Best Robo-Advisor in Canada, Ranked on All-In Cost

Last updated: October 5, 2026.

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Seven managed-portfolio services are priced on this page. Each will build and run a portfolio of ETFs for a Canadian for a published fee, and that published fee is not what the account pays. The best robo-advisor in Canada, measured honestly, is the one that takes the least out of the balance once all three costs of a managed account are counted: the platform fee blended through the provider’s own tier structure, the sales tax charged on that fee, and the management expense ratio of the ETFs inside the portfolio. Two of the seven schedules say in terms that tax is added to the fee, and only one publishes the fee and the fund layer as a single number.

Added up, the spread is wider than the headline rates suggest, and all of these figures are Ontario figures at 13% HST. Questwealth Portfolios is the lowest all-in cost in every table below, from $5,000 to $500,000, at 0.32% to 0.45%. From $5,000 to $100,000 it is first by a wide margin; at $500,000 the margin depends on a rate Wealthsimple publishes as a range and we model at its starting point, which the $500,000 table sets out. BMO SmartFolio carries the most expensive rate schedule of the seven, 0.84% to 1.14% all-in across the four tables, and it is last outright at $100,000 and at $500,000. It is not the most expensive account at every size, because at the bottom a fixed charge beats a high rate: at $5,000 Justwealth’s monthly minimum costs more than BMO does, and at $25,000 Nest Wealth’s flat monthly fee costs $372, three to four times what the same balance costs at Questwealth. Nest Wealth’s pricing page states its brackets twice and the two do not agree at that balance: on the second set the same $25,000 costs $710.50. The tables below use the first and flag the second wherever it bites.

Every figure was read off the provider’s own published fee schedule on September 28, 2026, blended through that provider’s tier structure, taxed at the Ontario rate, and added to the MER range the provider itself publishes. The ranges you see are the providers’ MER ranges, not our uncertainty. The method is set out below provider by provider, so any number on this page can be rebuilt from the rate, the tax and the fund layer.

This page measures cost. Cost is the part of the outcome a reader can know in advance, and the rest is a forecast. What cost does not tell you is what the fee buys, and these documents say a great deal less about the product than they do about the price. Where they do describe how a portfolio is built, they describe different things: Questrade calls Questwealth actively managed, and RBC InvestEase discloses that each of its model portfolios can hold up to 100% RBC iShares ETFs. Two of them also sell access to a human being, Wealthsimple as a named feature of its higher tiers and CI Direct as a general offer, and Wealthsimple prices that access on a schedule of its own. There is a section on all of that below the tables, and it includes the argument against ranking on cost at all.

Most readers arrive here having already narrowed it to two, and the two are usually Questwealth and Wealthsimple. That decision needs more than a rank: it needs the portfolios set side by side, the currency cost, the account types and the price of leaving, which is what Wealthsimple Invest vs Questwealth works through.

Managed investing is also one of two roads, and the other is choosing the holdings yourself in a self-directed account. If that is the direction you are leaning, the sibling decision is which app to hold the account at, and our investing apps hub covers that side of the market.

Questwealth Portfolios is Questrade’s managed service and the lowest all-in cost in this comparison, at 0.32% to 0.45% in Ontario including HST and the ETF MER. The management fee is 0.25% up to $99,999 and 0.20% at $100,000 and above, calculated daily and charged quarterly, and the minimum to be invested is $1,000. Open a Questrade account.

How to open a managed account in Canada

Before the ranking is worth anything, it helps to be clear about what is being opened, because the category name confuses people who have only dealt with a bank branch or a discount brokerage.

What a robo-advisor actually is

A robo-advisor is a registered portfolio manager. You answer a risk questionnaire, the firm puts your money into one of its model portfolios of ETFs, and it rebalances that portfolio for you on an ongoing basis. It is not a mutual fund salesperson: nobody phones you with a product. It is also not a discount broker, because you are not placing the trades and you are not picking the holdings. You are paying a fee for someone else to run a portfolio to a mandate.

The holdings are ordinary exchange-traded funds, the same instruments a self-directed investor buys. If you want to know what sits inside a portfolio like that, and which funds are worth holding on their own, our guide to Canadian ETFs works through the main building blocks.

Which account to open it in

A robo-advisor account is a wrapper decision as much as a provider decision. The usual choices are a TFSA, an RRSP, an FHSA, an RESP for a child, or a plain non-registered account, and the order you fill them in is worth more in most years than the fee difference between two providers. Our guide to TFSA, RRSP and FHSA works through which one takes the money first.

Coverage is not uniform. Questwealth covers the wrappers most readers need, TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, RESP and cash, and the comparison table on Questrade’s account-types page also shows Questwealth Portfolios available for spousal RRSPs, locked-in RRSPs and corporate cash. Wealthsimple’s help centre says an RESP can be opened as a Wealthsimple Trade account or as a Classic portfolio, which is its managed product, and Wealthsimple has no account minimum. Justwealth runs RESP, FHSA and RDSP accounts with no account minimum, and is the only provider here that names an RDSP. RBC InvestEase currently offers TFSA, FHSA, RRSP and non-registered accounts, and its own accounts page says an RESP is among the options it plans to add, so a parent shopping today has to work with what is open today.

What it costs to get started

The minimums differ, and at small balances they matter more than the fee rate does.

• Questwealth Portfolios: $1,000 to be invested in a portfolio.
• Wealthsimple: no account minimum, with Core pricing starting from $1 in assets.
• RBC InvestEase: no minimum to open, money is invested once the balance reaches $100, and balances under $1,500 may go into a Starter Portfolio.
• CI Direct Investing: the minimum balance before the account is invested can be as low as $100.
• Justwealth: $5,000 for all accounts except RESP, FHSA and RDSP, which have no minimum.

Then open it

The application is online and takes minutes: choose the account type, pass identity verification, connect a bank account for funding, and complete the risk questionnaire. Our walkthrough on how to open a brokerage account covers the same flow step by step, including the identification you will be asked for. Answer the questionnaire honestly rather than optimistically, because it decides which model portfolio you are put into, which makes rushing it the one step that genuinely costs you something. If you are moving an existing account across, read the transfer terms first: the reimbursements come with conditions, and one provider liquidates the securities you transfer in.

What you actually pay: three layers

Layer one, the platform fee. The advertised rate, but only the rate you pay if your balance happens to sit where the headline applies. Every provider here except RBC InvestEase varies the rate by balance, in three structurally different ways.

