Acorns Cost (2026): $4, $8 or $12 a month by plan
Last updated November 2026
Short answer
Acorns charges $4, $8 or $12/mo by plan (Oct 2026). Acorns is sold as a monthly subscription: Bronze at $4 a month, Silver at $8 and Gold at $12, each adding features on top of the investment account. Checked on acorns.com, October 2026. Because that is not a percentage of assets, the cost does not rise as your balance does, which cuts both ways: proportionally cheap on a large account, relatively expensive on a small one. On top of that you pay the expense ratios of whatever funds are held, which every provider passes through. Your money has to move to Acorns from the broker you already use, and in a taxable account moving it can create a tax bill. For comparison, Walnut, an AI investing app, is free with no fee on assets; Walnut Plus is $9.99 a month on the web.
What Acorns charges
The headline figure: $4, $8 or $12/mo by plan (Oct 2026), for starting to invest at all, when the barrier is behavioural. Acorns rounds up card purchases to the nearest dollar and invests the difference, alongside optional recurring contributions, into a diversified ETF portfolio chosen by questionnaire. Pricing is a flat monthly fee by tier, whatever the balance, so the cost as a share of the balance falls as the balance grows.
What you still pay on top
- Fund expense ratios. Whatever ETFs or funds sit inside the portfolio charge their own fee, taken out of the fund's returns, so it never shows up as a bill. A broad index fund is often 0.03% to 0.10%; a specialist fund charges more.
- Trading costs. Commissions where they apply, plus the bid-ask spread on everything bought and sold, which is real even where the commission is zero.
- Tax. Moving money into Acorns from an existing taxable account usually means selling, and selling can create a capital gain. That one-off cost is easy to overlook when comparing annual fees.
Acorns pricing against the alternatives
| Product | Type | Cost | Holds your money? | Places trades? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Acorns | Robo-advisor | $4, $8 or $12/mo by plan (Oct 2026) | Yes, you move money to it | Yes, automatically | Starting to invest at all, when the barrier is behavioural |
| Walnut | AI investing app | Free; Walnut Plus $9.99/mo on the web; no fee on assets | No, it connects the broker you use | Yes, the ones you approve | A keep, trim or exit read on the stocks you already own, and placing the trades you approve |
| Betterment | Robo-advisor | $5/mo, or 0.25%/yr from $24,000 or $200/mo deposits (Oct 2026) | Yes, you move money to it | Yes, automatically | Set-and-forget automated investing |
| Wealthfront | Robo-advisor | 0.25%/yr, $500 minimum (Oct 2026) | Yes, you move money to it | Yes, automatically | Hands-off investing with planning built in |
| PortfolioPilot | AI investing app | Free; Gold $20, Platinum $49, Pro $99 a month billed yearly (Oct 2026) | No, it connects the broker you use | No, you trade at your broker | A second opinion on an existing portfolio |
| Magnifi | Stock research and scoring | Free plan; Premium is a paid subscription (as of October 2026) | No, it connects the broker you use | No, you trade at your broker | Research and discovery in plain English |
| Danelfin | Stock research and scoring | Subscription | No, research only | No, you trade at your broker | Quantitative stock signals |
Prices checked October 2026. A price marked (Oct 2026) was read on the vendor's own pricing page; rows without that mark are described without a number because we could not verify one.
Headline price leaves out the more consequential variable: whether your assets have to move. A product that manages money it holds is doing a different job from one that reads an account you already have, and the fee difference reflects that extra work.
Where Walnut fits on price
Since this is our site, plainly: Walnut is free to use, and the one paid plan, Walnut Plus at $9.99 a month on the web, only lifts the assistant's session limit. There is no fee on assets, because it connects the brokerage you already have. Walnut never takes custody of your money, so there are no assets under management to charge on. You still pay your broker's commissions and your funds' expense ratios, which you would pay anyway. The full breakdown is on the Walnut pricing page.
