Acorns Review: A Modern App That Helps You Invest More, Faster

Acorns might be for you if: You're interested in easy, automated investing. Acorns is a robo-advisor that automatically invests users' spare change. The platform has more than 8 million members and offers an easy-to-use app, along with straightforward pricing. If you're looking to simplify your investing, our Acorns review will help you decide if it's right for you.

Author's note: My favorite brokers are those that make investing in stocks and ETFs easy and affordable. I've been investing for four years, and I plan on holding my investments for decades. Robinhood is my go-to platform. Top perks include IRA match and a no-frills interface. I don't day trade or dabble in mutual funds, but I do invest in Bitcoin; it's a must-have option.

Acorns offers five Acorns Core portfolios and four Acorns ESG Portfolios, plus a Bitcoin ETF. You can pick the one you prefer, and if you're a Premium user, you can add individual stocks to your portfolio. Acorns offers individual (taxable) investment accounts, as well as traditional and Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, and UGMA/UTMA accounts for minors.

Investments

• ETFs

Brokerage accounts

• IRA
• Roth IRA
• SEP IRA
• Traditional brokerage
• UGMA/UTMA accounts for minors

Acorns charges transparent subscription fees instead of transaction fees, breaking from the typical robo-advisory model. It's cheaper for large accounts to use the platform because fees remain flat regardless of how much money you add. But smaller accounts will pay more than typical expense ratios, which range from 0.03% to 0.18% per year.

Acorns offers over 100 educational articles on common financial topics like investing and retirement. These are short, two-to-three minute reads well-suited to beginner investors. You can find these under the "Learn" tab on the Acorns website. They're easy, informative reads.

For more educational content, you need to be a higher-paying Acorns member. Personal Plus subscribers can access live Q/A with investing experts, and Premium subscribers get education courses and GoHenry, a debit card platform designed to help parents teach kids how to spend.

Acorns offers little in the way of individual stock research compared to full-service brokers like E*TRADE and even discount brokers like Robinhood. This makes sense -- Acorns only offers ETFs anyway, and the full-service robo-advisor is expected to handle the details.

Beginners might be satisfied with Acorns' educational content. Advanced users who want to deep-dive into individual stock analyses or earnings reports should look elsewhere.

Acorns is an app-based investment platform. It has a user-friendly app with high ratings. On the App and Google Play stores, the Acorns app has 4.7 and 4.6 out of 5-star ratings. That's top-tier.

Recent reviews indicate that customers like how the app works as advertised. Some customers wish you could direct Round-Ups to your savings instead of your investing account. Others are disappointed that Round-Ups round up to the next dollar on exact dollar amounts.

On the app, you can access all your Acorns accounts in one place, including checking and brokerage accounts. Premium users can access their GoHenry accounts from the app. You can also read and watch education content directly from the app's Learn tab.

Acorns has no desktop platform.

Acorns has middling customer service reviews. Its 2.4 / 5 rating on Trustpilot is better than Fidelity and worse than SoFi. Critical reviews indicate people struggling to withdraw money from Acorns or earn their referral bonuses. Acorns is online-only; there are no physical branches.

You can contact Acorns customer service via:

• Phone lines, which are open during 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT, seven days a week
• 24/7 online chat in the Acorns app
• Email via the Acorns website

Acorns is very secure. It is a member of the SIPC, meaning your investments are insured for up to $500,000 in the event Acorns goes bankrupt. Your data is encrypted, and you can set up multi-factor authentication to further secure your account from thieves. These are all pretty standard features for regulated brokers, including big ones like Fidelity.

Acorns started as a way for users to invest their spare change by rounding up purchases made with credit and debit cards to the nearest dollar and investing those small amounts. It still does this, but Acorns has evolved quite a bit since its early days. It's now a full-featured robo-advisor that lets you put your investments (including retirement accounts) on auto-pilot.

Keep reading about Acorns on these pages:

At The Motley Fool Ascent, brokerages are rated on a scale of one to five stars. We primarily focus on fees, available assets, and account types; however, we also take into account features like research, education, tax-loss harvesting, and highly rated mobile apps. Our highest-rated brokerages generally include low fees, a diverse range of assets and account types, and useful platform features.

See our full methodology here: Ratings Methodology