Acorns Invest account gives you an automated way to invest your spare change. If you’re a beginner investor who might not have a lot to invest initially, then Acorns is a great option.
What is Acorns Invest?
Acorns Invest is an automated savings tool that merges the Robo-advisor model to help beginners build their investment portfolios with more ease and fewer hassles. The micro-investing app is best known for rounding up your linked credit and debit card purchases. Then, it invests the amount into six different exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
With Acorns Invest, you can invest as little as $5 at any time or set recurring transfers into your portfolio.
Join more than 9 million people who have saved and invested with Acorns.
How Does Acorns Investing Work?
Acorn shines with simplicity and Round-up features.
- Answer a few quick questions to fill out your investor profile, and Acorns will match you to the right portfolio for you.
- Automatically invest your spare change from everyday purchases, like groceries and gas, while you go about your day. After signing up for the Round-Ups® feature, your spare change gets automatically invested into a diversified portfolio, built by experts.
- Link all of your credit or debit cards, so you can start automatically investing spare change with every swipe.
- Set recurring daily, weekly, and monthly investments to tap into the power of compounding to meet long-term financial goals.
Let the Robo-advisor do the work by assessing the best ETFs based on your age, income, risk tolerance, and time horizon. Acorns brokerage services are provided by Acorns Advisers by Acorns Securities, LLC, an SEC-registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA. As a member of SIPC, the securities in your account are protected up to $500,000.
Features & Benefits
- Automatic Round-Ups: Once you link an account to your Acorns account, Acorns will round up each transaction to the nearest dollar for each active Round-Ups account. Once the Round-Ups calculation accrues to $5 or more, Acorns will automatically initiate the investment into your Account from your primary checking account.
- Manual Round-Ups: You also can manually manage your Round-Ups giving you control over which spare change amounts you’d like to invest.
- Smart Deposit: A feature of Acorns Checking that automatically allocates a portion of your direct deposit into Invest, Later, Early, or a combination of all three.
- Diversified Portfolios: Easily invest in a smart, diversified portfolio built by experts, recommended for you and your long-term money goals. The ETFs comprise diversified investments across 7,000+ stocks, bonds, and other securities. Each ETF represents asset classes. They follow the concept of modern portfolio theory to determine asset allocation based on risk tolerance.
- Portfolio Rebalancing: With automatic portfolio rebalancing, give your money a better chance to grow without actively managing it. Maintain your specific target allocation.
- ESG Portfolio: Sustainable Portfolios are made of funds that have been selected based on their environmental, social, and governance business practices, or their ESG rating.
- Education: Grow your financial literacy. You’ll get knowledge on the go with custom financial literacy content.
- Acorns Earn: Shop 12,000+ brands and earn bonus investments when you shop at your favorite stores.
- Job Finder: Search millions of jobs in our Job Finder and earn bonus investments too.
Open an account with Acorns Invest and start Round-Ups to turn change into investments.
Other Acorns Financial Products
All users must start with an Acorns Invest account. The micro-saving features are built into its other product offerings.
- Acorns Spend – checking account with a heavy metal debit card that saves and invests for you. Spend acts like your bank account.
- Acorns Later – an automated way to save with tax-advantaged retirement accounts.
- Acorns Early – open an easy investment custodial account for kids.
- Acorns Earn – helps you make extra money with cash-back for using recommended services from partners or by using the Acorns debit card. For example, shopping at Warby Parker, Nike and Airbnb can earn money.
- Acorns Grow – offers financial articles, interviews, and reviews to improve financial wellness.
Pricing
Acorns offer two plans:
- Acorns Personal: $3 per month. All-in-one investment, retirement, and checking, plus a metal debit card, bonus investments, investment advice, and more.
- Acorns Family: $5 per month. Investment accounts for kids, plus personal investment, retirement, and checking accounts, and exclusive offers and content.
Minimum Requirements
- Must be 18+ years old
- A valid email address
- Social Security Number
Fees
Acorns fees are a flat monthly management fee. They do not charge trading or commissions. Acorn maintenance fees: $3 per month for Acorns Personal and $5 per month for Acorns Family.