Layer two, the sales tax. Investment management is a taxable supply in Canada, so the fee is taxed like any other service whether or not a provider’s schedule mentions it. The authority is the Excise Tax Act, section 123. The GST/HST exemption runs to “financial services”, and the definition of that term in section 123(1) expressly excludes “an asset management service”, which the same subsection defines separately as managing or administering another person’s assets or liabilities, irrespective of how much discretion the manager has. Carved out of the definition means outside the exemption, and outside the exemption means taxable. That is why our figures add the tax for all seven. Two of the seven say so in terms beside the schedule this page prices. RBC InvestEase quotes its rate as “0.50% + applicable sales taxes”. Wealthsimple’s own schedule explains it to the reader: “The final thing to keep in mind about fees is that they are taxed. The same way you are charged sales taxes on a purchase you make at a store, you are taxed on the fees you pay to Wealthsimple.” Nest Wealth states it too, against its referred-client schedule rather than the fixed monthly brackets priced here: “Fees plus applicable taxes will be collected on a monthly basis by applying 1/12th of the annual service fee against the month end value”. BMO SmartFolio’s fee schedule mentions tax only against its closing fees, and Questwealth, Justwealth and CI Direct do not raise it beside their rates at all.

Layer three, the MER. The portfolio holds ETFs, and those funds charge their own management expense ratio. It is deducted inside the fund, so it never shows up as a line item on a statement and no transaction shows it leaving the account. Across the portfolios priced here it runs from 0.09% at the low end of Questwealth’s range to a stated 0.20% to 0.35% at BMO SmartFolio. Several providers also sell variants with a heavier fund layer than the portfolios in these tables, which the section on what the fee buys sets out. Justwealth is the only firm here that adds its own fee and the fund layer into one number for the reader, calling the total “0.70% (Justwealth fee of 0.50% and average ETF management fee of 0.20%)”. They deserve credit for that, and they still leave the tax out of it.

Three fee structures that do not compare by eye

Whole-balance pricing, where the boundary works for you

Questrade states it directly: “These fees are charged on the total market value of the account.” Wealthsimple publishes one rate per balance bracket with no “first $X / next $Y” language, which works the same way, and RBC InvestEase has a single rate and no brackets at all, which is the same idea with one step.

Charging the bracket rate on the whole balance puts a cliff at each boundary, in the reader’s favour: crossing into the next bracket re-prices everything below it, not just the new dollars.

Provider	Cost at $99,999	Cost at $100,000
Questwealth Portfolios	$372 a year (0.37%)	$316 a year (0.32%)
Wealthsimple	$685 a year (0.69%)	$572 a year (0.57%)

Both rows use the low end of each provider’s MER range. The fund layer is the same on either side of the boundary, so what the step measures is the fee. One dollar more in the account saves a Wealthsimple client $113 a year, for as long as the balance stays above the line, and the Questwealth row works the same way at the same balance for a smaller saving. The Questwealth step rests on the sentence quoted above. The Wealthsimple step is our reading of a schedule that gives one rate per bracket and never puts it on a marginal basis, so that $113 is what the reading implies rather than a figure Wealthsimple states. Those are the two boundaries on this page worth stepping over deliberately rather than by accident.

Marginal pricing, which works like tax brackets

BMO SmartFolio, Justwealth and CI Direct Investing publish “First $X / Next $Y” schedules, and each band is charged at its own rate. A $250,000 BMO SmartFolio account is not charged 0.60% on everything. It pays 0.70% on the first $100,000 and 0.60% on the next $150,000, which blends to 0.64% before tax. Marginal schedules have no cliffs in either direction, and the blended rate always sits above the lowest number printed on the page.

Flat monthly pricing, where the cliffs go the wrong way

Nest Wealth charges a fixed dollar amount per month by bracket. It is the most consequential structure on this list and the least discussed, because a flat fee by bracket makes the boundaries dollar cliffs that run against the reader. The brackets below are the ones the fee graphic on Nest Wealth’s pricing page plots; the Nest Wealth entry in the ranking sets out a conflicting text list on the same page.

Boundary	Annual cost below	Annual cost at	Effective rate
$9,999 to $10,000	$81	$352	0.81% to 3.52%
$74,999 to $75,000	$436	$776	0.58% to 1.03%
$149,999 to $150,000	$873	$1,551	0.58% to 1.03%
$324,999 to $325,000	$1,778	$2,456	0.55% to 0.76%

At $9,999 a Nest Wealth account costs 0.81% all-in, fourth cheapest of the seven. One dollar later it costs 3.52% and is the most expensive account on this page, and on the low end of each provider’s stated MER range it stays the most expensive until roughly $39,400 in Ontario, where BMO SmartFolio overtakes it. Priced on the high end of BMO’s own MER estimate instead, BMO passes it earlier, at about $33,500. The arithmetic eventually runs the other way: because the flat fee stops rising at $325,000, from about $460,000 Nest Wealth is the second-cheapest option here, and on the low end of Questwealth’s fund-layer range it passes Questwealth at about $1.09 million. At $1,000,000 that comparison is 0.33% against 0.32%, and at $1,200,000 it is 0.30% against 0.32%. All of those crossovers are Ontario figures and all of them are approximate. They are solved from the same schedules the tables use, they move with the provincial tax rate for the reason the Alberta comparison below sets out, and on the high end of Questwealth’s range Nest Wealth overtakes at a smaller balance.

A minimum fee is the same trap in miniature

Justwealth charges a minimum fee of $4.99 a month on all account types except RESP, FHSA and RDSP, which carry a $2.50 monthly minimum. $4.99 a month is $59.88 a year, which exceeds 0.50% of any balance below $11,976. Justwealth’s own account minimum is $5,000, so a general account opened at exactly the minimum pays 1.55% all-in against a headline rate of 0.50%. The minimum fee alone is 1.20% of $5,000.

That floor is also what makes the bottom of the ranking read strangely. Below about $8,554 a Justwealth account costs more than a BMO SmartFolio account priced on BMO’s low-end fund layer, and below about $7,191 in Ontario it costs more than BMO on the high end of that range. The first of those two is the one crossover on this page that does not move with the tax rate, because Justwealth’s stated 0.20% fund layer and the low end of BMO’s estimate are the same number, so the tax scales both sides of the comparison equally. Both crossovers sit well inside the $11,976 at which the minimum stops binding, so what beats the most expensive rate schedule at the bottom of the market is not a rate at all.

None of this is hidden. All of it is published, in three different places and on three different bases, which is why a headline rate is a poor way to choose.

The all-in cost tables

Fee schedules read September 28, 2026.

