M1 Finance

M1 Finance, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Chicago, is a hybrid robo-advisor that gives investors something rare in automated investing: full control over portfolio construction. Rather than forcing you into one of 5–10 pre-built risk profiles (the standard approach at Betterment or Wealthfront), M1 lets you build custom "Pies" — visual representations of your target allocation across stocks, ETFs, or crypto — and the platform handles the execution, fractional shares, dynamic rebalancing, and tax-efficient order routing for you. The platform manages over $7 billion in client assets across 700,000+ active accounts.

The platform operates on a freemium model. The base "M1 Basic" tier is free for portfolios up to $10,000 and offers a single daily trade window (orders execute at 10 AM ET). The paid "M1 Plus" tier ($10/month, currently promotional rates may apply) unlocks a second trade window, higher-rate cash sweep, lower margin borrowing rates, and enhanced retirement features. M1 also offers a debit card, checking account, and crypto trading through its expanded product suite. Unlike Betterment or Wealthfront, M1 does not provide tax-loss harvesting, automatic rebalancing on every market movement, or proactive financial planning — it gives you the tools to manage those things yourself, but doesn't do them for you.