Ellevest Review & Rating USA 2023

Even though Ellevest is relatively new, it is a well-trusted institution. Ellevest USA is not a scam. As a fiduciary, Ellevest works with SIPC insured brokerage firms. Depending on your Ellevest open account, your broker-dealer is either Folio Investments or Schwab.

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) provides account protection for all investors with accounts of registered brokerage firms. Both Folio Investments and Schwab are in the SIPC list of registered brokerages. Folio Investment is a firm that provides brokerage services for Ellevest digital and Premium accounts. Schwab, on the other hand, offers broker-dealer services only for the Ellevest Private Wealth accounts.

The SIPC insurance does not protect the value of an Ellevest open account; rather, they protect the ownership of your investment. If a brokerage firm fails, the SIPC will cover losses up to $500,000. The limit covered for cash losses is $250,000. Asides this form of insurance, Ellevest is regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The SEC approved the registration of Ellevest in 2015.  It is advisable to find a company under SEC regulations, since they enforce the set rules. These regulations ensure the financial entities avoid malpractices that would affect the client.

Additionally, our review of this Ellevest USA commends the company on its transparency with clients. It is essential to have a financial advisor and strategist with high levels of transparency. Absent transparency, your investments and the journey to financial freedom would be a bit bumpy.

Ellevest Open Account Offers

For a fiduciary, Ellevest’s diversity is impressive. To begin the Ellevest USA financial journey, the company recommends a very low-cost and diversified portfolio managed on your behalf. The first type of Ellevest open account charges as low as 0.25%. Since a competent financial advisor is estimated to increase returns by 3.75, it is a meagre charge. This charge applies to only the first level of service accounts Ellevest provides.

With the financial progress of women and non-binary people at its heart, Ellevest strives to offer the best fiduciary services. They make sure this is possible by utilizing a diverse team of employees. Also, the company seeks to provide a variation of services for the diverse population. This diversity helps for specific customizations per financial status. Ellevest offerings include Impact Investing, Financial Planning, and Executive Coaching.

Impact Investing

All financial services Ellevest provides have structures to positively impact women. Ellevest Digital, Premium and membership account socially advance women in three areas:

Sustainable and Accountable Companies 

Through funds invested in companies on the path to higher standards for ethical practices and sustainability.

Women in Leadership

The funds used to invest in companies with more women leaders and policies that seek to progress women. Once women are placed as a priority and are always equally treated, the company is eligible for Ellevest funds.

Thriving communities

Funds also provide loans that support women-owned businesses. Funds also secure loans for companies that provide beneficial services to the community. Examples of such functions include child education, housing, and care for seniors, performing arts, and less fortunate people.

Ellevest USA has 5 driving vehicles for Impact Investing.

• iShares MSCI USA ESG Select ETF focuses on exposure to large and mid-sized companies in the US. These companies are to meet positive, social, environmental, and governance characteristic traits.
• Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund advocates for investing in companies rated by Pax World Analytics. The analytics for companies that thrive for advancing women leadership. On this scale, 99% of these companies have two or more women on the board of directors, as 91% have three or more women.
• Access Community Capital Fund relies on underlying Securities that help build healthier communities. The support comes in small business loans, and economic development projects. It also funds affordable rental units, and low and moderate home purchasing.
• iShares MSCI EM ESG Optimized ETF is for large and mid-capped stocks of companies in emerging markets.
• iShares MSCI EAFE ESG Optimized ETF is also for large and mid-capped shares of companies in international developed markets. These companies should have characteristics rated by the MSCI on positive social, environmental, and governance (ESG).

Financial Planning

A financial plan with Ellevest is a comprehensive set of current finances and strategies structured to help you meet your financial goals. Efficient financial planning includes details about cash flow, debt, savings, investments, and insurances. An Ellevest review reports six logical steps the company takes in effective financial planning

• They determine your current financial situation
• Help your structure and develop financial goals
• You corporate to identify alternative courses of action
• Evaluation of other alternatives
• Create and implement a customized financial action plan
• The team continuously reevaluates and revises the plan with Executive Coaching

Executive Coaching

Impact Investing involves executive financial coaching for Ellevest clients. This means regular one on one sessions to coach performance improvements with the aim of meeting set client goals. With money memberships, clients get as high as 50% off for financial planning and career coaching services.

Become an Elle Raiser

One of the proudest offers the company boasts of in any Ellevest review is the inclusion of Elle Raisers. To become an Elle Raiser, a client will need to have the desire to make the world a better place with equality for all genders, especially for women.

The Elle Raiser community helps raise each other in different aspects they might not excel in. As an Elle Raiser, you help others in the community as others help you in your shortcomings. The phrase, Raise Elle, is then defined as doing a thing, however small or large, that helps lift yourself and your Elle friends financially.

Transfer Account from Folio to Ellevest

Folio Account holders can transfer their accounts for Ellevest to manage. You can quickly move your Folio account, depending on the type of account it is. This transfer is a swift process since Ellevest manages accounts from the brokerage firm in Ellevest Digital and Premium.