Every figure below is the total annual cost of the account: platform fee blended through the provider’s tiers, Ontario HST at 13% on that fee, and the ETF MER. Ranges reflect each provider’s stated MER range. Percentages are of the balance.

On $5,000

Provider	All-in annual cost	As a %	Note
Questwealth Portfolios	$19 to $23	0.37% to 0.45%	$1,000 minimum to be invested
Wealthsimple	$34 to $36	0.69% to 0.71%
RBC InvestEase	$34 to $38	0.69% to 0.77%	Starter Portfolio below $1,500
CI Direct Investing	$42 to $45	0.85% to 0.91%
BMO SmartFolio	$50 to $57	0.99% to 1.14%
Nest Wealth	$74	1.49%
Justwealth	$78	1.55%	minimum fee binds; $5,000 is its account minimum

At this size the structure decides everything. Justwealth, mid-table at $25,000 and $100,000, is last here because its $4.99 monthly minimum is larger than 0.50% of $5,000, and Nest Wealth is second last for the same reason in a different shape. Both of them cost more than BMO SmartFolio at this balance, which carries the most expensive rate schedule of the seven and still places fifth here.

On $25,000

Provider	All-in annual cost	As a %
Questwealth Portfolios	$93 to $113	0.37% to 0.45%
Wealthsimple	$171 to $179	0.69% to 0.71%
RBC InvestEase	$171 to $191	0.69% to 0.77%
Justwealth	$191	0.77%
CI Direct Investing	$212 to $227	0.85% to 0.91%
BMO SmartFolio	$248 to $285	0.99% to 1.14%
Nest Wealth	$372	1.49%

Nest Wealth’s $372 follows the brackets its pricing page’s fee graphic plots, and the Nest Wealth entry below sets out the conflicting text list on the same page. The cheapest and the most expensive differ by three to four times on the same $25,000, a gap of roughly $260 to $280 a year. A recurring charge of that size is worth running through our mutual fund fee calculator before deciding it is too small to matter, because the number it produces over a saving lifetime is not intuitive.

Note the middle of the table. Wealthsimple and RBC InvestEase both charge 0.50% plus tax and both start their fund layer at 0.12%, so at this balance they are identical at the low end and separate only because RBC’s MER range runs higher at the top. Justwealth’s base rate is 0.50% as well. Three of the seven have converged on the same platform fee, which leaves the fund layer to do the separating.

On $100,000

Provider	All-in annual cost	As a %
Questwealth Portfolios	$316 to $396	0.32% to 0.40%
Wealthsimple	$572 to $602	0.57% to 0.60%
RBC InvestEase	$685 to $765	0.69% to 0.77%
Justwealth	$765	0.77%
Nest Wealth	$808	0.81%
CI Direct Investing	$848 to $908	0.85% to 0.91%
BMO SmartFolio	$991 to $1,141	0.99% to 1.14%

On $500,000

Provider	All-in annual cost	As a %
Questwealth Portfolios	$1,580 to $1,980	0.32% to 0.40%
Nest Wealth	$2,684	0.54%
Wealthsimple	$2,860 to $3,010	0.57% to 0.60%
RBC InvestEase	$3,425 to $3,825	0.69% to 0.77%
CI Direct Investing	$3,449 to $3,749	0.69% to 0.75%
Justwealth	$3,825	0.77%
BMO SmartFolio	$4,220 to $4,970	0.84% to 0.99%

Nest Wealth’s move from last at $25,000 to second at $500,000 is the flat fee doing what a flat fee does. Everyone else’s cost grows with the balance. Nest Wealth’s stops growing at $325,000.

One modelling choice decides the top of this table, so it belongs beside it. Wealthsimple’s Generation tier begins at $500,000 and is published as “Starting at 0.4%, as low as 0.2%”, with no balance attached to the 0.2%. We model Generation at the 0.4% Wealthsimple publishes as its starting point, which is what puts it at $2,860 to $3,010 in the row above. Priced instead on the 0.2% floor, the same account costs $1,730 to $1,880 a year, or 0.35% to 0.38%, against Questwealth’s $1,580 to $1,980 and 0.32% to 0.40%. Those two ranges overlap rather than one sitting under the other: Questwealth is cheaper at the low end of both, Wealthsimple at the high end of both. At $1,000,000 the picture is the same, $3,460 to $3,760 against $3,160 to $3,960. A reader with $500,000 or more should ask Wealthsimple what rate they would actually be charged before treating the gap in this table as settled.

What the tax adds

On a $100,000 account the Ontario HST line alone is $26 at Questwealth, $52 at Wealthsimple, $65 at RBC InvestEase and $91 at BMO SmartFolio. It is charged at the client’s province rather than the provider’s, so the same account costs different amounts depending on where you file: 13% in Ontario, 14% in Nova Scotia, 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island, 5% GST in the western provinces and the territories, and 5% GST plus 9.975% QST in Quebec. The current rates are published by the Canada Revenue Agency.

A tax line of $91 a year sounds like a rounding error next to a portfolio. It is not, because it recurs, it scales with the balance, and it is charged in every year the account exists. That is the same reason the fee gap itself deserves an hour of attention, and it is the mechanism our explainer on compounding walks through in general terms.

The same order, different dollars

Every table above is Ontario. Here is the same $100,000 account in Alberta, where the tax on the fee is 5% GST rather than 13% HST.

Provider	All-in annual cost in Alberta	In Ontario, for comparison
Questwealth Portfolios	$300 to $380	$316 to $396
Wealthsimple	$540 to $570	$572 to $602
RBC InvestEase	$645 to $725	$685 to $765
Justwealth	$725	$765
Nest Wealth	$760	$808
CI Direct Investing	$800 to $860	$848 to $908
BMO SmartFolio	$935 to $1,085	$991 to $1,141

We ran the model in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. At the four balances these tables report, the order is the same in all four provinces. It does not follow that the order is the same at every balance, and the reason is this page’s own thesis turned on itself: the tax falls on the fee and not on the fund layer, so changing the rate changes the relative weight of the two layers, and that moves every crossover balance quoted here. Close to a crossover the order can genuinely flip. At $39,300, Ontario puts BMO SmartFolio’s low end a dollar below Nest Wealth, $389 against $390, and Alberta reverses it, $367 against $366.

So the dollars change with the province. The order at the balances we priced does not, and near a crossover it can.

