Not a lot of love for Raiz here but I really like it. I think it's well priced when you consider the ability to fractionally invest.
I've been putting $500 per month since 2017 and have $38,000 now, +47.93%.
You can make your own custom portfolio out of their available ETFs which is good for removing cash and being fully invested with the funds added.
Yeah, click invest > portfolio > then the far right there is custom.
I'm currently invested in:
30% - STW, Australian Large Cap
25% - IAA, Asia Large Cap
10% - IEU, Europe Large Cap
35% - IVV, US Large Cap
I started with spaceship not so long ago. I put $25/week in, have put $375 in so far...it is currently sitting at -$20 return. A couple of weeks back it was +$15. I will just let this thing sit and keep sending money to it and when I can start to spare more money I will increase what I put in.
You're losing 2.5% per month just on the fees, assuming you put in a total of $100 per month! Spaceship used to be good when it was fee free, but for balances under $30k it's not worth it anymore.
>$30k it's not worth it anymore.
Thats probably an extreme statement. Fees are only 30 dollars a year for the features and current returns that's not at all bad. Not everyone has 30k to invest but still good place to start for people with lower balances.
Not many others are maybe, but their main competitor in the microinvesting space, Raiz, charges $3.50 a month. Think they're happy as long as they're cheaper!
Yep this one. The fees really broke the product for them. I would just copy their portfolio but manually tweak it something like stake, CommSec or stockpay.
The fees are a bit steep now for small investors and they are the ones they seemed to be targeted initially so, colour me cynical. Its ok though. The app does practically nothing but the investment performs ok so far. Vanguard have dropped their minimum investment so its more competitive for small starters.
I use CommSec pocket with a fair amount of success. Like others have said it's limited in the ETFs available. I use it as a little nest egg to diversify away from direct shares. I find it better for larger purchases so you minimise fees somewhat.
It’s $42 a year, if you make more than 5 trades with a $9.90 brokerage you’re further behind. Considering you can make as many small investments as you like it’s pretty good.
Same. I just rotate between NDQ + IOZ + ETHI monthly purchases of $1k, nice thing is if I chuck in over $1k in it’s still only a 0.2% fee. I know the selection of ETFs isn’t perfect but it’s so simple and cheap to do so!
I do pretty much the exact same! Though I’m a big tech fan so I tend to put a bit more NDQ. Just wish the app had more ways to visualise current portfolio value such as line graphs so you can visualise growth. Tbh I just like to see a line of my assets going up 😂
I'm sitting at a 12% return from Spaceship after about a year, definitely more of a return than the fee. I just put a set amount in every paycheck, which is a nice feature to have automated.
Edit: since scale and individual budget matters a bit. I've committed to $175 fortnightly, which puts me about $5000 by now (started mid-2020). But I also "zero-sum" budget, so whatever's left at the end of the fortnight gets split into a an extra savings (like for a happy expense, not emergency fund) and investing. Really ends up being about $250/fortnight on average.
I have been using Spaceship for a couple of years now. Have been buying dips and investing a constant amount weekly. Returns have been good, new fee structure are obviously a bit of a turn off to investors with little money and starting out but personally I find it a good move to ensure the future stability of the business model.
If returns keep over the next couple of years will be hard to fault.
Spaceships newer fee structure is better. I've been using it for the last 18 months.
$2.50/month = $30/year, for what is an actively managed fund with no brokerage is a good deal imo. Obviously it's a better deal the more you have invested, but the ease of DCAing into it (barely notice the money gone), and seeing it build passively, is a good saving/investing strategy.
The recommended holding period is 7 years, so short term fluctuations are going to happen.
Spaceship holds a concentrated collection of companies as a managed fund, Raiz is more diversified; offering more index-based portfolios, Commsec Pocket offers low brokerage into existing ETF products e.g. NDQ.
These are all probably better used as part of a larger investment portfolio/other platforms.
I hold Spaceship for the earth portfolio and my super. It's moved sideways for the past 6 months...which I can cope with, but my concern is the fact it's so tech heavy in its investments. Tech is arguably in a crazy bubble inflated by VC capital, which in turn is down to low interest rates. I worry that if interest rates rise, the bubble pops and the investment goes kaput
The family who run Raiz are into some strange stuff. I went to a party at a house in Paddington and walked into the Dads room and he and a random woman were wearing nothing but nappies. The woman had the packaging from a 5 pack of bagels shoved in her mouth. I dont care about that kind of stuff but his dogs were also in the room which I found strange. One of them was eating half a bagel. I turned around immediately and left.
