Robo Ranking

Highlights

• Fidelity Go wins Best Overall Robo, offering stellar performance, competitive fees, no minimum investment, and robust features.
• The winners of Best Robo for Digital Financial Planning, Empower and Wealthfront, serve as an example of simple yet effective online planning.
• SoFi won Best Robo for First-Time Investors because of its low fees, and its ability to manage many areas of one’s financial life on a single platform including debt consolidation, career coaching, and live financial planning.
• Fidelity Go wins Best Robo for Performance at a Low Cost, leveraging its municipal bond positioning and large-cap equity tilt alongside competitive fees to deliver the strongest benchmark-adjusted returns in our tracked universe.

Performance scores are based on Sharpe ratios using 5-year returns and standard deviations as of 12/31/2025.

Best Overall Robo Advisor

• Winner: Fidelity Go
• Runner up: SoFi Automated Investing

Fidelity Go is our winner for Best Overall Robo in this year’s Robo Ranking Winter Edition. Fidelity Go continues to stand out for its competitive fees and comprehensive feature set. The platform charges a management fee of just 0.35%, with no minimum investment requirement at the base level and a $25,000 threshold for accessing live advisors. This low-cost structure makes it one of the most accessible robo advisors on the market. Fidelity Go provides access to live operational support and licensed advisors (Series 66 or 65), offering support to users who want professional guidance. While Certified Financial Planners (CFPs) and dedicated advisors are not available at the base tier, the platform delivers strong financial planning capabilities, including single and multi-goal financial plans, “what-if” scenario modeling, and retirement spending projections. The ability to incorporate Social Security estimates and pension income rounds out a thoughtful approach to retirement planning. Notably, Fidelity Go introduced tax-loss harvesting in December 2025 for taxable accounts with balances of $25,000 or more, closing a gap with competitors like Wealthfront and Betterment that have offered the feature for over a decade. Fidelity Go also earns high marks for customer experience, with educational materials, a fully integrated digital advice portal, a mobile app, chat support, and account aggregation for a holistic view of one’s finances. 

Fidelity Go delivered exceptional performance, ranking among the top performers in our tracked universe. Its fixed income allocation is dedicated to municipal bonds, which outperformed corporate bonds over the trailing five-year period, while its equity sleeve maintains a tilt toward large-cap stocks that have consistently benefited returns. The portfolio carries no cash allocation, keeping capital fully invested. Over the trailing five-year period ending December 31, 2025, Fidelity Go outperformed its normalized benchmark by 1.02%, demonstrating the effectiveness of its investment approach across a period that included the 2022 rate-driven sell-off, the subsequent recovery, and the strong international equity rally of 2025. Fidelity Go remains an excellent choice for investors who want low fees, solid planning tools, strong performance, and a user-friendly experience.

SoFi Automated Investing is our runner-up for Best Overall Robo in this year’s Robo Ranking Winter Edition. SoFi offers a feature set built for everyday investors, with a $50 account minimum and a straightforward 0.25% advisory fee. Fractional-share trading ensures every dollar is put to work from day one. After completing a goals-based questionnaire, SoFi constructs portfolios from among three themes: Classic (core stock and bond ETFs), Classic with Alternatives (adding real estate, private credit, and multi-strategy ETFs), and Sustainable (ESG-focused). Financial planning is a strength for SoFi Plus members, who can schedule unlimited 30-minute sessions with a CFP-credentialed planner. While the digital planning tools are more limited than some competitors, deeper retirement and “what-if” analysis is handled through these live consultations. The SoFi platform also integrates checking and savings, the SoFi Relay credit-score monitor, and any SoFi loans, giving members a consolidated view of their finances. Users can link external accounts so balances held outside SoFi appear alongside SoFi accounts. 

SoFi’s performance metrics reinforce its strong overall standing. Over the trailing five-year period, SoFi outperformed its normalized benchmark by 0.92%, while posting the highest three-year benchmark outperformance in our tracked universe at 1.22%. Its equity allocation leans heavily toward U.S. large-cap growth stocks, with 75% of the equity sleeve allocated domestically and a 26% large-cap growth weighting that is well above the 18% peer average. Its fixed income allocation is predominantly municipal bonds, which outperformed corporate bonds over the five-year period. Together, strong risk-adjusted returns, accessible pricing, and a growing planning ecosystem make SoFi a compelling runner-up for Best Overall Robo Advisor. 

Best Robo for Performance at a Low Cost

• Winner: Fidelity Go
• Runner-up: Wealthfront

The Best Robo for Performance at a Low Cost category is designed for investors seeking the strongest returns relative to fees paid. We measure performance based on total portfolio returns compared to the Normalized Benchmark and each portfolio’s Sharpe Ratio. For the five-year period ending December 31, 2025, Fidelity Go and Wealthfront emerged as top performers. This period covered the post-COVID recovery, a historic inflation and rate-hike cycle, the subsequent easing, and a year of strong international equity outperformance in 2025. 

Fidelity Go posted the strongest benchmark-adjusted performance in our tracked universe over the five-year period, outperforming its normalized benchmark by 1.02%. Its equity allocation maintains a tilt toward U.S. large-cap stocks, with approximately 70% of the equity sleeve allocated to domestic large-cap exposure. Large caps continued to outperform small caps over this period, with the Russell 1000 Index returning 13.56% annualized versus 6.06% for the Russell 2000 Index. On the fixed income side, Fidelity Go allocates nearly all of its bond holdings to municipal bonds, which returned 0.80% annualized over the five-year period, outperforming corporate bonds at –0.09%. This positioning in municipal bonds has been a consistent tailwind for Fidelity Go’s overall performance. 

