Acorns review quick take: An easy, automated investment method starting with your spare change.
What is Acorns Investing?
Acorns Invest is an automated savings tool and robo-advisor that helps investors build their investment portfolios without having to actively manage them.
The app is best known for micro-investing, rounding up purchases, and investing the spare change into exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Acorns Securities, LLC, an SEC-registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA, provides brokerage services. As a member of SIPC, the securities in your account are protected up to $500,000.
Join millions of investors and get started.
How Does Acorns Investing Work
You can invest as little as $5 at any time or set recurring transfers into your portfolio.
- Answer a few quick questions to fill out your investor profile, and the app will match you to the right investment portfolio that is aligned with your goals and based on your age, income, risk tolerance, and time horizon.
- Investments are made into expert-built portfolios of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
- Set recurring daily, weekly, and monthly investments to tap into the power of compounding to meet long-term financial goals.
- Sign up for Round-Ups® to automatically invest your spare change.
Acorns Round-Ups®
Grow your portfolio by investing your spare change from everyday purchases, like groceries and gas. This is how Round-Ups work:
- You can automatically round up purchases by linking all your debit and credit cards.
- Purchases are rounded up to the next dollar. For example, if you spend $30.25 on groceries, the app will automatically invest $0.75 in your future.
- Once your spare change reaches $5, the app will automatically initiate the investment into your account from your primary checking account. You also have the option to enroll in Real-time Round-Ups.
Key Features
- Recurring Investments: Automate your investing with as little as $5 a day.
- Round-Ups: Purchases are rounded to the nearest dollar and invested for you.
- Diversified Portfolios: Invest across 7,000+ stocks, bonds, and other securities.
- Portfolio Rebalancing: Give your money a better chance to grow without actively managing it.
- ESG Portfolio: Investments can be selected based on their environmental, social, and governance business practices or ESG rating.
- Bits of Bitcoin: Up to 5% of your investments are made into a Bitcoin-linked ETF.
- Earn: Get bonus investments by shopping at thousands of brands.
- Job Finder: Search thousands of side hustle opportunities, from full-time to part-time and remote jobs.
Are you ready to start investing your spare change? Click here.
Pricing
Offers three bundled plans for individuals and families.
- Personal: $3 per month. All-in-one investment, retirement, and checking, plus a metal debit card, bonus investments, investment advice, and more.
- Personal Plus: $5 per month. It offers everything included in Personal, along with higher yields in checking and emergency fund savings and a 25% match on bonus investments.
- Family: $9 per month. Get everything mentioned in Plus, along with a 50% match on bonus investments, access to GoHenry (a debit card made just for kids), $10,000 life insurance for qualified users, and a no-cost will to plan for your family’s future.
Fees
- Subscription fees: $3-9 per month
- Trading fees: $0
- Statement fees: $0
Please note that additional fees may apply.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Automatically invest spare change
- Risk-appropriate, low-cost ETFs
- Opportunities to grow investments with bonuses
Cons
- No access to financial advisors
- Unable to invest in individual stocks
Who is it best for?
Acorns investing is best for beginners. The app makes it easy for just about anyone to save, invest, and build an investment portfolio. 
Acorns Review
Acorns is a legitimate company and not a scam. With over 15 million users, the investing app is very popular. We learned it’s great for beginners looking to make small investments and see it grow over time.
In researching Acorns investing app reviews, we learned it’s rated high, with 4.7 out of 5 stars in the App Store and over 700k reviews. However, customers on Trustpilot have given it a poor rating of 2.4 out of 5, based on a little over 400 reviews. Many users shared that the lack of customer service support and the inability to customize their portfolio contributed to their low ratings.
What we like the most is the simplicity of the app, automation tools, and recommended investments, which makes it easy for beginners and prevents overwhelm.
However, if you want to trade or invest in individual stocks, this app isn’t for you. Because the robo-advisor wants to do all the heavy lifting and manage your portfolio.
Our Acorns review conclusion: It’s a great app for new investors and those who may not have “a lot of money” to get started investing. The fees might be worth it for the features offered and to keep you on track with your goals.
You can get started Investing here.
How to Start with Acorns Investing
Minimum Requirements
- Must be 18+ years old
- A valid email address
- Social Security Number
Step-by-Step to Open an Acorns Account
The time needed: 3 minutes.
- Getting started
- Click “Get Started” to open an account, or click this link.
- Enter email and password
- Submit your personal information, set up a PIN access code, and log into your new account.
- Connect your accounts
- Link your checking account.
- Answer questions
- Choose your reason for investing that helps the algorithms recommend your portfolios.
Acorns Investing Alternatives
Acorns alternatives include M1 Finance, SoFi Automated Investing, and Stash Invest.
Visit the marketplace to find more investing apps that do the work for you.
Acorns FAQs
Is Acorns investing any good?
It’s a good way to invest if you’re unsure how much you can save to invest and need help to start investing.
Does Acorns actually make you money?
Investing is done conservatively through ETFs. With a long-term horizon, you can benefit from the historical average return of the market. As with any investment in the market, your money has the opportunity to grow (or make you money) but also the potential for losses.
by Jason Vitug
Acorns Review: Is Acorns Right for You?
I’ve used Acorns for years now and continue to use the app to automatically save and invest money from each purchase. As I’ve grown to know more about investing, I do use other apps that fit more of my investment needs.
The monthly fee isn’t a deal-breaker but for small accounts, it’s quite high. You can use Acorns to help you save each time you spend but you can also set up automatic schedule deposits into your account. Keep in mind investing spare change is start, but you’ll need to do a bit more.
You can use Acorns investing separately but to fully take advantage of the membership, it’s best to use banking and spending features to maximize your investments.