IRA Accounts Transfer Process

When transferring an IRA account, you select an IRA transfer in your new Ellevest account. You then select Folio as the provider. Be sure to provide the right IRA type so that the transfer occurs smoothly. With a Roth IRA, the company transfers assets to an Ellevest Roth IRA account. Ellevest Traditional receives transfers from Traditional IRA accounts from the brokerage firm.

Ownership of the SEP-IRA makes your account eligible for either Ellevest SEP-IRA or Ellevest Traditional IRA accounts. If you are eligible for Ellevest SEP IRA, the company suggests you choose this. But, if you are no longer eligible for the SEP-IRA, Ellevest review USA team proposes a transfer of assets to Ellevest Traditional IRA. Ellevest USA cannot convert Roth accounts to a traditional account and vice versa.

Upon transfer of accounts, Ellevest recommends an investment portfolio for transparency purposes. You see how the company plans to invest the transferred funds. After your approval on eSign, the transfer process begins. The company will buy the recommended ETFs for your Ellevest IRA account when they receive the funds.

Asides Folio, you can transfer your IRA assets to Ellevest. Ellevest will let you know the next steps if your IRA provider does not support electronic transfers. The company does not offer partial transfers, so it is essential you do not make extra contributions after you begin the transfer.

Taxable Investment Account Transfer Process

To start the transfer to Taxable Investment Accounts, you first need to contact the concierge team at Ellevest USA. The team specializes in helping clients navigate Ellevest open accounts, investment plans, and goals.  The concierge team further assists with customizing your Ellevest’s goals and solutions for your problems.

Thus, this team is the best fit to assist with consolidating IRAs and old 401(k)s. After concluding the taxable investment account transfer, you will continue to receive support from the concierge team. In our Fidelity review and latest IG Broker review, we highlight the essence of support teams for financial institutions.

It is a requisite to have a state-of-the-art website as a business in the finance industry. A useful Ellevest review points out how interactive sites are essential to the effectiveness of the business. As the quality of the Ellevest website is a good investment for the company, the UX and UI are designed by top-notch web designers to focus on the client’s user experience.

Ellevest opinions on different aspects of your finance are digestible with a clear and straightforward website. The adaptiveness of the front-end makes it accessible on any device with a web browser. This feature creates a conducive atmosphere for clients to access their financial progress on all devices.

Another property of an excellent financial website is its security. All clients have an Ellevest open account protected with an encrypted platform. The site has an SSL certificate with an encrypted HTTPs security tag in the domain URL. This tag means that sensitive data is encrypted. This grants protection from cybercriminals who make attempts to access information. It works by jumbling up information sent from domains to servers. This makes it nearly impossible for other parties to access your data. Our eOption review gives more details on web platform security.

DigiCert Trusted Secure further secures the website. This security specialist offers strong encryption and high authentication variables for your account.

The company also prides itself on its customer info non-sharing policy. The policy enforces the prevention of the sale of personal information of clients. In general, the Ellevest website is easy to use even when the client has little knowledge of website interfaces.

Our Ellevest review reveals that your salary information is the first requisite for an Ellevest open account. They use the salary to estimate how much you would be able to contribute to a set investment goal. This process would undergo well-informed analytics and projection of value for your goal. Simply put, an Ellevest open account requires your total income to help you achieve your investment goals.

Like our Interactive Brokers review, the company’s account peaks in the number of investment services provided with an account. Ellevest accounts also provide many services but do not surpass Interactive brokers.

After your first deposit, you would notice the amount on your Ellevest dashboard. Your funds would be held in cash for 2-3 business days to verify no issues encountered with deposits at your bank. The company invests your deposit into a customized portfolio. The portfolio is exclusively designed to help reach your goals. Ellevest opinions are deep-rooted in transparency. You get to see every detail of allocation for every dollar.

Strategically, the company would help you reach your goal. In our Ellevest USA review, the company wants every client to start investing. For this reason, the company’s base level account has no minimum investment or balance required. The three service options available from the fiduciary include the following.

Ellevest Digital

The base-level account that you can open with the company is the Ellevest Digital. It requires no minimum balance and no minimum investment. The advisory fee to the base-level account is as low as 0.25% of the assets you hold with the company. In our Ellevest review, we found the company didn’t charge for Emergency Funds.

Ellevest Premium

This online investment platform starts with a minimum balance of $50,000. The annual advisory fee for the account is 0.50% of the assets you have with the company.

With this account, you get all the benefits of Ellevest digital with one-on-one financial planning and career coaching. You get access to the company’s Certified Financial Planner™ Professionals.

The investment algorithm available for both Premium and Digital uses factors such as earnings power, age, education level, savings, and gender. This personalized investment plan helps you reach your targets. Once you deposit, the Ellevest USA team will start the investing processes.