One layer back: the fee can be deductible

There is a fourth adjustment that only applies outside a registered account. Questrade’s own pricing page says investment management fees are “tax deductible but only in non-registered accounts”, and points at the Canada Revenue Agency for the rules. So in a TFSA, RRSP, FHSA or RESP the sales tax is simply added and that is the end of it, while in a taxable account the fee itself may be deductible against income and some of the cost comes back at your marginal rate. It is the reason a cost comparison between two accounts of the same size can still land differently depending on which wrapper holds them.

Who manages the money, and who carries the protection

Registration and protection are two separate things, and the documents keep them in separate places. A firm registered as a portfolio manager is licensed to manage money on your behalf. What stands behind the account if the firm holding your securities becomes insolvent is Canadian Investor Protection Fund coverage, and that comes with membership in the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization. The coverage limits and the property that qualifies for them are published by CIPF.

The firm whose name is on the account is frequently not the member. Three of these seven say so in terms, naming a custodian or an affiliated dealer as the member instead, and one is the member itself. None of that is irregular. Splitting the manager from the custodian is ordinary in Canadian managed investing, and the reason it earns a section here is that a reader comparing seven fee schedules will not meet it on any of them.

Questwealth sets the split out in terms. Questwealth Portfolios is a service of Questrade Wealth Management Inc., which “is a registered Portfolio Manager, Investment Fund Manager, and Exempt Market Dealer and is responsible for managing your account”. Questrade, Inc. is the other half: a registered investment dealer, a member of CIRO and of CIPF, and the entity that “provides administrative, trade execution, custodial and reporting services to you”. Questrade’s own wording is that the CIPF benefits are “limited to the activities undertaken by Questrade, Inc.” and that “QWM is not a member of CIRO or the CIPF”.

Nest Wealth is the same shape with outside firms. Nest Wealth Asset Management Inc. is a registered portfolio manager in ten provinces and a member of the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments, the Portfolio Management Association of Canada and the Securities and Investment Management Association, and it says it uses “third-party custodians Fidelity Clearing Canada and National Bank Independent Network who are members of CIRO and of CIPF”.

CI Direct answers the question under the heading “How safe is my money?”, and its answer is about its custodians rather than itself: all of them are “Canadian custodians under applicable securities laws and members of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund”, providing protection “for your accounts in case of the custodians’ insolvency for up to $1 million per account type”.

BMO SmartFolio is the case here where the firm managing the money is itself the member. Its fee schedule says: “BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. is a Member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund and Member of the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization.”

The other three documents answer a narrower question. Wealthsimple’s account comparison marks CIPF coverage as included across its managed tiers, with a note that the coverage “protects you if your investment dealer becomes insolvent”, which points at the same distinction in shorter form: the dealer is the covered entity. Justwealth’s pricing page states its own registration, “Justwealth Financial Inc., operating as Justwealth, is a registered Portfolio Manager” in ten provinces and Yukon. RBC InvestEase describes itself as a restricted portfolio manager, which its entry in the ranking below sets out in full. Registration is the licence to manage the money, and it is a different question from who holds it.

So the useful takeaway is a question rather than a ranking. Ask which entity will actually hold the securities, and whether that entity is a CIRO member, because that is where the coverage sits. It is worth asking of any account you open, managed or self-directed.

What the fee buys

A cost table invites the assumption that the products behind the prices are interchangeable. They are not, and what these documents tell you about the difference is thinner than what they tell you about the price.

Questwealth Portfolios describes itself as actively managed. Questrade’s own words are that “Your portfolio is actively managed by experts who aim to reduce risk and maximize your gains”, and that sentence sits on the Questwealth Portfolios page, beside the 0.25% and 0.20% rates rather than inside a fee table. It also offers socially responsible portfolios, whose ETFs carry a higher fund layer at 0.20% to 0.30%.

RBC InvestEase answers the other half of the same question, and answers it in its prices. The legal disclaimer block on its pricing and fees page, the document this comparison uses as RBC’s schedule, states that each model portfolio can hold up to 100% RBC iShares ETFs, and the identical paragraph is carried across its other pages. The RBC entry below quotes it in full. So where these documents describe how a portfolio is built, they describe different things: Questrade the approach, RBC the composition. Neither statement is the kind of thing a fee table is shaped to hold, and both are published beside the fees anyway.

What all six of the others publish is the fund layer inside each variant. Wealthsimple has Classic, socially responsible and Halal portfolios, at 0.12% to 0.15%, 0.21% to 0.23% and 0.25% to 0.50% respectively, and its schedule adds a composition note of its own: where a portfolio holds Wealthsimple’s own ETFs, as its socially responsible portfolios do, Wealthsimple receives a portion of their MER. RBC InvestEase has Core and Responsible Investing portfolios at 0.12% to 0.20% and 0.17% to 0.25%, and under $1,500 a Starter Portfolio that “invests in a limited selection of RBC iShares ETFs and/or cash”, which is worth knowing before paying 0.50% plus tax on a small balance. CI Direct’s ETF portfolios run Safety at 0.17%, Conservative at 0.19% and Balanced, Growth and Aggressive at 0.23%, figures it dates April 30, 2024. Justwealth states an average ETF management fee of 0.20%, Nest Wealth an average portfolio MER of 0.13%, and BMO SmartFolio a weighted average that “will likely be” 0.20% to 0.35%.

Two of them sell access to a person, and put it in writing. Wealthsimple’s Premium tier, which begins at $100,000 in assets, is sold on the fee schedule itself on “lower fees and tailored advice”, and the managed investing list on that same page names “Financial goal setting with an advisor”. Generation, at $500,000, adds a “Dedicated team of advisors” and a “Comprehensive financial plan”. CI Direct makes a general offer rather than a tier feature, on its main investing page: “Our portfolio managers can answer your questions about investing, and our financial planners can work with you to build a financial plan so you can meet your goals.” Neither of those belongs in a cost table, and neither should be read across to the other five. But it changes what the gap between first and second place is a gap in. A reader weighing 0.57% against 0.32% at $100,000 is not pricing two identical services, and a financial plan or a named advisor is a thing some readers want and this page does not measure.

