There are a lot of cheap brokerages, personal finance apps that work well on mobile devices, and robo-advisor investing platforms. It seems like every week there’s a new way to manage your money, like a simple automated savings app, a new way to invest in retirement that doesn’t cost you a lot of money, or a new way to do your taxes that helps you save money. Stash Review
Does the world really need another one?
The people who made Stash seem to think so, and their product makes a strong argument for it. The Stash app combines the ease of internet banking and do-it-yourself investing with the usually fair fees of an automated robo-advisor.
How Stash Stacks Up (Stash Review)
How does Stash compare to other automated savings and investing apps? Let’s take a look at a head-to-head comparison with M1 Finance and Wealthfront.
| Stash | M1 Finance | Wealthfront | |
| Account Types | – Banking account1 – Taxable brokerage – IRA – UGMA/UTMA |
– Invest – Borrow |
– Spend – Invest – Borrow |
| Fees | $3 to $9 per month | $0 to $125 per year | 0.25% AUM (Invest) |
| Rewards | Up to 1x Stock-Back® Rewards3 | Up to 1% cash back and 5.00% APY | 5.00% APY |
Stash Plans, Pricing & Features (Stash Review)
Although it has broad appeal, Stash shines for middle-income couples and families looking for a single money management platform without lots of added baggage. Despite a nice lineup of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to choose from and low investing minimums, it’s not ideal for sophisticated investors or those with meagre investable assets.
Stash offers two plans: Growth and Stash+. Each has its mix of features and capabilities. For taxable broking accounts, the monthly plan fee, or wrap fee, bundles common fees charged by investing platforms, including advisory and transaction fees. Ancillary fees may apply in certain situations.
1. Stash Growth
The growth plan offers tools for day-to-day money management and longer-term investing. For $3 per month, it offers a wider range of features geared toward individuals and couples who’ve merged their finances.
Growth includes:
Personal Investing Account
Stash is built around Stash Invest, a taxable personal investment account (brokerage) with no add-on commission fees.
Starting with an initial investment of as little as $1, you can purchase whole or fractional shares of individual stocks on Stash. Most of these stocks are mid- and large-cap firms listed in the Dow 30, NASDAQ 100, and S&P 500 market indexes.
For those seeking other investment options, Stash Invest also offers a couple dozen third-party exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that track specific market sectors, entire indexes, or geographic regions. Although these ETFs charge fees (bundled into their expense ratios) that Stash can’t control, most are reasonably priced. And they can help you construct a diversified investment portfolio with an asset allocation that’s appropriate for your risk tolerance.
The Stash investment app is compatible with Apple and Android devices.
Banking1 Account8
All Stash personal investing account holders are eligible to open a Stash Banking account with no overdraft fees, maintenance fees, or monthly balance fees, and there is fee-free ATM access.4
Users who set up a direct deposit can get access to their paycheck up to two days early5. Like many checking accounts, Stash offers FDIC-insured bank accounts through Stride Bank.
Stash Stock-Back® Card1
Each Stash banking account comes with a Stock-Back® Card you can use online and at physical points of sale.1
The Stock-Back® Card allows customers to earn fractional shares of stock on every eligible purchase. For instance, purchases made through Amazon earn Amazon stock. If the publicly traded stock of the merchant is not available on the Stash Platform, the stock reward will be in an ETF of your choice.2
Bear in mind that the Stash Stock-Back® Card1 is not a credit card and doesn’t allow users to carry balances.
Auto-Stash
Auto-Stash is a bundle of automated saving and investing products that may reduce the time required to manage your Stash investments.
The scheduling feature allows you to set recurring transactions ahead of automatic stock market investments. The Stock Round-Up7 feature rounds every qualifying purchase on the Stock-Back® Card to the nearest dollar and sets aside the difference—your spare change, essentially—for future investments.
Life Insurance Through Avibra
The Stash Growth plan comes with $1,000 in no-cost life insurance coverage through Avibra8.
Retirement Investing Accounts
At this price point, Stash Invest offers two tax-advantaged retirement investing accounts: a traditional IRA and a Roth IRA.
These account types are subject to annual IRS contribution limits and withdrawal restrictions. Otherwise, they’re functionally equivalent to Stash’s taxable investing account and can be used to construct diversified portfolios.
Smart Portfolio
All Stash members enjoy optional access to Smart Portfolio, Stash’s managed investing solution. Using proprietary research and your own input around risk tolerance and investing goals, Smart Portfolio manages your investments with virtually no action required on your end—just deposit cash, and Smart Portfolio does the rest. If your holdings drift more than 5% from your target allocation, Smart Portfolio automatically rebalances them quarterly.
2. Stash+
Stash+ is a premium plan that bundles all Stash features into one higher-priced package. For users with substantial investable assets, it’s not a bad deal compared with other automated wealth management platforms. But, at $9 per month, it’s a steep price for beginners.
Stash+ includes all of the features of the Growth plan, plus:
Custodial Accounts (UGMA/UTMA) for Up To Two Kids
Stash lets you open up to two UTMA/UGMA custodial investing accounts for minor children. Custodial accounts work just like Stash’s taxable investing account for adults. Because they’re more versatile than tax-advantaged education savings accounts, they’re great for teaching kids to save and invest at any age.