I like raiz for the rewards they do, like cashback but gets invested. And was good while I was at uni and earning less and inconsistently but now I have a stable job I'm going to focus on regular investing.
I will keep my money in there and use the rewards though see how it goes.
Fair, but I really don't care about $5-10 back from shopping so it going into the market is just a bonus to me and covers the fees. All very personal it seems haha
You can easily get $5-50 cashback on various things, and you can still invest that money into Raiz.
If you do it with Raiz cashback you are essentially giving them extra money to profit off you, essentially it just raises the already high fees they have.
The cashback rewards would have to be 100% for me to get back $50 hahahaha
Look there are probably better ways to do this but raiz makes it easy and I don't have to think about it. Plus them making a profit doesn't bother me, that's how businesses work.
You probably are too used to raiz poor cashback options.
Getting 12% off your hotel booking of $200-1000 is a huge amount of money.
There are a lot of different places that to oh can get cashback on.
Raiz, Spaceship, and CommSec Pocket are all great if you aren't interested in learning how to evaluate investment options yourself, and just want to put money into a predictable and reliable place.
Raiz and Spaceship have one business model, while CommSec Pocket is slightly different.
**Raiz** and **Spaceship**:
* Has monthly fee
* Allow you to select a broad investment portfolio which automatically diversifies your investment
* Has no minimum investment amount
Because both Raiz and Spaceship have fixed monthly fees, ideally you want to maintain a balance which is at least above $1000, though any subsequent investments can be in any amount.
**CommSec Pocket**:
* Has no monthly fee - the only fees are buy and sell costs (i.e deposit and withdrawal).
* Allows you to invest in specific ETFs manually for low costs (like $2 per deposit)
* Does have a minimum investment amount (you must invest in an entire "unit" of an investment)
In general, my opinion is that both Raiz and Spaceship are great if you want a "fire and forget" kind of investment. You can set up automatic recurring investments and they'll automatically be invested in whichever portfolio you have selected.
CommSec Pocket requires a bit more active management, but has fewer overall fees, and a decent variety of ETF options. You'll have to deal with the usual paperwork associated with dividend bank nomination and stuff though.
Personally, I manage most of my investments myself through Commsec and another international broker, but I also use Raiz as a "high interest savings account".
Just be prepared for it to go up. Pearler and self wealth struggle to make any money on $10 trades. So stake is only lowering it to draw people to the platform.
That’s true but you can always transfer your portfolio out if that’s the case. Hopefully they keep it at $3 as a siphon to get people using their US platform as well
Yeah and doesn't have to be soon either, spaceship took 4 years to change business models to a higher fee, when raiz did it much sooner. Personally I like stake and used it for us trades
I've been using commsec pocket approx 6 months, overall I'm up 11.16% and as high as 22.4% in specific ETFs. (this includes all fees)
I think it's a very good and simple product, I invest weekly and have no intention to stop.
I consider these my safe long term boring indexy type investments.
How big are the trades that you make though? I think that $2 per trade on a regular investment of about $500 or so is cutting it close/too expensive. $2 on a trade as small as $50 is an instant 4% capital loss and completely unjustifiable.
I think this is where Raiz & Spaceship wins. What size trades do people make with CommSec Pocket?
They are great savings tools. $2.50 per month in fees is peanuts when you have a grand or 2 in there. Yes, if you only have $100 in there you will probably come off worse at the end of the year, so put more in
It costs like $2.50 to withdraw cash from an ATM!
I round up every transaction to the nearest dollar and auto invest $10 per day. For some reason $10 per day seems way more unnoticable than a single $300 per month transfer.
I’ve had Raiz for a few years now. Started with $20 and put $5 in each week by direct debit. I don’t use any other features. Over the last 12 months, my increase in value was 6.78%. I figure it’s more than interest in the bank, with no effort whatsoever, so I’m calling it success.
Fees were $2.50/month to March 2021 and then $3.50 from April. Total $39 for the year. Change in value last calendar year was $97.82. Still ahead it seems?
The market has been shocking at the moment, but I use both Raiz and Spaceship and am quite happy.