Wealthsimple also prices the advice relationship itself, on a second schedule, and it replaces the rate in these tables rather than adding to it. The same fee page carries it: “If you choose to receive On Demand Advice or Wealth Management Services, the fee below replaces the investment management fee above.” Replaces, not adds. That schedule charges 0.90% on total assets below $1,000,000 and steps down above it, and it carries an entry requirement: “The minimum requirement to participate in On Demand Advice is $100,000, and in Wealth Management is $1,000,000 held in managed investing accounts (Managed Accounts) with Wealthsimple.” The tier features above stand as published, and this schedule is what applies if a client elects On Demand Advice or Wealth Management Services instead. The 0.90% is a fee rate, quoted before the sales tax and the fund layer that every figure in our tables includes, and on that same basis it sits above the top band of BMO SmartFolio’s schedule, the most expensive rate schedule of the seven, and against Questwealth’s 0.20% at $100,000. It is the number a reader who wants a person in the loop should have before treating 0.32% and 0.57% as the whole range of what advice costs.

CI Direct also sells two ranges beside the ETF portfolios: Private Investment Portfolios at 1.53% to 2.92%, and Impact Portfolios at 0.49% to 0.56%. The cost model here covers the ETF portfolios.

The argument against ranking on cost

Cost is knowable in advance and a return is not, which is the whole reason this page ranks the one and not the other. But cost is not the outcome. An account paying 0.57% can finish ahead of one paying 0.32% if what it holds does better, and a 25 basis point gap is a small thing next to the range of results a portfolio can deliver over a decade. Active management, by construction, can diverge from whatever a fixed allocation would have returned, in either direction, and nothing in a fee schedule tells you which way. So the honest claim is the narrow one: Questwealth costs the least of the seven, on their own published numbers, and that is a real and permanent advantage rather than a prediction. A reader who has a view on a particular manager is making a judgement this page cannot make for them.

The ranking

The order below is the model’s order at $100,000. It is not the order at every balance. Questwealth, Wealthsimple and RBC InvestEase hold the top three at $5,000, $25,000 and $100,000, and at $500,000 Nest Wealth’s flat fee pushes into second. Below the top three the order moves with the balance: Justwealth is fourth at $25,000 and $100,000 and last at $5,000 where its monthly minimum binds, and Nest Wealth is last at $25,000 and second at $500,000.

1. Questwealth Portfolios

The lowest all-in cost we measured at every balance in the tables, from its $1,000 investing minimum through $500,000, at 0.32% to 0.45% in Ontario. At $100,000 that is between about half and just over two thirds of Wealthsimple’s cost, 53% to 69% of it depending which ends of the two ranges apply, and 28% to 40% of BMO SmartFolio’s on the same basis.

Two qualifications on that first place, both at the top of the balance range. Priced on the 0.2% floor Wealthsimple also publishes for Generation, a $500,000 account overlaps Questwealth’s range rather than losing to it, as the $500,000 table sets out, and the same holds at $1,000,000. And Nest Wealth’s flat fee passes Questwealth at about $1.09 million in Ontario, on the low end of Questwealth’s fund-layer range. From $5,000 to $100,000 nothing on this page gets under Questwealth on any of those bases.

Say the obvious thing first: Questrade is an affiliate partner of ours and we are paid when a reader opens a Questwealth account. We are paid on Wealthsimple too, through the refer-a-friend link in the second entry below, which pays the reader as well. Those are the only two commercial relationships on this page and Questrade is the larger of them. That is a reason to check our arithmetic, so here it is. The management fee is 0.25% on a balance of $250 to $99,999 and 0.20% at $100,000 and above, calculated daily, charged quarterly, and charged on the total market value of the account. Add Ontario HST at 13% to the fee, add the fund layer, and $25,000 comes to $93 to $113 a year. Every input is on Questrade’s Questwealth Portfolios fees page, and the same three-step calculation applied to the other six produced the tables above.

One number here needs its construction stated. The visible pricing page puts the standard portfolios’ ETF MERs at 0.09% to 0.12%. The structured data behind the same page says “typically 0.10%-0.17%”. We modelled 0.09% to 0.17%, which is neither of those two ranges but the union of them, the lower of the two low ends and the higher of the two highs, and so wider than either range Questrade publishes. The same structured data carries a third statement, putting the standard portfolios at 0.17% to 0.22%, so 0.17% is the top of the two ranges we modelled rather than the highest figure Questrade publishes. On that third reading a $100,000 Questwealth account costs $446 a year against Wealthsimple’s $572 on the low end of its own range, so first place does not turn on which statement is used. On $25,000 the two ends are the difference between $93 and $113 a year, and Questwealth still finishes first at every balance in the tables. The socially responsible portfolios are quoted here on the same union basis, 0.20% to 0.30%, where that third statement reads 0.21% to 0.35%.

Three details before you transfer. Questrade rebates transfer-in fees up to $150 per account with no limit on the number of accounts, and the rebate has a deadline attached: you have to “submit a statement from your financial institution displaying the transfer fees incurred within 60 days of the transfer request being submitted to Questrade”. Its own carve-out for Questwealth accounts is that all-in-kind and partial transfers of securities will be liquidated, and it says so plainly: “Transfers from cash accounts may be subject to capital gains taxes or provide capital losses upon liquidation.” Moving a taxable account across is a realisation event rather than a change of address. And its My Family program invites the same consolidation: “Link your account with the accounts of friends and family members to take advantage of reduced fees.” That is the same relationship-pricing idea Wealthsimple and BMO run in their own forms.

Going the other way costs money too: Questrade’s administrative fee schedule lists $150.00 to transfer an account out to another institution, and $150.00 for a partial transfer.

On currency, the schedule describes “a fee of 100 pips (or 0.01) added to the exchange rate” when US dollars have to be bought or sold. In percentage terms, which is how the other two providers that disclose a conversion cost state theirs, that is about 0.70%. This is our arithmetic on their figure: 0.01 divided by the Bank of Canada’s daily USD/CAD exchange rate of 1.4246 on October 2, 2026. That is above Wealthsimple’s 0.40% and well below BMO’s up to 1.8%.

2. Wealthsimple

0.57% to 0.71% all-in. Core is 0.50% from $1 in assets, Premium is 0.40% at $100,000, and Generation at $500,000 is published as starting at 0.4% and going as low as 0.2%, modelled here at the 0.4% starting point for the reason the $500,000 table gives. The Classic portfolios carry ETF MERs of 0.12% to 0.15%, the socially responsible portfolios 0.21% to 0.23% and the Halal portfolios 0.25% to 0.50%, and Wealthsimple discloses that it receives a portion of the MER on its own ETFs inside those last two. Those MER figures come from the Wealthsimple Help Centre page on managed investing MERs, updated September 23, 2026.

Below $100,000 it is level with RBC InvestEase rather than ahead of it, because both charge 0.50% plus tax and both start their fund layer at 0.12%. It sorts higher only on the top of the range.