Wealthfront outperformed its normalized benchmark by 0.80% over the same five-year period. Its equity allocation is similarly tilted toward U.S. stocks at 72% of the equity sleeve, and it maintains a moderate value tilt that benefited during the inflationary environment of 2021-2022, when the energy sector delivered exceptional returns. Wealthfront’s fixed income allocation is more diversified than Fidelity Go’s, with approximately 61% in municipal bonds, 20% in corporate bonds, and 18% in government bonds. The municipal bond component provided a performance advantage as munis outperformed corporates over the full five-year horizon. The growth-value dynamic has moderated over this period, with the Russell 3000 Growth Index outperforming the Russell 3000 Value Index by 3.43% annually, a considerably narrower gap than in prior periods, reflecting value’s relative strength in 2025. 

Best for First-Time Investors

• Winner: SoFi
• Runner-up: Fidelity Go

SoFi remains a top pick for first-time investors. For many, the true start of one’s investing journey begins with paying down student loans or some other form of debt, and SoFi provides users a platform to explore options such as consolidating debt as a first step toward their long-term savings goals. Beyond debt consolidation, SoFi offers access to career coaches and live financial planners, and provides a strong budgeting tool in the form of SoFi Relay, which allows outside financial accounts to be tracked within SoFi’s platform for a holistic view of one’s finances. These capabilities combined with SoFi’s low 0.25% advisory fee and $50 minimum investment make SoFi a top option for first-time investors who are looking for a comprehensive platform to start building their financial foundation. 

Fidelity Go earns the runner-up spot due to a combination of low costs, an accessible digital platform, and impressive long-term returns. Users benefit from low fees through a combination of no-cost Fidelity Flex funds and no management fee on the first $25,000 invested, making it especially attractive for investors starting with smaller amounts. Strong long-term performance, driven in part by its large-cap equity tilt and municipal bond allocation, makes Fidelity Go a great option for first-time investors who want to start investing with confidence in their portfolio’s track record. 

Best Robo for Digital Financial Planning

• Winner: Empower
• Runner-up: Wealthfront

Robo advisors have reshaped the financial advice industry by making expertly managed portfolios and high-quality planning tools available to virtually anyone with an internet connection. Nowhere is this more evident than in the digital financial planning capabilities that the leading platforms now offer, rivaling what was once available only through expensive advisory relationships. 

Empower and Wealthfront earn the top spots in this category once again. Both platforms provide their planning tools free of charge and without requiring users to open an account. Each supports multi-goal financial plans that can integrate external accounts, giving investors a complete picture of their financial lives. Users can model a range of future scenarios, from Social Security and retirement income to windfalls and major life events, all within intuitive interfaces available in the standard, free tiers of their services. 

Empower continues to lead when it comes to digital financial planning tools. The platform supports goals spanning retirement, home purchases, education, and general savings, backed by specialized features such as the retirement fee analyzer, which estimates the long-term cost of portfolio expense ratios. The planner allows users to set up multiple spending goals alongside projected income, calculates a probability of success, and incorporates debt payoff plans and emergency fund targets into the overall picture. All outside accounts can be aggregated into a single dashboard displaying monthly cash flows, net worth, and portfolio analytics. Empower’s Investment Checkup feature provides rebalancing guidance tailored to a user’s age, risk tolerance, and current holdings, including positions held in external accounts. This depth and breadth of planning capability is what keeps Empower at the top of this category. 

Wealthfront approaches financial planning with a digital-first philosophy, delivering sophisticated tools without the need for human advisors. The planning module covers retirement, education, home buying, and travel, with the home buying tool drawing on Redfin property data for realistic estimates. Users can project retirement income from sources like Social Security, model real estate holdings, and factor in windfalls and other custom inputs to build detailed, personalized plans. The Self-Driving Money feature automates the movement of excess cash from linked bank accounts into investment accounts based on user-defined thresholds, bridging the gap between daily spending and long-term goals. Wealthfront’s planning tools continue to represent some of the most thoughtful automation in the robo-advisor industry. 

Best Robo for Complex Financial Planning

• Winner: Vanguard
• Runner-up: Empower

Investors with complex financial situations often require more than digital tools alone. For these individuals, hybrid models that pair robo technology with access to human advisors offer a compelling combination of cost efficiency and personalized guidance. Vanguard takes the top spot in this category by delivering that combination at a price point that undercuts most traditional advisory firms. 

Vanguard’s hybrid advisory model provides access to live financial advisors starting at a $50,000 minimum for a 0.30% management fee. Investors with $500,000 or more receive a dedicated advisor at the same fee, enabling continuity and more in-depth planning over time. This structure allows investors to address multiple financial goals and build comprehensive strategies at a fraction of the typical advisory fee, making Vanguard an attractive option for those with substantial but not ultra-high-net-worth portfolios who need professional guidance. 

Empower, the runner-up, pairs access to live planners with one of the most capable digital planning platforms on the market. The $100,000 minimum and 0.89% management fee place it at a higher price point, but the platform offers a broad array of investment options including an SRI portfolio, direct indexing, and, for accounts exceeding $5,000,000, alternative investments such as private equity. The Smart Withdrawal feature is particularly relevant for retirees, providing guidance on which accounts to draw from and how to execute withdrawals in a tax-efficient manner, including analysis of potential Roth conversions and tax gain harvesting opportunities. For investors willing to pay a premium for comprehensive planning and a wide range of investment options, Empower remains a strong choice.