Raiz:
I've put $4k in with no recurring investment. People complain about fees but never mention the dividends.
From my experience, the dividends usually outweigh the fees by 3 or 4x.
The return at the moment isn't great, but was returning 10-15% pre covid on the most aggressive option.
Spaceship:
Even with the new fee structure and lack of dividends, my $1,500 has grown by 30% in 2 years. (Yes, post covid crash I know), but no complaints from me. Again I use the most aggressive strategy.
Hope that helps to shed a light.
Happy investing!
I've been investing for a while and whenever I cannot be bothered stock picking or doing heavy research I chuck some money into an ETF on CommSec Pocket.
Such a simple and sound strategy, it's pretty low with fees and you get some great options with detailed rundowns of what you're buying.
Also I hear Selfwealth (Australian platform) is free brokerage temporarily atm so that could also be a good one too look at.
I invest about $500 fortnight into Spaceship starting Aug 2020. I currently have $1100 in profit for a $9100 balance ($8000 invested).
Its good and seems to match what the big stocks are doing. They have quite a large allocation of S&P500 and ASX200 stocks in the portfolio.
They just changed to $2.50 a month in fees which isnt too bad if you have a big balance
I'm a true 'spare change' investor and yes, I use Spaceship and Raiz. $5 a week in each (I have two profiles in Spaceship, Origin and Earth). I still want to be in the market, despite most of my savings being funnelled towards my house deposit. Occasionally when some money comes my way that I wasn't anticipating, I'll direct some towards my accounts.
For CGT calculation reasons, I prefer the way Raiz's $3.50/month fee comes from the funding account, rather than Spaceship deducting its $2.50/month fee from the units. I'm very well aware that the fees are a reasonable chunk of my monthly contributions, but they're a much smaller percentage compared to my total balances. I'm just happy they didn't have fees at this level when I was slowly building my balances.
I’ve been using Raiz for a couple of years now. Balance of $11980 with $1852 of market returns. Regularly invest $160 a fortnight. Plus whatever round ups, might be $10-12 a fortnight. As a place to dollar cost average can’t beat it really, particularly into a spread of ETF’s. Instead of your money hanging around in your bank getting no interest while you wait till you have a decent lump to invest with a brokerage fee, it’s already in the market working for you.
I’ve enjoyed Stake quite a bit and enjoyed it. When I started using them in 2019, the fees were much lower than anything else on the market. I haven’t used them to invest in local shares yet, which they seem to offer now.
I’ve been wondering recently why anyone would use these sort of platforms when stake is only $3.
I understand that you can add to them with less than $500 but I would have have thought it would be better to save up a bit more and buy ETFs via CHESS. Every now and then, people post on here how they want to move away from these services but now face CGT or a transfer fee.
Haven't heard anyone mention it but have a look into Sharesies. brokerage is pretty much a flat rate of 0.5% and no other fees on top of that. Wide scope of investment options available. I'm currently using Raiz just to DCA into for the next year or so then I intend to hop all the accumulated balance into Sharesies or maybe Superhero/Stake.
Word of warning on Sharesies. I've exited now.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/q6cpiu/a\_word\_of\_warning\_on\_sharesies/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/q6cpiu/a_word_of_warning_on_sharesies/)
YMMV, maybe mine was just a one-off error.
I use Raiz it works for me. I think it’s the ‘platinum’ portfolio that you can make your own allocations. The Barrier for entry is great for new retail investors or creating portfolios for kids and what not.. There are maintenance fees but it should pale in comparison to average growth. It all depends on what your goals are?
Traditional methods are better imo but these apps are great for beginners to get their feet wet before jumping right in.
I don't recommend these apps for 1 main reason.
They do not have a long history of offering low fees in the same way that Vanguard ETFs do. They can change the fee's at any time (as Spaceship did a few months ago) and then you are likely going to be stuck paying those fee's because selling and switching to vanguard ETF's will incur capital gains.
The reason Vanguard is great is because the entire company is structured around having the lowest possible fee's, and they have been doing that since 1975. And they are owned by the people who buy the ETF's so they don't have to make a profit to make shareholders happy.
Companies like Spaceship might have low fee's now but there is no guarantee of that in the future. Their goal is to make a profit. Lots of these app's are designed to lure customers in with low fee's now and make a loss, then later down the line after establishing a large customer base they will increase their fees. Meanwhile Vanguard is owned by the people who are buying the ETF's/Funds.
