory brochure available upon request or at www.sipc.org. What you should remember is that the SIPC does not protect against market changes in your investing account. Individual Cash Reserve accounts have FDIC insurance up to $2 million and joint Cash Reserve accounts offer up to $4 million in FDIC insurance once funds are deposited into our program banks†. Funds deposited into Checking are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 for individual accounts and up to $250,000 per depositor for joint accounts, provided by nbkc bank, Member FDIC. Explore further details about FDIC insurance.

Who are the experts behind the scenes?

Our team of investing experts make decisions about our portfolio strategies and fund selection with the help of an external committee of economists, PhDs, and industry experts. More than just a portfolio management team, our experts work to develop improvements to our Tax Smart technology, our cash analysis tools, and other advanced strategies.

Earn 1% match on your IRA

We make it easy to build wealth with automated investing, earn more on your cash with variable 4.50% APY*, and give your retirement a boost with an IRA match.

We’ll match 1% of your net Roth and traditional IRA contributions until December 30, 2024. Conditions apply. See offer terms.

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Best Overall
Robo Advisor 2024
★★★★★
4.7 rating
65,900 reviews^§

The following entities provided the above to Betterment LLC: (1) Buy Side - on 1.12.2024 for 2024; (2) Nerdwallet - on 1.02.2024 for Aug - Oct 2023. The Betterment App store rating is as of 9.12.24 (based on reviews since 9.10.2010). No compensation was provided for this recognition. See full disclosures for award details.

Take the stress out of investing with automation.

Get a diversified, expert-built portfolio to help you invest like a pro. We manage your money for you—helping minimize taxes and maximize returns—while you focus on living your life.

Curated portfolios, including sustainability, tech, and crypto
Automated rebalancing and dividend reinvestment
Tax-efficient tools to help boost your after-tax returns
Recurring deposits can help keep your money on track

A general investing user interface card showing the investing mount, Betterment Core portfolio strategy, and auto adjust on, with a robot arm assembling an allocation chart behind the card.

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Tax savings can pay your fee.

69% of customers using our tax-loss harvesting features have their taxable advisory fee covered by likely tax savings.

Tax Loss Harvesting+ (TLH+) is not suitable for all investors. Consider your personal circumstances before deciding whether to utilize Betterment’s TLH+ feature. Fee coverage and estimated tax savings based on Betterment internal calculations. See more in disclosures.
Recurring deposits can help you earn even more.

Customers with automated deposits earned 6% higher annual returns than those that did not.

Based on Betterment's internal calculations for the Core portfolio. Users in the "auto-deposit on" groups earned an additional 1% annualized over 5 years and 6% over the last year. See more in disclosures.

Put more power behind your savings with 4.50% variable APY.*

Don’t let traditional savings accounts keep your money from growing. Our high-yield cash account earns interest at nearly 10x the national average.**

No fees or minimum balance, just $10 to get started
Up to $2M FDIC insurance with our program banks †
Unlimited withdrawals
Transfer cash to investing accounts seamlessly

For Cash Reserve (“CR”), Betterment LLC only receives compensation from our program banks; Betterment LLC and Betterment Securities do not charge fees on your CR balance.

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Make saving for retirement easy with an IRA.

Feel confident saving for retirement with one of our IRAs. Get tax benefits along with our automated technology and full suite of planning tools.

Traditional, Roth, and SEP IRAs
Rollovers could save you on high fees and hassle
Planning tools to help you save for retirement

Give your retirement a boost

Fund your future with our dollars! We’ll match 1% of your net Roth and traditional IRA contributions until December 30, 2024.

Click here to learn how to claim your offer.

Conditions apply. See offer terms.

A photo of an IRA account displaying 80K in holdings

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"It's a good "set-it-and-forget-it" investing tool for my family."

Casey M.
"Saves the stress and hassle of handling retirement savings myself."

David S.
"I like the different types of accounts offered, the high APY, and how easy it is to check my accounts on mobile."

Karen G.
"Set-it-and-forget-it investing. Low fees. Easy to see my financial status at a glance."

Andrew C.
"The climate change portfolio is great. I like being able to plan for retirement while knowing my savings are not supporting Big Oil!"

Julie O.
"It's easy to select stock and bond allocation for your risk type."

Michael M.

INVEST
Automated investing

Build wealth with diversified, expert-built portfolios.
SAVE
High-yield cash

Earn more interest on your savings with 4.50% variable APY.*
RETIRE
IRAs

Grow your retirement savings with a tax-advantaged IRA.

Want to know how you can make the most of your money? Take our quiz.

Still have questions?

Betterment helps you manage your money through cash management, guided investing, and retirement planning. We are a fiduciary, which means we act in your best interest.

We'll ask a bit about you when you sign up. We'll also gather information when you connect your outside accounts. Then, we'll help you set financial goals and set you up with investment portfolios for each goal.

For your long-term financial needs (like retirement, next year's vacation, or a down payment), our investment strategy utilizes low-cost ETFs (exchange-traded funds) and an adjustable risk profile based on your goal type and how long you plan to invest.

For your daily saving and spending, you can use our cash management products that include Checking (which is offered by nbkc bank, Member FDIC) and Cash Reserve, a high-yield cash account.
Customer support team members are available five days per week to answer questions about your account.

If you want in-depth financial advice, you can talk to a licensed advisor by phone for an additional cost. Our Premium plan provides you with unlimited access and costs an additional 0.40% on your invested balances (with a minimum account balance requirement of $100,000).
Betterment Securities is a Member of SIPC, which protects securities of its members up to $500K (including $250K for claims for cash). Explanatory brochure available upon request or at www.sipc.org. What you should remember is that the SIPC does not protect against market changes in your investing account.

Individual Cash Reserve accounts have FDIC insurance up to $2 million and joint Cash Reserve accounts offer up to $4 million in FDIC insurance once funds are deposited into our program banks^†.

Funds deposited into Checking are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 for individual accounts and up to $250,000 per depositor for joint accounts, provided by nbkc bank, Member FDIC. Explore further details about FDIC insurance.

Earn 1% match on your IRA

Take the stress out of investing with automation.

How we help you get more from your money.

Put more power behind your savings with 4.50% variable APY.*

Make saving for retirement easy with an IRA.

900,000+

$50+ Billion

14+ years

Here's what our customers have to say about us

Ready to get started? Check out our most popular accounts.

Automated investing

High-yield cash

IRAs

Want to know how you can make the most of your money? Take our quiz.

Still have questions?

Make your money hustle.

Want to know how you can make the most of your money? Take our quiz.