The two upper tiers are also where the advice sits. Premium is sold on “lower fees and tailored advice” with “Financial goal setting with an advisor”, and Generation on a “Dedicated team of advisors” and a “Comprehensive financial plan”. Electing On Demand Advice or Wealth Management Services is a different arrangement again, on the separate schedule the section on what the fee buys sets out. Whether any of it is worth the step up from the cheapest schedule on this page is a judgement about what you want the account to do, not an arithmetic question.

Two things make it the default for small accounts. There is no account minimum at all, and its help centre says an RESP can be opened as a Classic portfolio, so a managed RESP can be started with whatever is in hand. On a $1,000 RESP that works out to roughly $7 a year all in, at the Ontario rate used throughout this page.

The tier test is unusual enough to deserve its own sentence. Wealthsimple’s schedule sets the tier by whichever is higher, the value of your net deposits or the value of your total assets across all your Wealthsimple accounts, while charging only on assets held in managed accounts. A reader with $60,000 managed and $45,000 in Wealthsimple chequing or savings is at Premium pricing on the managed money, which is a real advantage for someone who already banks there. Currency conversion runs 0.40%, charged by Wealthsimple Investments Inc. as custodian. The full schedule is on Wealthsimple’s managed investing fees page, and this is another we benefit from: you can open a Wealthsimple account here.

These two also compete just as directly on their self-directed sides, and our head-to-head on Questrade vs Wealthsimple works through that half of the comparison.

3. RBC InvestEase

0.69% to 0.77% all-in, and identical to Wealthsimple at the low end below $100,000. RBC InvestEase charges “0.50% + applicable sales taxes”, billed monthly on average assets under management, with one rate and no brackets. That makes it the simplest schedule on this list, and it also means the account never gets cheaper as it grows: at $500,000 it costs the same percentage it costs at $25,000, while two of the three providers ranked below it there have stepped their rate down at least once by then. The third, Justwealth, has not, because its 0.40% band only begins above $500,000.

It is also unusually specific about whose funds go into the portfolio, and the disclosure is worth reading in full before picking third place. It sits in the legal disclaimer block on the pricing and fees page itself, directly above the disclaimer that states the 0.50% rate, and the identical paragraph is carried on RBC InvestEase’s other pages: “RBC InvestEase is a restricted portfolio manager providing access to model portfolios consisting of RBC iShares ETFs with each model portfolio holding up to 100% of RBC iShares ETFs.” RBC iShares is the strategic alliance between RBC Global Asset Management and BlackRock Canada, so a portfolio here can be built entirely from funds managed inside the manager’s own corporate family and its alliance partner. Nothing about that is hidden and nothing about it is unusual for a bank-owned service. It is the sort of thing to weigh against a fund layer quoted at 0.12% to 0.20%.

The Core Portfolios hold ETFs with a weighted average MER of 0.12% to 0.20%, the Responsible Investing Portfolios 0.17% to 0.25%. There is no minimum to open and money goes to work once the balance reaches $100, with balances under $1,500 allocated to a Starter Portfolio that invests in a limited selection of RBC iShares ETFs “and/or cash”. That is worth pausing on, because the fee is charged on the account value whether the money is in ETFs or in cash. Transferring in is reimbursed up to $200 when you transfer $15,000 or more from a financial institution not affiliated with RBC; transferring out costs $150 plus applicable sales taxes. The account menu covers TFSA, FHSA, RRSP and non-registered today, with an RESP among the account types RBC says it plans to add. The schedule is on RBC InvestEase’s pricing page.

4. Justwealth

0.77% all-in at most balances, on marginal tiers of 0.50% on the first $500,000 and 0.40% above that. At $5,000 its own minimum fee makes it the most expensive option on this page at 1.55%, a strange outcome for a provider whose account minimum is exactly $5,000.

Its distinctive ground is the registered accounts. Justwealth waives the $5,000 account minimum on RESP, FHSA and RDSP accounts and halves the monthly fee floor on them, to $2.50 rather than $4.99, and it is the only provider on this page that names an RDSP at all. That last point matters, because a family looking for a managed RDSP has one option here rather than a ranking.

It is not, however, the cheap answer for a small RESP, and the arithmetic says so plainly. A $2.50 monthly floor is $30 a year, about $36 with Ontario HST and the fund layer on a $1,000 balance, where Wealthsimple opens a managed RESP as a Classic portfolio with no minimum for roughly $7 on the same basis. Justwealth’s floor is a better deal than its own $4.99, not a better deal than a percentage of a small number. Our guide to RESP investing covers what belongs inside the account once it is open.

Justwealth’s own stated average ETF management fee is 0.20%, and its published comparison adds the two layers together as “0.70% (Justwealth fee of 0.50% and average ETF management fee of 0.20%)”. That is the only place on this list where a provider does that arithmetic for the reader, even though the sales tax is still missing from it. The schedule is on Justwealth’s pricing page.

5. Nest Wealth

The hardest provider here to rank, because its cost depends on where the balance sits against four cliffs rather than on a rate. The schedule is a fixed monthly fee by bracket: $5 under $10,000, $25 from $10,000 to under $75,000, $50 from $75,000 to under $150,000, $100 from $150,000 to under $325,000, and $150 at $325,000 and above. The average portfolio MER is 0.13% on Nest Wealth’s own figure, the lowest fund layer on this page.

Before the analysis, a disclosure about those brackets. Nest Wealth’s pricing page states them in two places and the two disagree. The fee graphic at the top of the Direct clients section, the first statement of the schedule a visitor meets, plots the brackets quoted above, and that is the version our model follows. A text list further down the same section gives $25 only up to $25,000 and then $50 from $25,000 to under $150,000. Only the middle brackets differ, so the only figures on this page they touch are balances from $25,000 to just under $75,000: on the text list’s brackets a $25,000 account costs $710.50 a year, or 2.84%, instead of $372 and 1.49%, and the step in the cliff table above would fall at $25,000 rather than $75,000. Check which brackets your own agreement uses before you rely on either number.

Below $10,000 it is mid-pack at 0.81% all-in. From $10,000 to roughly $39,400 in Ontario it is the most expensive account here, at its worst on a balance of exactly $10,000, where the all-in cost is 3.52%. Above about $460,000 in Ontario it is the second-cheapest option on this page, and around and above $1 million it competes with Questwealth for first. Balances rarely sit still, so the honest version is that Nest Wealth suits a large account and punishes one that has just crossed a boundary. Referred clients are on a different basis, 0.35% a year with a minimum of $5 and a maximum of $150 a month, and it is that schedule the page’s billing and tax wording sits under: “Fees plus applicable taxes will be collected on a monthly basis by applying 1/12th of the annual service fee against the month end value of the accounts managed by Nest Wealth.” Our model uses the standard fixed schedule. The brackets are published on Nest Wealth’s pricing page.