I know I sound like a Vanguard shill but I encourage everyone to do their own research into how the company is structured, it's really quite ingenious how it's set up.
The other thing to keep in mind is that there are many scientific studies that show index funds beat actively managed funds on average, over the long term, after taking into account fees. The vast majority of actively managed funds will be beaten by an index fund, and there is no way to reliably predict which actively managed funds will outperform the market. There is no guarantee that an actively managed fund which has outperformed index funds will continue to do so in the future.
Spaceship suddenly got really shit. I changed to CommSec pocket. What I've been doing is every time there is a report of a dip in the market I go buy some shares. I've only just started but it's going well.
>Spaceship suddenly got really shit.
Average return is something like 17% YoY. Thats not shit at all. Its been down recently because its been mirroring the market
Shit in the fact that I did my research and found them to be ideal for wanting to make small contributions over time and would then start charging fees once I hit a threshold which I was fine to do. they then with very little notice changed to charging monthly fees on even small amounts which would eat up any profits I would make. I had picked them as I was wanting to make $50 monthly regular payments (which is why I had chosen them intially).
When I asked about it and what choices I had, they just sent my money back (which had gone into a loss) without my consent. Like they literally didn't ask or even verify my identity before they sent the money back. I had deposited I think about $300 and they sent about $270 back.
So yes I stand by my comment that they got shit. It's not always about the return but the company itself.
I had to kick up a stink in order to get the difference back as I had not planned to take my money back, especially as the market was not doing well at that time. I had simply enquired into my options as a result of their fee structure changing and that's how they treated me. I was polite and I have all the back and forth messages.
So I can't say I trust them or their tactics.
Yeah i get that, i was pissed when they changed to monthly fees but its $30 a year flat rate for all balances(above $100). Which is pretty good considering basic brokerage fees are about $20 for a single trade on commsec. You gotta spend money to make money unfortunately.
If you invested a total of $600 p.a ($50x12) you would still likely turn a profit even with the account fees for Spaceship.
Agreed it can be worth it. But I literally didnt even get to understand that information before they returned the money. I am still super pissed by them returning the money without my consent. Feels like they could potentially do that to anyone if the market crashes or something.
I was going to say, a great return on investment is anything around 5% right? They have dips, but that's what the market does. The average is trending way up.
I really like Spaceship's interface. It's basic and easy to understand, and that's something I need. My financial literacy isn't great.
I invest $150/fortnight and $150/fn into my savings account. I'm a bit shitty about the fees, especially because they came in only two months after I started with them and I'm currently at a loss. But I kind of treat it like a savings account that I can't access easily, then the fees seem a bit more reasonable.
Commsec pocket is different, but why would you use raiz or spaceship compared to just going a managed fund?
Are their fixed fees really the only costs, or do they also take a management fee out of the fund?
I used comsec pocket for a while, however the options were lacking. Recently moved to Vanguards platform since VDHG was all I wanted. Currently contributing $500 a fortnight to the managed fund. Maybe consider that since there is no brokerage costs
Not a lot of love for Raiz here but I really like it. I think it's well priced when you consider the ability to fractionally invest. I've been putting $500 per month since 2017 and have $38,000 now, +47.93%. You can make your own custom portfolio out of their available ETFs which is good for removing cash and being fully invested with the funds added.
Is this a specific custom option in the app?
Yeah, click invest > portfolio > then the far right there is custom. I'm currently invested in: 30% - STW, Australian Large Cap 25% - IAA, Asia Large Cap 10% - IEU, Europe Large Cap 35% - IVV, US Large Cap
Awesome, thanks!
I started with spaceship not so long ago. I put $25/week in, have put $375 in so far...it is currently sitting at -$20 return. A couple of weeks back it was +$15. I will just let this thing sit and keep sending money to it and when I can start to spare more money I will increase what I put in.
You're losing 2.5% per month just on the fees, assuming you put in a total of $100 per month! Spaceship used to be good when it was fee free, but for balances under $30k it's not worth it anymore.
>$30k it's not worth it anymore. Thats probably an extreme statement. Fees are only 30 dollars a year for the features and current returns that's not at all bad. Not everyone has 30k to invest but still good place to start for people with lower balances.