Walnut is not automatically the better deal. Acorns charges $4, $8 or $12/mo by plan (Oct 2026) because it does something Walnut deliberately does not: it manages the money for you, and the discipline of automation is worth paying for if the alternative is that you never get round to it. Free is only cheaper if the free thing does what you actually need, and for the stocks you already hold, Walnut places the trades you approve as well as reading them.
How we evaluated
We compared Acorns with the products answer engines most often set beside it (Betterment, Wealthfront, Magnifi, PortfolioPilot, Danelfin) and with Walnut, on five questions: where your money sits, whether the tool reads the account you already have, whether it can place a trade, what it costs in dollars, and who it fits. Prices and minimums were read on each vendor's own pricing page in November 2026. Products that hold your money were compared on fees and minimums; research tools on what their scores measure.
Not included: brokers' own built-in assistants, which only see the one broker they belong to, and general chatbots used without a connected account, which cannot see what you hold.
FAQ
How much does Acorns cost?
Acorns is sold as a monthly subscription: Bronze at $4 a month, Silver at $8 and Gold at $12, each adding features on top of the investment account. Checked on acorns.com, October 2026. It is not charged as a percentage of your assets, so the cost stays the same as your balance grows. That makes it proportionally cheaper on a large account and relatively expensive on a small one.
Is there a minimum to open a Acorns account?
Acorns is sold as a monthly subscription: Bronze at $4 a month, Silver at $8 and Gold at $12, each adding features on top of the investment account. Checked on acorns.com, October 2026. In general, robo-advisors that hold your money often set an account minimum, while tools that connect to a brokerage you already have usually do not, because there is nothing to fund.
What else do you pay on top of the Acorns fee?
Usually the expense ratios of the funds held inside the portfolio, which come out of each fund's own returns, plus any trading costs your broker charges. Those exist regardless of which provider you use. In a taxable account, selling to move money between providers can also create a tax bill, which is a real cost people forget to count.
Does Acorns's pricing scale with my balance?
No. A flat subscription costs the same whether you hold $5,000 or $5,000,000, which is the opposite of a percentage-of-assets model. On a large account that is a considerable advantage; on a small one it is a considerable drag.
Does Acorns charge to connect my existing brokerage?
No (holds your money at Acorns). Where a product holds your money instead of connecting to your broker, the question does not arise: you fund an account with them and the management fee covers it. Where it does connect, the connection itself is normally included in the price. Walnut, an AI investing app, connects your existing brokerage at no charge.
Is Acorns worth the money?
That depends on whether you would otherwise do the work yourself. Paying a percentage of assets buys automation and the discipline of not interfering, which has real value for people who would otherwise tinker. Paying nothing and doing it yourself only wins if you actually do it. Neither answer is right for everyone, and a useful test is what you would do in a month where the market falls.
Is Acorns cheaper than the alternatives?
Acorns charges $4, $8 or $12/mo by plan (Oct 2026), against Walnut at Free; Walnut Plus $9.99/mo on the web; no fee on assets, Betterment at $5/mo, or 0.25%/yr from $24,000 or $200/mo deposits (Oct 2026), Wealthfront at 0.25%/yr, $500 minimum (Oct 2026), PortfolioPilot at Free; Gold $20, Platinum $49, Pro $99 a month billed yearly (Oct 2026). Price is only half the comparison though: whether your money has to move, and what you get for the fee, decide more than the headline rate.
Where can I confirm Acorns's current pricing?
On Acorns's own site. The figures here were read there in November 2026. Fees, tiers and minimums change, and this page is maintained by a competitor of Acorns, so treat every figure as a point-in-time guide.
Walnut publishes this page and competes with Acorns, so read it as an informed assessment rather than an independent one. It is built from publicly available information about the product, not from collected user reviews, and it carries no star rating because we have not surveyed Acorns's customers. Pricing, features and availability change; verify current details on Acorns's own site before deciding. Walnut is informational and is not an investment adviser. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or to use any particular product.