6. CI Direct Investing

0.85% to 0.91% all-in at $25,000, falling to 0.69% to 0.75% at $500,000 as the marginal bands bite. The tiers are 0.60% on the first $150,000, 0.40% on the next $350,000 and 0.35% above $500,000. Its place in the order moves around more than most: fourth at $5,000, fifth at $25,000, sixth at $100,000 and fifth again at $500,000, because the flat-fee and minimum-fee providers around it change shape faster than it does.

The ETF portfolio MERs are published per portfolio: Safety 0.17%, Conservative 0.19%, and Balanced, Growth and Aggressive 0.23%, dated April 30, 2024 by CI Direct, the oldest disclosure on this page. One note on how CI Direct uses its own numbers. The savings comparison it runs against mutual funds assumes, in its words, “CI Direct Investing’s management fee plus the 0.17% MER of our Balanced ETF portfolio”, while the MER table on the same page puts the Balanced portfolio at 0.23% and 0.17% at Safety. Both figures are published, and they are published on the same page.

The account can be invested from as little as $100, and transfers of $25,000 or more have costs covered up to $150. The same sentence on its pricing page goes further on the way out: “if you’re not completely satisfied, we’ll waive our transfer-out fees”. Two other ranges sit on the same page and are not what we priced: Private Investment Portfolios at 1.53% to 2.92%, and Impact Portfolios at 0.49% to 0.56%. The pricing is on CI Direct Investing’s pricing page.

7. BMO SmartFolio

The most expensive rate schedule on this page, 0.84% to 1.14% all-in across the four tables, and last outright at $100,000 and at $500,000. The advisory fee is marginal: 0.70% on the first $100,000, 0.60% on the next $150,000, 0.50% on the next $250,000 and 0.40% above $500,000, charged quarterly in arrears on average assets for the quarter. The rate steps down properly as the account grows, which is more than RBC InvestEase does, and it starts high enough that the steps never catch the field within the balances priced here.

What does get above it is not another rate. It is the two providers whose charges are fixed rather than proportional. At the bottom of the market both of them cost more than BMO: Justwealth’s $4.99 monthly minimum and Nest Wealth’s flat monthly fee are between them why BMO places fifth of seven rather than last in the $5,000 table, for the reasons the minimum-fee and flat-fee sections set out. Nest Wealth is still above it at $25,000, $372 against BMO’s $248 to $285. And between $150,000 and about $166,000 in Ontario, Nest Wealth’s flat fee has just stepped up to $100 a month: at $150,000 that is $1,551 against BMO’s $1,430 at the low end of its fund-layer estimate.

The fund layer is the vaguest disclosure here: the schedule says the weighted average MER of the ETFs held “will likely be a weighted average of 0.20% to 0.35%” of the account value, and the hedge word is theirs. On a $100,000 account the two ends of that range are $150 a year apart. Currency conversion is the other outlier, with BMO Nesbitt Burns acting as principal and earning “spread revenue of up to 1.8% from a foreign currency conversion”, the highest disclosed conversion cost on this page by a distance. Transferring out costs $150 per account, full or partial, and a cheque request is $10. Accounts can be grouped by household to reach lower pricing, which is the main lever a SmartFolio client has on their own rate. The schedule is the BMO SmartFolio fee schedule.

Where cost is not the deciding factor

What the portfolio actually is. Two providers say something about it and they say different things, both quoted above. Questwealth’s own description is about approach: actively managed by its experts. RBC InvestEase’s is about composition, in a disclaimer carried on its pages including the pricing and fees page: each model portfolio can hold up to 100% RBC iShares ETFs. Wealthsimple’s schedule discloses a narrower piece of the same question, that its socially responsible portfolios hold Wealthsimple’s own ETFs and that it keeps a share of their MER. Beyond those three the fee schedules are silent on composition, so it is a question to put to the firm.

The account type you need. Wealthsimple opens a managed RESP as a Classic portfolio with no account minimum, which makes it the cheapest home for an RESP too small to meet Questwealth’s $1,000 investing minimum. At $1,000 itself Questwealth is already cheaper, $3.72 a year against $6.85, both on the low end of each provider’s fund-layer range and both in Ontario. Justwealth is the only provider here that names an RDSP, and it charges a reduced $2.50 monthly floor on RESP, FHSA and RDSP accounts. RBC InvestEase does not offer an RESP today. If the wrapper you need is offered in only one or two places, the cost ranking is a tiebreaker rather than a decision.

Where the rest of your money already is. Wealthsimple sets the fee tier on the higher of net deposits or total assets across all your Wealthsimple accounts. BMO SmartFolio allows accounts to be grouped by household. Questrade’s My Family program links accounts with family and friends for reduced fees. Three different mechanisms, all of which reward consolidating in one place.

The size and direction of the balance. Nest Wealth’s flat fee is the wrong structure at $10,000 and one of the better ones above $460,000. A balance about to cross one of its boundaries, in either direction, changes the answer.

What the tables point to

Four readings the tables support, on cost alone.

Starting from nothing. Below Questwealth’s $1,000 investing minimum, Wealthsimple and RBC InvestEase are level rather than ranked. Both charge 0.50% plus tax and both start their fund layer at 0.12%, which is why the $5,000 table puts them at $34 to $36 and $34 to $38, and neither has a minimum to open. What separates them is what happens to the money once it arrives: Wealthsimple invests from the first dollar, while RBC InvestEase holds the balance until it reaches $100 and routes anything under $1,500 into a Starter Portfolio of “a limited selection of RBC iShares ETFs and/or cash”. A $1,000 managed account at Wealthsimple costs roughly $7 a year in Ontario. At $1,000 and above the answer changes to Questwealth, which is cheaper at every balance in these tables and costs $3.72 a year on that same $1,000.

A balance between $10,000 and about $39,400. That band is where Nest Wealth’s flat fee is at its most expensive against the field in Ontario, and it is at its worst the moment the balance reaches $10,000, where the all-in cost is 3.52%. Measured the way this page measures the band, on the low end of each provider’s stated MER range, everything else here costs less through the stretch, and the band closes where BMO SmartFolio’s low end overtakes Nest Wealth. One exception sits at the very top of it: priced on the high end of its own MER estimate rather than the low end, BMO costs more than Nest Wealth before the band closes. At $39,300 the low-end comparison is $389 against $390, which is how close the two run by then.

