TD Ameritrade vs Betterment:
The TD Ameritrade and Betterment are two different investment services, comes with different prices. There is overlap in certain areas, while they emphasize trading and investing in a different style. Here in this article, we will try to find out their strengths and weaknesses.
About TD Ameritrade:
TD Ameritrade was first started back in the year 1971 in Omaha, Nebraska. Joe Ricketts is the founder of this company. TD Ameritrade was first started as a small investment first and gradually, then grew up to a company with $26 billion assets. They trade financial assets, such as futures contracts, options, cryptocurrency, mutual funds, and fixed-income investments.
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About Betterment:
Betterment is a well-known investment company of New York. This company was launched back in the year 2008. They have also registered Exchange Commission and the U.S. Security. They offer automated investment management for less than the price of other companies.
Difference between TD Ameritrade and Betterment:
Education and Research:
Usually, Betterment doesn’t specialize in the trading of individual assets. On individual investments, there are no educational or research materials available. They also offer portfolio analysis tools.
In the TD Ameritrade, comes with the resources on individual securities. In the TD Ameritrade, they offer a good portion of the site, they offer articles and videos on many investment topics.
TD Ameritrade is the winner here.
Range of Investments:
Betterment customers usually spend in the Robo portfolio composed of low-cost ETF’s. Here in the Betterment, both debit and equally funds are used. Here they do not provide any other assets.
While the TD Ameritrade investors get ETF’s plus stocks, options, forex, mutual, bonds, and futures contracts.
TD Ameritrade might win here too.
Also Read : Brief Comparison Between Personal Capital and Mint
Managed Accounts and Financial Advice:
Although TD Ameritrade serves the self-directed accounts, you will get several managed account options with the brokerage house and some of them include one traditional financial advice. They provide offer a Robo package. For that, you will be cost just 30 basis points every year and carries $5,000 starting points minimum. While the traditional points are coming with the inhuman advice. The range of traditional package starts from 0.60% to 0.90%, with the stocks.
While Betterment is mainly a Robo advisor service. The cost for the digital service starts from 0.25% with a $0 minimum balance. The premium packages of Betterment come with limitless access to human advisors. Still, the broker’s software is responsible for every trading decision. For this program, you will cost 40 bases with a very steep $100,000 commitment.
Overall, TD Ameritrade has the upper edge here.
Trading Technology:
Betterment’s trading service is work on autopilot. So, there is not much to do with the Betterment account. As for the result, Betterment doesn’t have many trading tools on it. Although it is very simple to navigate, there will be no trading platform. To invest with the broker, you can choose the model portfolio and make a deposit and then you can easily monitor your account with some basic analysis tools.
But TD Ameritrade, it is completely a different story. As we found that, this website is capable of placing trades for many different asset classes. You will get the trade bar at the bottom of the page.
In the Betterment site, there is charting at all. But TD Ameritrade has a graphing software that is capable of technical analysis and comparisons.
So, TD Ameritrade once again emerges as the better option.
Mobile Apps:
Betterment mobile app is available in both the Android and iOS platform. The mobile app is coming with a very simple user interface and offers many notable features. With the app, you will get the same portfolio analysis tools as you get on the website. But the disappointment is that you cannot find a mobile check deposit function in the app.
Not like the Betterment, TD Ameritrade comes with the three apps. One among these three apps even compatible with the Windows 10 platform. You might not get many features on Betterment’s app. Some of the features, which are absent in the Betterment app, charting, check deposit, options trading, live streaming of financial news, bill pay, etc.
So, in this category, TD Ameritrade takes another victory.
Other Tools:
For Betterment customers, you cannot get any other software tools. By comparison, TD Ameritrade offers a nice skill for Echo Show devices and Amazon Echo. You can even place trades through the voice command, which is completely a unique feature.
TD Ameritrade also can be access thought the Apple and Android smartphone platform.
TD Ameritrade is the winner of this round too.
Our Recommendations:
If we have to make the first recommendation, then we make it for Robo accounts. For the budget-conscious shoppers and small investors should choose the Betterment for small quarterly savings and no minimum deposit requirements.
For those who are looking for traditional advisory services, then you might go for the TD Ameritrade because of the broker’s larger selection of assets. For the above-mentioned reasons, we will suggest TD Ameritrade over its rival.
Conclusion:
Only for the 0.05% difference in a Robo fee, Betterment is always the underperformer as compare to TD Ameritrade. TD Ameritrade comes with a much better value compared to the other services.
Reference Link:
Betterment: www.betterment.com
TD Ameritrade: www.tdameritrade.com
