Ellevest

Ellevest is a financial company that offers investing and banking services. It matches you up with an investment portfolio based on your financial goals, and memberships include a spending and saving account.

Ellevest’s mission is to close the gender gap in financial services by using a gender-aware algorithm. It employs data related to women in particular — for instance, it will account for factors like women’s longer lifespans when recommending retirement options.

Ellevest also goes beyond investment services, providing on-demand learning, online workshops, email courses and videos on money management and investment topics. Members can also access various coaching sessions (for a discounted fee) with Certified Financial Planners (CPAs) and other professionals.

You’ll fill out a form to create an account so the company can provide more tailored financial advice. Then you’ll choose an investing goal related to what you want to save for. You can customize your goal’s start date, end date and total savings amount.

From there, Ellevest matches you with an investment portfolio that’ll best help you meet your goal by its deadline. After selecting your preferred portfolio, you’ll choose how much you want to invest and make your first deposit. Ellevest then automatically invests the money and adjusts when necessary to align with your goals.

Ellevest has three membership plans:

• Essential
  • Personalized investment portfolio
  • Unlimited access to educational resources
  • Banking benefits
  • Coaching access at 20% off
• Plus: Includes all Essential items, plus coaching access at 30% off and retirement services like personalized retirement investment plans
• Executive: Includes all items under Plus, plus coaching access at 50% off and multi-goal investing

Ellevest also offers private wealth management for those looking to invest $1 million or more.

The costs for Ellevest’s memberships are:

• Essential: $1 per month or $12 per year
• Plus: $5 per month or $54 per year
• Executive: $9 per month or $97 per year

Ellevest includes fees for advisory services, execution, custody and banking services in its memberships. There are also no overdraft or account fees for banking, and it reimburses U.S. ATM fees. International ATM withdrawal fees are $5.

Ellevest’s coaching sessions run from $45 to $1,995 for non-members. Members receive 20%, 30% or 50% off depending on their membership tier.

Ellevest is a legitimate company that offers tailored investment portfolio options based on your goals. It provides individual taxable accounts only under its memberships, so it may not be the best option for those who want more than one person making decisions on the account. It also might not be suitable if you’re looking to choose individual stocks. But it’s likely a winner if you want a more laidback form of investing that adjusts to reach your specific financial goals with algorithms based on data related to women’s experiences in finance.