You control accounts with minor beneficiaries. Once the beneficiaries reach the age of majority, they assume account ownership and can use the funds as they see fit. Before opening a custodial account (UGMA/UTMA) with Stash, check your state’s UTMA/UGMA regulations and IRS guidance on federal income tax liability.
Stash Stock-Back® Card1 With 1% Stock-Back® Rewards9
Stash+ users receive 1% Stock-Back® rewards on the first $1,000 of purchases that they make each month.3
Monthly Market Insights Report
Stash produces a monthly market newsletter exclusively for Stash+ users. It’s designed to keep savvy investors abreast of market developments and investing strategies.
More Life Insurance Through Avibra8
The Stash+ plan comes with $10,000 in no-cost life insurance coverage through Avibra.
Additional Fees
Monthly plan fees aren’t the only fees you may incur as a Stash user. Stash’s ancillary charges include fees for:
- Paper statements
- Paper trade confirmations
- Paper prospectuses
- Automated Customer Account Transfers (ACATs)
- Paper cheques
Most fees apply only in one-off situations, such as moving your account from Stash to another broker (an ACAT), or can be avoided by changing customer preferences — for instance, by declining paper communications.
The Stock-Back® Card has relatively low fees for a debit card. However, Stash’s debit card issuer, Stride, may charge account fees that Stash can’t control. These include:
- Out-of-network ATM withdrawal and balance inquiry fees
- Teller cash withdrawal fees
- Cash deposit fees
- Foreign transaction fees
For a complete list of fees for banking accounts, see the Deposit Account Agreement for details.
Advantages of Stash (Stash Review)
These are among the top reasons to consider managing your money with Stash.
1. Reasonable Management Fees for Most Investors (Stash Review)
Stash’s management fees are reasonable by the standards of the discount broking and robo-advisor industries. Its flat fee structure regardless of account balance incentivises new account holders to bring serious money to the table, not merely to dip their toes into Stash’s waters. If you have considerable assets to invest right now, you may make out well with Stash.
2. Stock-Back® Program Rewards Everyday Transactions
It may be riskier than a traditional cash-back programme, but Stash’s Stock-Back® Rewards programme also has a higher upside: It empowers you to double down on the implicit trust you place in every merchant you do business with. This allows you to become not just a customer but a shareholder of the companies you patronise.
3. No Add-on Commission Fees
Stash doesn’t charge add-on trading commissions on individual stock or ETF purchases. That’s a big advantage over popular “discount” brokerages, many of which still charge for individual stock trades.
4. Wider Range of ETFs Than Some Competing Platforms
Stash has a few dozen ETFs in its database, from industry-specific products to broad-based global market index funds essential to diversification. That’s an advantage over true robo-advisor platforms, some of which simply allocate investors’ money across a handful of funds based on reported risk tolerance—a cookie-cutter approach that may not serve investors’ best interests.
5. Custodial Accounts (UGMA/UTMA) for Kids
Stash+ plan holders can open up to two custodial accounts (UGMA/UTMA) for minor children. If you’ve been searching in vain for an investing platform that serves your entire family, you may find it in Stash.
Disadvantages of Stash (Stash Review)
Weigh these disadvantages carefully before choosing Stash.
1. Regressive Fee Structure
Stash’s lower-priced plan costs just $3 per month or $36 per year, which sounds like a bargain; the higher-priced plan costs $9 per month ($108 per year).
But because both Stash plans charge flat monthly fees rather than a percentage of the assets under management, customers with lower Stash investment balances pay a greater share of their investment each month. For example, Stash+’s monthly fee works out to 1.08% of assets under management for a customer with $10,000 in their account, which is significantly more than most robo-advisors charge and on par with full-service financial advisors’ fees.
This drawback matters less as your Stash balance increases. Stash+’s monthly fee works out to 0.36% of assets under management on a $30,000 balance, which is in line with many robo-advisors.
2. Few Value-Added Tools and Services for Serious DIY Investors (Stash Review)
Stash doesn’t offer the sorts of high-powered market research and analytic tools available at full-service brokerages. It has a rudimentary ‘How to Invest’ primer, a decent blog covering basic personal finance and investing concepts, and a monthly insights newsletter for Stash+ plan holders. But beyond that, Stash’s knowledge base is pretty thin. If you’re a serious DIY investor or day trader, these resources won’t cut it for you.
3. No Qualified Plans for Business Owners or Self-Employed Investors
Stash doesn’t offer specialised retirement investing options for business owners or self-employed investors. You can’t open a solo 401(k), SEP IRA, or SIMPLE IRA retirement account here, for instance—only traditional and Roth IRAs, whose tax advantages are suboptimal for higher-income business owners and sole proprietors.
4. Limited Selection of Individual Stocks
While Stash’s stock database includes plenty of well-known blue-chip stocks and growth plays, it’s a small fraction of all U.S. market listings. For DIY investors who prefer to carefully research every single holding for opportunities others might miss, Stash’s selection leaves much to be desired.
Final Word (Stash Review)
Stash is a user-friendly banking and investing app that, for the typical middle-income consumer, can plausibly serve as an all-in-one money management tool.
Due to its flat-fee pricing, it’s not great for low-asset customers. And sophisticated investors may prefer investing platforms with more choice, features, and firepower. For everyone else, Stash is worth a closer look.