A balance near $100,000. Questwealth and Wealthsimple both re-price the whole balance at the lower bracket rate, so the dollar that takes an account from $99,999 to $100,000 is worth $113 a year at Wealthsimple and a smaller amount at Questwealth, in every year the balance stays above the line. If you are close, cross it on purpose.

Wanting a person in the loop. That is what Wealthsimple’s Premium and Generation tiers and CI Direct’s planners put in writing, and it is not a cost argument. These tables price what each provider charges to manage the money. Wealthsimple prices an advice relationship on a schedule of its own, which replaces the rate in these tables rather than adding to it, and the section on what the fee buys gives that rate and the minimum attached to it. A reader who wants a financial plan is buying something this ranking does not measure.

Questwealth Portfolios came first on measured all-in cost in every table in this comparison, from $5,000 to $500,000, at 0.32% to 0.45% in Ontario including HST and the ETF MER. The schedule behind those figures is Questrade’s own, and every number on this page can be rebuilt from it. Open a Questrade account.

If you would rather do it yourself

Everything above is the price of having someone else run the portfolio. The alternative is buying a handful of ETFs in a self-directed account and rebalancing them yourself, which removes the platform fee and the tax charged on it and leaves only the fund layer. They all hold ETFs of the kind a self-directed investor can buy. The trade is your time, your discipline in a bad month, and whatever your broker charges to trade.

That leaves a price worth putting beside the tables. Vanguard’s Balanced ETF Portfolio, ticker VBAL, is a single asset-allocation ETF, and Vanguard publishes its management fee at 0.17% and its management expense ratio at 0.22%, both read October 5, 2026, on a fund that has run since January 25, 2018. On $100,000 the MER comes to about $220 a year, against $316 to $396 at Questwealth and $991 to $1,141 at BMO SmartFolio in the $100,000 table above, and there is no platform fee and so no sales tax on one, because the MER is charged inside the fund. Treat that as a benchmark rather than an eighth row: it is one fund rather than a service, and what the difference buys you out of is the rebalancing, the account setup and every decision about both, all of which become yours. Our breakdown of trading fees in Canada is the direct counterpart to the arithmetic on this page, and it is the comparison worth making before accepting a management fee for the life of an account.

If that is the road you take, the account choice comes next. Our rankings of the best broker for a TFSA and the best broker for beginners cover where to hold it.

Frequently asked questions

What does a robo-advisor actually cost in Canada? More than the advertised rate, in every case we measured. At $25,000 the all-in cost runs from 0.37% to 0.45% at Questwealth Portfolios up to 1.49% at Nest Wealth, and at $100,000 from 0.32% to 1.14%. Nest Wealth’s own pricing page states two different sets of brackets at $25,000, so that balance costs either $372 and 1.49% or $710.50 and 2.84% depending which set applies, and this page gives both. The extremes come from structure rather than rates: Justwealth’s $4.99 monthly minimum makes a $5,000 general account cost 1.55% against a headline of 0.50%, and Nest Wealth’s flat fee makes a balance of exactly $10,000 cost 3.52%. All figures include the platform fee, Ontario HST at 13% and the ETF MER, data as of September 28, 2026.

Is the management fee taxed? Yes. Investment management is a taxable supply in Canada, so the tax applies whether or not a provider’s schedule mentions it, and our figures add it for all seven. Two schedules state it for the portfolios priced here: RBC InvestEase quotes “0.50% + applicable sales taxes”, and Wealthsimple’s schedule explains to the reader that fees are taxed like a purchase in a store. Nest Wealth states it against its referred-client schedule rather than the fixed monthly brackets this page prices. The rate is your province’s, not the provider’s: 13% in Ontario, 14% in Nova Scotia, 15% in New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island, 5% GST in the western provinces and territories, and 5% GST plus 9.975% QST in Quebec. On a $100,000 account the Ontario tax line alone is $26 at Questwealth and $91 at BMO SmartFolio. In a non-registered account the fee itself may be deductible, which Questrade’s own page confirms and points at the CRA for.

What is an MER, and why is it not on my statement? The management expense ratio is the annual cost of the ETFs your portfolio holds, charged inside the funds themselves. It is deducted from fund assets before the price you see is struck, so it never appears as a line item and no transaction shows it leaving your account. Across the portfolios measured here it runs from 0.09% to 0.17% at Questwealth up to a stated 0.20% to 0.35% at BMO SmartFolio, and it is charged on top of the management fee and the tax.

How much do you need to start? It varies more than the fees do. Wealthsimple has no account minimum, with Core pricing from $1 in assets. RBC InvestEase invests once the balance reaches $100, with a Starter Portfolio under $1,500. CI Direct Investing can invest a balance from as little as $100. Questwealth Portfolios requires $1,000 to be invested in a portfolio. Justwealth requires $5,000 on everything except RESP, FHSA and RDSP accounts, which have no minimum.

Which provider suits a small RESP? It turns on the size, and every figure here is an Ontario figure. Below Questwealth’s $1,000 investing minimum the answer is Wealthsimple: its help centre says an RESP can be opened as a Classic portfolio, it has no account minimum, and a $1,000 managed RESP costs roughly $7 a year all in. Justwealth also waives its minimum on RESP accounts and charges a reduced $2.50 monthly floor on them, but a floor is a fixed charge: the same $1,000 balance costs about $36 there. At $1,000 and above Questwealth is the cheapest of the three, $3.72 against Wealthsimple’s $6.85 at that balance on the low end of each fund-layer range, and $19 to $23 a year on $5,000.

Is a robo-advisor worth it compared with doing it yourself? It depends what you are buying. A managed account buys a model portfolio, automatic rebalancing and the removal of the decision about what to do in a falling market, and at Wealthsimple’s higher tiers it also buys access to an advisor or a financial plan, which CI Direct offers its clients generally. What it costs is the platform fee, the tax on that fee and the fund layer, which across these seven runs from about 0.32% to over 1% a year depending on provider and balance. A self-directed portfolio of ETFs removes the first two layers and leaves the third, in exchange for doing the rebalancing and the deciding yourself. Questwealth describes its portfolios as actively managed, which is a different proposition from holding index funds yourself, and RBC InvestEase discloses in the legal disclaimers carried on its pages, its pricing and fees page included, that each of its model portfolios can hold up to 100% RBC iShares ETFs. This page ranks what each option costs, not how either performs.

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