Who is it best for?
Acorns Invest is a comprehensive investment app that makes it easy for just about anyone to save and invest and build an investment portfolio. The app is not for people who are looking for human advisors, specific financial advice, or want to customize their portfolio allocations. 
Acorns Review
Acorns is a legit company and service. With over 9 million users, it’s a very popular app to help with investment goals. It’s rated 4.7 out of 5 stars in the App Store with over 700k reviews.
In our Acorns Invest review, we learned it’s great for beginner investors looking to make minimum investments and see small amounts of money grow over time. And with its simple pricing structure and low maintenance fee of $3 per month for Acorns Personal, you get access to Acorns Spend–a checking account product. Acorns fees are low which makes it an attractive tool for anyone looking to invest easily and automatically.
The simple Acorns Round-Ups feature that lets you link your debit or credit card makes investing simple. They’ve heavily invested in educational content to grow your understanding of the stock market and personal finance. That’s important as you continue on your investing journey.
You can get started with Acorns Invest here.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Automatically invest spare change
- Risk-appropriate, low-cost investment portfolio options
- Bank-level security and easy navigation
Cons
- No access to financial advisors
- Unable to invest in individual stocks
How to Start an Acorns Invest Account
The time needed: 3 minutes.
Step-by-Step to opening an account with Acorns
- 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
- Choose your Round-up account and connect your checking account.
- Answer questions
- Choose your reason for investing that helps the algorithms recommend your portfolios.
Acorns Invest Alternatives
Remember you have options when it comes to investing. For newbie investors, consider alternatives such as M1 Finance (read our M1 review) and Stash Invest (read the Stash review). Find more investing apps in the marketplace or read our 5 best micro-investing apps for beginners.
Is Acorns a good investment?
Acorns is a good way to invest if you’re unsure how much you can save to invest and need help to start investing. Investments with Acorns use ETFs and with small deposits, it may take some time to create a large nest egg.
Can you lose money with acorns?
Acorns app invests your money in the market so there is a chance you’ll lose your savings. This is true for any market investments you make. Acorns do invest conservatively and with a long-term horizon, you can benefit from the historical average return of the market.
Is Acorn safe and legit?
What’s Acorns fee?
Acorns fees are tier-based pricing. Acorns Light is $1 per month for all accounts under $1 million. The monthly fee rises to $100 per month for every million invested afterward. Acorns Personal is $3 per month which includes Later and Spend. Acorns Family is $5 per month with Later, Spend, and Early.
Is the Acorns app still free for students?
Is Acorns a bank account?
Acorns offer Acorns Spend, a checking account, created in partnership with Lincoln Savings Bank, N.A. No minimum balance or overdraft fees, and fee-reimbursed ATMs nationwide. The checking account comes with a tungsten metal debit card.
Does Acorns actually make you money?
Acorns is an investment app that enables you to save money in one or more ETFs. As with any investments in the market, your money has the opportunity to grow (or make you money) but also the potential to lose.
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.
In this brief Acorns review, I really want you to understand if this app is right for you. Acorns is a comprehensive financial app offering spare-change savings, a checking account, retirement plans, and cash-back rewards through the micro-investing feature.
Acorns is a powerful service used by over 7 million people. Hopefully, in this Acorns review, you’ve learned how their friendly interface and investing portfolio take away the barriers for newbie investors and those who seek a simpler approach.
Pros and Cons
Pros
✓ Simple automatic investing of spare change.
✓ Start investing with zero minimum.
✓ Easy cashback at select retailers.
✓ Helpful articles and tools.
Cons
☓ Small portfolio choices.
With Acorns, 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 small amounts won’t help you reach your investment goals, but if Acorns can help you get started it’s the right app.
If you have a larger portfolio, you can benefit from a better option such as Betterment with a more comprehensive suite of investing tools and planning services. Discover other investing app alternatives in the financial marketplace for the best investing app for you.
You can use Acorns products separately but to fully take advantage of the service, it’s best to use the products to maximize your savings and investing.