Top 3 Micro-Investing Apps

Micro-Investing Apps, like Micro-Savings Apps, are designed to help you save without you feeling it. All of these apps do charge high fees for investing. They are not the best choices for an avid investor, but may help the beginner investor get started in investing. Here are the top 3 Micro-Investing Apps.

1. Qapital

Qapital is an app that offers 8 customizable rules such as the Round Up and Spend Less Features. With the Spend Less feature, it will save the difference if you spend a little less on your usual expenses. For example, if you regularly spend $5.95 at Starbucks, but suddenly spend $4.95, it will transfer $1 to your Qapital account. With the Round Up feature, it will save $0.05 from both of those Starbucks transactions after rounding up to the nearest dollar.

Pro’s	Con’s
Plenty of Investment Options between Five Portfolio Risk Levels.	Investment account requires a membership fee of $2.99 per month
No Fees for the Micro-Saving Features. It’s Free!	Deposits take 3 business days.
A fun way to save with 8 Customizable Rules!	Must open a bank account with Qapital.
You can earn an annual return of 5% by Investing your Savings.	It takes longer to setup and customize

2. Stash

Stash is an app that analyzes your checking account to determine the amount you can safely save. This feature is very similar to the Smart-Save feature offered by Dobot and Digit, two popular Micro-Saving Apps. With a low starting investment of $5 and the ability to invest in ETF’s and fractional shares of large companies, Stay makes it easy to start investing as a beginner investor.

Pro’s	Con’s
An Easy Way to Start Investing for Beginners	Their Fees are Very High at $1/month for the “Beginner” account, $3/month for the “Growth” Account, and $9/month for “Stash+”. In addition, they charge an annual fee of 0.25% on higher balances.
Their Beginner Account Offers Many Perks
Many Investment Options Available, including a Roth IRA Retirement Account.

3. Acorns

Acorns is a Micro-Investing App that rounds up your expenses to the nearest dollar so that it can invest the difference. In addition, you can setup one-time or recurring contributions. While it helps you save money for investing, they charge a fee of $1/month and will charge an annual fee of 0.25% if you have $5,000 or more invested in your Acorns account.

Pro’s	Con’s
An Easy Way to Start Investing for Beginners	Their Fees are Very High at $1/month for the “Lite” account, $3/month for the “Personal” Account, and $5/month for the “Family” Account, plus a 0.25% annual fee for balances over $5000
They Offer Multiple Account Options	Limited Investing Options in Stocks and Bonds

Are there better options for Beginner Investors?

Micro-Investment Apps are largely automated. As a beginner investor, you don’t get the opportunity to learn how to invest. Instead of these micro-investing apps, consider these Free, No Fee investing apps:

1. CashApp

CashApp is a Venmo, PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay competitor. What makes them better is that they are also an investment brokerage. You can invest in popular stocks like Amazon, Apple, Google, Tesla, Coca-Cola, Disney, and more. You can even buy and use Bitcoin through CashApp. When you sign up using my affiliate link and send or receive money, you will get $5 free. https://financethrottle.com/cashapp

2. M1 Finance

M1 Finance is a great free investing app for those who want to invest for the long term. With pre-built and customizable portfolio’s plus available Traditional and Roth IRA’s, M1 Finance is a simple and passive investing app for beginners. When you sign up through my affiliate link, you get $30 when you deposit your first $100 within 30 days. https://financethrottle.com/M1Finance

3. Robinhood

The best free investing app for beginners. They charge no fees and they will give you 1 free stock valued up to $500 when you sign up using my referral link. https://financethrottle.com/Robinhood

Conclusion

There are other completely free ways to invest in ETF’s, stocks, and bonds. There are much cheaper ways to open a retirement account. While these attractive apps provide an easy way to save and invest, do your research to find what platform works best for you. In summary:

Qapital is the lowest cost and offers the most features for saving.
Stash offers the most investing solutions including Traditional and Roth IRA Retirement Accounts.
Acorns is the most expensive, but is the simplest app to use for beginner investors. Click here to get $5 when you sign up.

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