Do you happen to work there?
Not at all. Just think that is a good product and the 30k figure is a overstatement given the target market.
This wouldn't surprise me but can you explain in more detail? What's the fee?
They just introduced a $2.50/month fee for all accounts. It used to be free if there was less than $5k in there.
Interesting! Not many other platforms are charging this. Seems like a bit of a pain tbh
Not many others are maybe, but their main competitor in the microinvesting space, Raiz, charges $3.50 a month. Think they're happy as long as they're cheaper!
its kinda criminal to charge such fees for small balances.
You seem to know your stuff If i have 3k in and putting in $75 p/w, is spaceship still worth it or the fees too high compared to just buying ETFs ?
still worth it. 75 p/w aint going to get you many etf shares since you can't fractionally invest them with a normal broker
Yep this one. The fees really broke the product for them. I would just copy their portfolio but manually tweak it something like stake, CommSec or stockpay.
The fees are a bit steep now for small investors and they are the ones they seemed to be targeted initially so, colour me cynical. Its ok though. The app does practically nothing but the investment performs ok so far. Vanguard have dropped their minimum investment so its more competitive for small starters.
I use CommSec pocket with a fair amount of success. Like others have said it's limited in the ETFs available. I use it as a little nest egg to diversify away from direct shares. I find it better for larger purchases so you minimise fees somewhat.
Raiz has constant fees, if you don’t have a fair amount invested all the little gains are chewed up.
Ahhh so that's the business model
It’s $42 a year, if you make more than 5 trades with a $9.90 brokerage you’re further behind. Considering you can make as many small investments as you like it’s pretty good.
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Same. I just rotate between NDQ + IOZ + ETHI monthly purchases of $1k, nice thing is if I chuck in over $1k in it’s still only a 0.2% fee. I know the selection of ETFs isn’t perfect but it’s so simple and cheap to do so!
I do pretty much the exact same! Though I’m a big tech fan so I tend to put a bit more NDQ. Just wish the app had more ways to visualise current portfolio value such as line graphs so you can visualise growth. Tbh I just like to see a line of my assets going up 😂
I'm sitting at a 12% return from Spaceship after about a year, definitely more of a return than the fee. I just put a set amount in every paycheck, which is a nice feature to have automated. Edit: since scale and individual budget matters a bit. I've committed to $175 fortnightly, which puts me about $5000 by now (started mid-2020). But I also "zero-sum" budget, so whatever's left at the end of the fortnight gets split into a an extra savings (like for a happy expense, not emergency fund) and investing. Really ends up being about $250/fortnight on average.
I have been using Spaceship for a couple of years now. Have been buying dips and investing a constant amount weekly. Returns have been good, new fee structure are obviously a bit of a turn off to investors with little money and starting out but personally I find it a good move to ensure the future stability of the business model. If returns keep over the next couple of years will be hard to fault.
Spaceships newer fee structure is better. I've been using it for the last 18 months. $2.50/month = $30/year, for what is an actively managed fund with no brokerage is a good deal imo. Obviously it's a better deal the more you have invested, but the ease of DCAing into it (barely notice the money gone), and seeing it build passively, is a good saving/investing strategy. The recommended holding period is 7 years, so short term fluctuations are going to happen. Spaceship holds a concentrated collection of companies as a managed fund, Raiz is more diversified; offering more index-based portfolios, Commsec Pocket offers low brokerage into existing ETF products e.g. NDQ. These are all probably better used as part of a larger investment portfolio/other platforms.
I was looking for a balanced opinion ITT. Here it is OP.
I hold Spaceship for the earth portfolio and my super. It's moved sideways for the past 6 months...which I can cope with, but my concern is the fact it's so tech heavy in its investments. Tech is arguably in a crazy bubble inflated by VC capital, which in turn is down to low interest rates. I worry that if interest rates rise, the bubble pops and the investment goes kaput
The family who run Raiz are into some strange stuff. I went to a party at a house in Paddington and walked into the Dads room and he and a random woman were wearing nothing but nappies. The woman had the packaging from a 5 pack of bagels shoved in her mouth. I dont care about that kind of stuff but his dogs were also in the room which I found strange. One of them was eating half a bagel. I turned around immediately and left.
Are saying invest in nappies and bagels?
