Wealthfront: Save and Invest 4+

Beginner investor

This is my first time investing with a plan and not randomly buying a stock and selling it two weeks later. Wealthfront has been perfect for me. It helps beginners like me set goals and gain a lot of starting knowledge on what I need to be doing in the world of investing without worry of losing a lot of money. Robo-advisors (especially like wealthfront) are a great place to learn new skills to help you grow your portfolio in the beginning for a very small fee and a very small initial investment. For anyone that’s already knowledgeable about investing then this may not be the place for you. It’s hard to get into depth or immediately make changes to your portfolio. You can choose where you would like your money to go but it will take days or weeks for wealthfront to move your money in a “smart” manner. But overall I’m so glad I started here. I feel confident I can learn and make my investment grow. I know that if I stick with it, there’s a chance that I’ll outgrow wealthfront and at if that point comes I can use my money elsewhere with the knowledge wealthfront has helped me gain. This app has made me realize that most people truly don’t have an excuse anymore for not getting into investing.

Alas...

I used to recommend Wealthfront to everyone who'd listen and several people who wouldn't, but no more. I thought it was the best financial institution to ever appear on the planet, and I think, for a while – and excepting their preposterous requirements for mobile check deposit – it was. Unfortunately, over the past month or so, several transactions I've tried to make were declined due to their obviously faulty security system that now flags perfectly ordinary transactions – including my monthly cell phone bill – as "suspicious". I wouldn't even mind this nearly so much if their response to every "suspicious" transaction was to immediately send me a text asking whether the transaction was valid, but they now do this on only the rarest of occasions, leaving me, 99% of the time, to call them on the phone, wait on hold for some period of time, and then talk with a representative for about 20 minutes in order for the representative to make a "one-time exception" to the overzealous security system's error so that I can complete the transaction in question and have my *next* purchase or payment declined instead.

Due to this and the aforementioned unreasonable requirements for mobile check deposit, I'm moving my money out of Wealthfront and likely closing my accounts. And I've told everyone I recommended them to that I no longer recommend Wealthfront at all.

It's a crying shame, but everything changes, and, alas, Wealthfront has proven no exception.

Developer Response ,

Hi plaintiger,

Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a detailed and thoughtful review! We really appreciate it!

Very Functional and Easy to Use

This app is very functional and easy to use. It gives users a quick way to assess their complete financial situation through the ability to link to all your external accounts with other financial institutions. It will also show a projection of your financial situation throughout your lifetime, if you desire. The app makes it very easy to add money to your Wealthfront accounts or transfer money out of Wealthfront to another institution.

There are two distinct reasons I did not give the Wealthfront app five stars. First, the app does not give users the ability to change their risk tolerance score. Users must log on to Wealthfront’s actual website to do that, which is tremendously inconvenient. Second, although I like the financial future modeling the app provides, there is no available explanation of the modeling used to make such a long term forecast. Specifically, I would like to know the assumed annual rate of return in the model as well as whether it accounts for an assumed annual pay increase or an assumed increase in the value of your home. This would all be possible by adding a simple link that explains the specifics of the assumptions and methodology behind the model used to calculate important values like your predicted net worth at retirement age. I am sure this seems like a niche request, but some more financially and data savvy users would appreciate it.

Developer Response ,

Hi and thank you for the feedback. Please note, all of this information is available on the full website. The methodology for our model is available on the app (click on your specific goal and scroll down to Methodology). Please send an email to support@wealthfront.com for any account-specific questions. We will also share your feedback with the team. Thank you.