Schwab Intelligent Portfolios (Robo advisor) Feedback?

[CBartowski]

Hey Folks,

I'm getting ready to open a schwab Intelligent Portfolio (robo advisor account) and wanted to guage anybody's success out there.

Online reviews are pretty high.

Thanks!

[wasCB14]

A few things to watch out for with roboadvisors:

1. The cost of the advice. I don't believe Schwab charges a fee for this (but Schwab makes money in other ways).

2. The cost of running the product (ETF or mutual fund). Schwab drew criticism a while back when its roboadvisor service invested client money into higher-fee products (products managed by Schwab, of course) when lower-fee equivalents were available.

3. The return on cash. Rather than put client money into a money market fund and charge a fee to manage it, many brokerages will instead put the money into a bank sweep account, and then get a large commission (to the point of being a kickback) from the bank.

I own individual stocks, so can't suggest a good roboadvisor service. But hopefully this can help you evaluate roboadvisors.

[mongstradamus]

I would also take a look at betterment, fidelity go and wealthfront just for comparison sakes so you know what other options are and fees they are charging. I think all of them are all very similar. I personally don’t use a robo advisor, I just use a simple 3 fund portfolio with a slight tilt to small cap value. It’s fairly easy to manage i usually just do a rebalance twice a year if i need to . I would find a balanced fund or robo advisor as slightly easier since you can just add money and they will allocate where the money goes each month. 

[CBartowski]

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@mongstradamus wrote:

I would also take a look at betterment, fidelity go and wealthfront just for comparison sakes so you know what other options are and fees they are charging. I think all of them are all very similar. I personally don’t use a robo advisor, I just use a simple 3 fund portfolio with a slight tilt to small cap value. It’s fairly easy to manage i usually just do a rebalance twice a year if i need to . I would find a balanced fund or robo advisor as slightly easier since you can just add money and they will allocate where the money goes each month. 

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You're definitely right about comparison. I've done a fair amount of research and they're so negligably different in features it comes down to other's personal experiences and other almost unrelated aspects like the schwab ecosystem and choices of funds. Heck even USAA has a robo advisor now, they're almost a dime a dozen.

I'll likley put in the minimum in Intelligent Portfolio and also have a 3-5 stock/fund portfolio of items the robo won't put $$ in. I'll either maintan this thru schwab for convenience or robinhood if they can get what I want due to no fees.

Thanks for the reply!