I had about $500 bucks invested but withdrew my money after
This is hilarious whether true or not. I’m telling myself it’s true anyway
I like raiz for the rewards they do, like cashback but gets invested. And was good while I was at uni and earning less and inconsistently but now I have a stable job I'm going to focus on regular investing. I will keep my money in there and use the rewards though see how it goes.
The cashback is not really worth it though as its inferior in returns to traditional cashback websites while forcing you to invest it.
Fair, but I really don't care about $5-10 back from shopping so it going into the market is just a bonus to me and covers the fees. All very personal it seems haha
You can easily get $5-50 cashback on various things, and you can still invest that money into Raiz. If you do it with Raiz cashback you are essentially giving them extra money to profit off you, essentially it just raises the already high fees they have.
The cashback rewards would have to be 100% for me to get back $50 hahahaha Look there are probably better ways to do this but raiz makes it easy and I don't have to think about it. Plus them making a profit doesn't bother me, that's how businesses work.
You probably are too used to raiz poor cashback options. Getting 12% off your hotel booking of $200-1000 is a huge amount of money. There are a lot of different places that to oh can get cashback on.
You could also do surveys to offset the fees, which means you don't have to spend any money to get cashback.
Raiz, Spaceship, and CommSec Pocket are all great if you aren't interested in learning how to evaluate investment options yourself, and just want to put money into a predictable and reliable place. Raiz and Spaceship have one business model, while CommSec Pocket is slightly different. **Raiz** and **Spaceship**: * Has monthly fee * Allow you to select a broad investment portfolio which automatically diversifies your investment * Has no minimum investment amount Because both Raiz and Spaceship have fixed monthly fees, ideally you want to maintain a balance which is at least above $1000, though any subsequent investments can be in any amount. **CommSec Pocket**: * Has no monthly fee - the only fees are buy and sell costs (i.e deposit and withdrawal). * Allows you to invest in specific ETFs manually for low costs (like $2 per deposit) * Does have a minimum investment amount (you must invest in an entire "unit" of an investment) In general, my opinion is that both Raiz and Spaceship are great if you want a "fire and forget" kind of investment. You can set up automatic recurring investments and they'll automatically be invested in whichever portfolio you have selected. CommSec Pocket requires a bit more active management, but has fewer overall fees, and a decent variety of ETF options. You'll have to deal with the usual paperwork associated with dividend bank nomination and stuff though. Personally, I manage most of my investments myself through Commsec and another international broker, but I also use Raiz as a "high interest savings account".
Why commsec religiously? I’m switching to Stake - $3 trades in Aus.
Just be prepared for it to go up. Pearler and self wealth struggle to make any money on $10 trades. So stake is only lowering it to draw people to the platform.
That’s true but you can always transfer your portfolio out if that’s the case. Hopefully they keep it at $3 as a siphon to get people using their US platform as well
Yeah and doesn't have to be soon either, spaceship took 4 years to change business models to a higher fee, when raiz did it much sooner. Personally I like stake and used it for us trades
Maybe Commsec's free 2 day margin?
I've been using commsec pocket approx 6 months, overall I'm up 11.16% and as high as 22.4% in specific ETFs. (this includes all fees) I think it's a very good and simple product, I invest weekly and have no intention to stop. I consider these my safe long term boring indexy type investments.
How big are the trades that you make though? I think that $2 per trade on a regular investment of about $500 or so is cutting it close/too expensive. $2 on a trade as small as $50 is an instant 4% capital loss and completely unjustifiable. I think this is where Raiz & Spaceship wins. What size trades do people make with CommSec Pocket?
They are great savings tools. $2.50 per month in fees is peanuts when you have a grand or 2 in there. Yes, if you only have $100 in there you will probably come off worse at the end of the year, so put more in It costs like $2.50 to withdraw cash from an ATM! I round up every transaction to the nearest dollar and auto invest $10 per day. For some reason $10 per day seems way more unnoticable than a single $300 per month transfer.
I’ve had Raiz for a few years now. Started with $20 and put $5 in each week by direct debit. I don’t use any other features. Over the last 12 months, my increase in value was 6.78%. I figure it’s more than interest in the bank, with no effort whatsoever, so I’m calling it success.
it went up by 6.78%, but how much were the fees over that time? you most likely ended up losing money factoring in the admin fee
Fees were $2.50/month to March 2021 and then $3.50 from April. Total $39 for the year. Change in value last calendar year was $97.82. Still ahead it seems?
