By Bo Starr, Co-CEO of Grifin. Last verified August 17, 2026.

The best Acorns alternative depends on why you're leaving: SoFi or Public if you want no monthly fee, Betterment if retirement is the goal, M1 if you want control over the portfolio, and Grifin if round-ups into ETFs felt too abstract to care about. Full disclosure before anything else: Grifin is our app, so we've put the non-Grifin picks first and told you exactly who shouldn't use ours.

One more reason this page exists: several of the "2026" alternative lists ranking today still recommend products that are dead. Fidelity Spire, a frequent entry, shut down in March 2023. Every app below was checked against its own pricing page on August 17, 2026.

Why do people actually leave Acorns?

Two different complaints, and they point to different alternatives. The first is the fee: Acorns runs $3, $6, or $12 a month (Bronze, Silver, Gold), and $36 a year is 7.2% of a $500 balance, which feels bad because it is. The second complaint is stranger and just as common: the money grows, but it never feels like anything. Round-ups drip into a pre-built ETF portfolio, and after a year you own "Moderately Aggressive," a label, not a thing. Fee-driven leavers should head to the free options below. Meaning-driven leavers usually don't need a cheaper Acorns; they need a different mechanic entirely.

What's the best alternative with no monthly fee?

SoFi Invest and Public are the strongest free-tier answers. SoFi's self-directed investing has $0 commissions and fractional shares from $5, and if you want the managed version, its robo charges 0.25% annually, with no monthly subscription either way. Public offers $0 commissions with fractional investing from $1; its optional Premium tier runs $10 a month, and note the $3.99 inactivity fee it charges small dormant accounts (under $70 with six months of no activity), a detail most roundups skip. The tradeoff with any free brokerage is that free means manual: nothing invests until you set up recurring buys yourself. Do that in week one or the free account quietly becomes a $0 balance with good intentions.

What should retirement-focused savers switch to?

Betterment, or SoFi's automated side, and honestly not Grifin. Betterment charges 0.25% a year once you hold $24,000 or set up recurring deposits of $200 a month; below those thresholds it's a flat $5 a month, per its pricing page on August 17, 2026. For that you get real retirement planning, tax-loss harvesting, and goal tools Acorns doesn't attempt. SoFi's robo, also 0.25%, bundles access to human financial planners. If your Acorns frustration is "I'm 45 and this spare change won't retire me," you're right, and a percentage-fee robo with an IRA is the correct graduation, not another app that invests small amounts.

What if you want to control the portfolio yourself?

M1 is the pick. You design "pies" (your allocation, your funds and stocks), and M1 automates the deposits and rebalancing around your design. It charges a $3 monthly platform fee that's waived once you hold $10,000 there or have an active M1 personal loan. That waiver is the catch for small accounts: below $10,000, you're paying Acorns-Bronze money for a product with no round-ups, so M1 only makes sense if you're bringing a real balance or building one fast. For the person who left Acorns muttering "just let me pick the funds," M1 is exactly that, executed well, and it grows with you: automated rebalancing and borrowing against the portfolio show up once the balance justifies them.

What's the alternative if round-ups felt too abstract?

This is the leaver we built for, so read this section knowing who wrote it. Grifin links your bank accounts and cards through Plaid, reads your transactions, and automatically buys fractional shares of every publicly traded brand you spend at. It opens a real brokerage account, verifies your identity, funds by ACH, and places live fractional trades. There's no stock picking. Instead of "Moderately Aggressive," your portfolio reads like your life: the grocery store, the coffee chain, the airline. More than half of our members had never invested before joining, and members who make three automatic deposits in their first 32 days keep their funded account at a 94 percent rate. The plain-language downsides: Grifin charges a flat single-digit monthly subscription, so it doesn't solve the fee complaint. It has no IRAs, no ETF portfolios, and no kids accounts. If you want diversification-by-default or zero cost, pick from the sections above.

Which alternative should you actually pick?

Match the app to your complaint. Fee too high for a small balance: SoFi or Public, with a recurring buy set up immediately. Saving for retirement: Betterment or SoFi's robo, in an IRA. Want to run the portfolio: M1, ideally with $10,000 or a plan to get there. Investing never felt real: Grifin, accepting that you'll still pay a subscription. And if you're leaving Acorns purely to stop paying anyone anything, the unglamorous champion is a Fidelity or Schwab account with an automatic monthly transfer into an index fund, $0 forever. Whichever you pick, actually move the money rather than letting the old account idle, because a $3 monthly fee on a forgotten $400 balance quietly compounds the wrong way. Any of these beats staying somewhere that isn't working, and all of them beat quitting investing because one app didn't fit.

Facts about other apps checked against their own pricing pages on August 17, 2026.