This robo-advisor is easy to use and beginner-friendly
Wealthify is a robo-advisor. It lets you invest in a range of ready-made portfolios that are matched to you based on your responses to a questionnaire. And with a Stocks & Shares ISA available, you can do it tax-free.
Here’s how Wealthify works, what we think of it and how to get started.
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Here at Be Clever With Your Cash, we’re not regulated to give you financial advice. We aim to give you the facts about a provider or investment but it’s up to you to decide if it’s suitable for you. If you’re looking for more personalised guidance, find a financial adviser who can give you specific advice. Remember that your capital is at risk when investing — don’t invest more than you are prepared to lose.
The Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA is a free account that lets you invest up to £20,000 in each tax year.
If you want to move existing ISAs to Wealthify, you can transfer any type of ISA over, including Cash ISAs and Stocks & Shares ISAs, although if you transfer over a Stocks & Shares ISA from another provider, your investments are likely to need to be sold and transferred as cash.
Other Wealthify products
Wealthify also has a General Investment account — this is much the same as the ISA in practice, but it has different tax-free allowances.
There’s also a Junior ISA available, which lets you invest for children up to the age of 18. There’s no Lifetime ISA available.
For much longer-term investing, you can also opt for a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), which also have slightly different tax-free allowances.
What you can invest in with Wealthify
Wealthify only offers ready-made portfolios, so if you fancy DIY investing, this isn’t the platform for you. You can find DIY providers on our best-buy tables.
Ready-made portfolios are created by investment experts, who will keep track of what you’re invested in to ensure it continues to match the risk profile and any other investment goals — such as being invested in ethical companies. There are ten portfolios available, including five ethical portfolios. You choose which one you want to invest in based on your attitude to risk. Wealthify has a quiz that makes sure the portfolio you’ve chosen is suitable for you. Here are the portfolios available:
| Name of portfolio | Risk level | Investment costs (on top of platform fee) |
| Cautious | 1/10 | ~0.16% |
| Tentative | 3/10 | ~0.16% |
| Confident | 5/10 | ~0.16% |
| Ambitious | 7/10 | ~0.16% |
| Adventurous | 9/10 | ~0.16% |
| Ethical cautious | 1/10 | ~0.7% |
| Ethical tentative | 3/10 | ~0.7% |
| Ethical confident | 5/10 | ~0.7% |
| Ethical ambitious | 7/10 | ~0.7% |
| Ethical adventurous | 9/10 | ~0.7% |
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Wealthify fees
Wealthify charges a 0.6% platform fee for the ISA.
Then there are fund fees, which is the cost to invest in the funds within the portfolio you choose. This is around 0.16% for the regular portfolios and around 0.7% for the ethical portfolios, as detailed in the above table.
Why are the investment costs not fixed?
The investment costs aren’t charged by Wealthify, they’re the costs of Wealthify buying and selling investments for your portfolio or ongoing charges from fund managers. Wealthify negotiates fees directly with the fund managers to try and get the lowest ones possible for you, but it means it can only give you an estimate of how much that’ll cost you.
Wealthify features for beginner investors
Wealthify is a provider that’s designed for beginner investors. You don’t need to know about investing at all to get started and Wealthify asks you a lot of questions to make sure the portfolio you choose will work for you — this means it’ll only let you invest in a portfolio that’s going to be a risk level you’re comfortable with. You don’t have to check in often or constantly buy and sell investments, as this is what you’re paying the fee for the experts to handle.
There’s not much extra information to teach you about investing, so if you want to learn how to invest for yourself or choose your own funds or investments, you may prefer a provider that offers both DIY investments and ready-made options, such as InvestEngine or Dodl. However, Wealthify is brilliant for starting out.
Is Wealthify safe?
Wealthify is FCA-regulated in the UK and your deposits are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS)
In addition, your investments are ring-fenced, so they’re kept separate from Wealthify’s own assets.
If you want to open a Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA then you have to be 18 or over with a valid ID, in order for Wealthify to verify your identity.
To get started, you need to download the Wealthify app or go to its website and select “Join now”.
At this stage, you choose which account you want to open — you can choose to either Transfer an ISA or Start an ISA — choose the one that you want to do.
On the next page, you’ll be able to move the sliders to choose different amounts to invest and pick a portfolio — it gives lots of information about the different ones and how they’re invested. You also get a “projection” of how much you could end up with. While these projections can help you understand the realities of how investments can move, they’re not a guarantee.
It’ll then take you through a questionnaire to ensure that the profile you choose matches you — this includes questions about your income and outgoings, how much you have in savings, how experienced you are with investments and how you feel about risk.
Then, you just need to click “Continue” and verify your identity. And you’ll need to enter your bank details to make a deposit. You’ll be asked for some personal info, including your National Insurance information.
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Pros and cons of Wealthify
Pros
- Free to have an ISA
- Suitable for beginner investors
- Ethical portfolios available to invest in
- Has a mobile app
- Really easy to get started
Cons
- Won’t teach you how to invest
- High fees, especially for ethical options
Wealthify reviews
Over on our sister site, Smart Money People, Wealthify customers have rated it 4.83 out of 5.
Positive reviews find that it’s easy to set up and use, and they seemed to feel happy with the returns of their investments. Negative reviewers didn’t feel like the customer service was up to scratch, although there are a lot of positive reviews saying the opposite.
Read customer reviews of Wealthify
Is Wealthify any good?
Zoe’s analysis
Wealthify is a pretty good investment app, but it can be expensive, especially if you opt for the ethical portfolios — these can cost a hefty 1.3%, which doesn’t sound like much, but in comparison, a similar platform Dodl charges 0.6% in total for its responsible portfolio — 0.15% as a platform fee and a 0.45% ongoing charge for the fund. So investing £1,000 would cost you £13 with Wealthify or £6 with Dodl.
That being said, it’s a good option for beginners. It guides you through the investment process and checks to make sure you’re suitable for your chosen investment. There’s a great selection of portfolios — you can choose between all risk profiles with both the regular and ethical portfolios, unlike Dodl, where there’s only one responsible portfolio to choose.
The Stocks & Shares ISA is free — Wealthify won’t charge you a fee to pop the money into one, and if you already have ISAs elsewhere, you can transfer it over, but existing investments will likely need to be sold for the transfer.
Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA
| Investment styles available | Managed portfolios |
| Investment types available | Ready-made portfolios |
| Welcome bonus | £50 to 500 cashback when you deposit or transfer £5,000 or more |
| Platform fees | 0.6% |
| Minimum deposit | £1 |
| Interest on uninvested cash | No |
| Flexible ISA | Yes |