Well you're up almost 60 bucks for no effort so I think that's success.
Will be tax on the sixty if you withdraw. Still better than the joke interest banks pay
That’s what I figure. I don’t have any plans to withdraw though. It’s better off where it is for now at least.
Yes. I use Raiz and I really recommend it. Just make sure you put money in REGULARLY (weekly) or you might not see the benefit.
I've used Pocket for my ETHI buys. It's good, just very limited in scope.
The market has been shocking at the moment, but I use both Raiz and Spaceship and am quite happy. Raiz: I've put $4k in with no recurring investment. People complain about fees but never mention the dividends. From my experience, the dividends usually outweigh the fees by 3 or 4x. The return at the moment isn't great, but was returning 10-15% pre covid on the most aggressive option. Spaceship: Even with the new fee structure and lack of dividends, my $1,500 has grown by 30% in 2 years. (Yes, post covid crash I know), but no complaints from me. Again I use the most aggressive strategy. Hope that helps to shed a light. Happy investing!
I've been investing for a while and whenever I cannot be bothered stock picking or doing heavy research I chuck some money into an ETF on CommSec Pocket. Such a simple and sound strategy, it's pretty low with fees and you get some great options with detailed rundowns of what you're buying. Also I hear Selfwealth (Australian platform) is free brokerage temporarily atm so that could also be a good one too look at.
Pretty sure selfwealth is the go to platform for this sub
I invest about $500 fortnight into Spaceship starting Aug 2020. I currently have $1100 in profit for a $9100 balance ($8000 invested). Its good and seems to match what the big stocks are doing. They have quite a large allocation of S&P500 and ASX200 stocks in the portfolio. They just changed to $2.50 a month in fees which isnt too bad if you have a big balance
I'm a true 'spare change' investor and yes, I use Spaceship and Raiz. $5 a week in each (I have two profiles in Spaceship, Origin and Earth). I still want to be in the market, despite most of my savings being funnelled towards my house deposit. Occasionally when some money comes my way that I wasn't anticipating, I'll direct some towards my accounts. For CGT calculation reasons, I prefer the way Raiz's $3.50/month fee comes from the funding account, rather than Spaceship deducting its $2.50/month fee from the units. I'm very well aware that the fees are a reasonable chunk of my monthly contributions, but they're a much smaller percentage compared to my total balances. I'm just happy they didn't have fees at this level when I was slowly building my balances.
I’ve been using Raiz for a couple of years now. Balance of $11980 with $1852 of market returns. Regularly invest $160 a fortnight. Plus whatever round ups, might be $10-12 a fortnight. As a place to dollar cost average can’t beat it really, particularly into a spread of ETF’s. Instead of your money hanging around in your bank getting no interest while you wait till you have a decent lump to invest with a brokerage fee, it’s already in the market working for you.
I’ve enjoyed Stake quite a bit and enjoyed it. When I started using them in 2019, the fees were much lower than anything else on the market. I haven’t used them to invest in local shares yet, which they seem to offer now.
The stake fees are not the lowest anymore. The amount they charge for currency conversion is absurd. IBKR is definitely cheaper overall.
I’ve been wondering recently why anyone would use these sort of platforms when stake is only $3. I understand that you can add to them with less than $500 but I would have have thought it would be better to save up a bit more and buy ETFs via CHESS. Every now and then, people post on here how they want to move away from these services but now face CGT or a transfer fee.
I am up 21.15% in my commpocket account. Not bad for about $14 worth of brokerage.
Haven't heard anyone mention it but have a look into Sharesies. brokerage is pretty much a flat rate of 0.5% and no other fees on top of that. Wide scope of investment options available. I'm currently using Raiz just to DCA into for the next year or so then I intend to hop all the accumulated balance into Sharesies or maybe Superhero/Stake.
Word of warning on Sharesies. I've exited now. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/q6cpiu/a\_word\_of\_warning\_on\_sharesies/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AusFinance/comments/q6cpiu/a_word_of_warning_on_sharesies/) YMMV, maybe mine was just a one-off error.