Ellevest Private Wealth Management

With a minimum of $1 million in investable assets, the Ellevest Private Wealth Management is available to clients. This account comes with a full-service wealth advisory team. Advisors lead the team to take ample time to learn about the lives of clients with a Private Wealth account. They pay particular attention to the development and later put in place an investment plan. This plan aligns with the financial goals of the client. Additionally, the team can personalize your investment portfolio to support your values. Once you are a Private Wealth client, you can work one on one with a dedicated financial advisor. Backed by investment and clientele service associates, the advisor is equipped to work at the highest efficiency.

Ellevest Money Membership

As a recent addition to their services, Ellevest USA launched money membership for women and non-binary people. Per our Ellevest review, their services are designed to help their clients save smarter, invest sooner, and earn more.

Ellevest Essential

With a 1-dollar charge, and no minimum deposit, Ellevest essential is beneficial in the following ways:

• Useful in investing with access to the Ellevest Build Wealth
• Beneficial investing for retirement goals, rollover, and transfer support
• Benefits on banking services by the Save and Spend offer through the Ellevest debit card
• Receive a 30% discount off planning and career coaching
• Granted access to Learn from Ellevest’s educational resources given to only members

Ellevest Executive

Starting with no minimum deposit, and a $9 charge, Ellevest Executive comes with the following benefits:

• Investing with access to the Ellevest Build Wealth
• Investing for retirement plans, transfer support, and rollover
• Beneficial banking services with the Save and Spend offer. The Ellevest debit card makes this possible
• Receive a 50% discount off planning and career coaching
• Access to resources Ellevest provides its members in the educational areas

Women who invest a million dollars and more are eligible for Private Wealth Management.

Ellevest Payment and Other Fees

We found in our Ellevest review that Ellevest offers various services that come with different fees. These fees are fair and not so costly, as stated in any other Ellevest review. The associated payments and fees are diverse, as shown by the variations in our eTrade USA review.

The following are some essential services with fees clients accrue in the process.

Ellevest Digital, Premium and Membership fees

The Ellevest Digital, Premium, and Membership fees do not include underlying charges to funds in your account. Cost is structured into the sale price of each security here. They do not appear as separate fee transactions on your Ellevest open account.

Depending on the portfolio type, Ellevest charges different rates on ETF Funds. The Ellevest core portfolios gain costs from 0.05% to 0.10% per year. The Ellevest Impact portfolios have their ETF and mutual fees ranging from 0.13% to 0.19% per year.

Ellevest Money Membership

With the three different levels of memberships, payment percentages vary per level. You pick a level that best suits your financial life and can upgrade or downgrade anytime. Ellevest Essential costs $1/month, Ellevest plus is $5/month, and Ellevest Executive is $9/month.

Ellevest USA does not charge separately for an advisory fee (bps) on a client’s assets. All costs for advisory, execution, banking, and custody services are in your membership fee.

Spend & Save accounts have no overdraft and account fees as stated in any Ellevest review USA website. Additionally, ATM fees are reimbursed when your card is used in the US.

Fees in IRA account transfers

This process has no taxes or Ellevest fees. Yet, your current IRA may charge you feeds during the process of selling your investments and transferring funds to Ellevest. The fiduciary recommends that you ask your provider on any fees associated with the transfer of your IRA funds.

After approving transfers, Ellevest USA would alert you if your IRA provider does not support electronic transfers to your Premium, Digital, or Membership account.

An average score on any Ellevest review gives customer service a 4-star rating. This rating is about the same for JP Morgan brokerage in our JP Morgan review. The company provides customer service through several channels. They can be reached via phone, text, in person, and Facebook messenger support. These customer service mediums are open Monday to Friday, from 9 am to 6 pm Eastern. For urgent matters, you can reach support via email, even on weekends.

Additionally, Ellevest USA provides members with the availability of a concierge team. Their accessibility depends on the account type. This team specializes in helping clients be more familiar with their Ellevest USA accounts. If you also need to tailor your goals in a new way, the concierge team is the team to contact.

Ellevest has also curated a lot of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the website, comparable to the useful FAQ area we found in our Lightspeed Review. The presence of so many answers for FAQs is commendable in an Ellevest review.

The security of funds is the first question of every client. Even though Ellevest is just a fiduciary, it is associated with brokerage firms insured by SIPC. SIPC insurance covers a total of $500,000 of the client’s claims. $250,000 is the maximum amount for cash claims. The SIPC does not protect the value of securities managed by your Ellevest open account from declining.

Asides SIPC insurance, SEC also heavily regulates the brokerages. These regulations are to ensure malpractices are not present in brokerage firms. The SEC approved the registration of Ellevest USA on the 29/09/2015. You can trace the identification number of the company on the SEC directory. The company’s CRV number and SEC number are 175476 and 801-106683, respectively.

The SEC regulates all accounts regardless of the client’s location. Additionally, Ellevest USA provides members with the availability of a concierge team. Their accessibility depends on the account type. This team specializes in helping clients be more familiar with their Ellevest USA accounts. If you also need to tailor your goals in a new way, the Ellevest USA concierge team is the team to contact.

Ellevest has also curated a lot of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the website. The presence of so many answers for FAQs is commendable in an Ellevest review.