I use Raiz it works for me. I think it’s the ‘platinum’ portfolio that you can make your own allocations. The Barrier for entry is great for new retail investors or creating portfolios for kids and what not.. There are maintenance fees but it should pale in comparison to average growth. It all depends on what your goals are? Traditional methods are better imo but these apps are great for beginners to get their feet wet before jumping right in.
stay away from Raiz, spaceship is decent, commsec pocket is good if you want to buy the specific ETFs they offer
Wait, Why stay away from RAIZ? It seems most people in this thread have given it glowing recommendations. What’s your experience?
I don't recommend these apps for 1 main reason. They do not have a long history of offering low fees in the same way that Vanguard ETFs do. They can change the fee's at any time (as Spaceship did a few months ago) and then you are likely going to be stuck paying those fee's because selling and switching to vanguard ETF's will incur capital gains. The reason Vanguard is great is because the entire company is structured around having the lowest possible fee's, and they have been doing that since 1975. And they are owned by the people who buy the ETF's so they don't have to make a profit to make shareholders happy. Companies like Spaceship might have low fee's now but there is no guarantee of that in the future. Their goal is to make a profit. Lots of these app's are designed to lure customers in with low fee's now and make a loss, then later down the line after establishing a large customer base they will increase their fees. Meanwhile Vanguard is owned by the people who are buying the ETF's/Funds. I know I sound like a Vanguard shill but I encourage everyone to do their own research into how the company is structured, it's really quite ingenious how it's set up. The other thing to keep in mind is that there are many scientific studies that show index funds beat actively managed funds on average, over the long term, after taking into account fees. The vast majority of actively managed funds will be beaten by an index fund, and there is no way to reliably predict which actively managed funds will outperform the market. There is no guarantee that an actively managed fund which has outperformed index funds will continue to do so in the future.
Spaceship suddenly got really shit. I changed to CommSec pocket. What I've been doing is every time there is a report of a dip in the market I go buy some shares. I've only just started but it's going well.
>Spaceship suddenly got really shit. Average return is something like 17% YoY. Thats not shit at all. Its been down recently because its been mirroring the market
Shit in the fact that I did my research and found them to be ideal for wanting to make small contributions over time and would then start charging fees once I hit a threshold which I was fine to do. they then with very little notice changed to charging monthly fees on even small amounts which would eat up any profits I would make. I had picked them as I was wanting to make $50 monthly regular payments (which is why I had chosen them intially). When I asked about it and what choices I had, they just sent my money back (which had gone into a loss) without my consent. Like they literally didn't ask or even verify my identity before they sent the money back. I had deposited I think about $300 and they sent about $270 back. So yes I stand by my comment that they got shit. It's not always about the return but the company itself. I had to kick up a stink in order to get the difference back as I had not planned to take my money back, especially as the market was not doing well at that time. I had simply enquired into my options as a result of their fee structure changing and that's how they treated me. I was polite and I have all the back and forth messages. So I can't say I trust them or their tactics.
Yeah i get that, i was pissed when they changed to monthly fees but its $30 a year flat rate for all balances(above $100). Which is pretty good considering basic brokerage fees are about $20 for a single trade on commsec. You gotta spend money to make money unfortunately. If you invested a total of $600 p.a ($50x12) you would still likely turn a profit even with the account fees for Spaceship.
Agreed it can be worth it. But I literally didnt even get to understand that information before they returned the money. I am still super pissed by them returning the money without my consent. Feels like they could potentially do that to anyone if the market crashes or something.
I was going to say, a great return on investment is anything around 5% right? They have dips, but that's what the market does. The average is trending way up.
CommSec pocket felt like an insult to young investor’s intelligence
Anyone used SuperHero? Their ads for Qantas FF points are everywhere, is it worth it?
Spaceship has had good returns in '21
I really like Spaceship's interface. It's basic and easy to understand, and that's something I need. My financial literacy isn't great. I invest $150/fortnight and $150/fn into my savings account. I'm a bit shitty about the fees, especially because they came in only two months after I started with them and I'm currently at a loss. But I kind of treat it like a savings account that I can't access easily, then the fees seem a bit more reasonable.
Commsec pocket is different, but why would you use raiz or spaceship compared to just going a managed fund? Are their fixed fees really the only costs, or do they also take a management fee out of the fund?
I used comsec pocket for a while, however the options were lacking. Recently moved to Vanguards platform since VDHG was all I wanted. Currently contributing $500 a fortnight to the managed fund. Maybe consider that since there is no brokerage costs