M1 Finance

Broker — Freemium

A customizable investing platform that automates your own portfolio pies with free rebalancing and fractional shares.

Custom portfolio pies

Overview

M1 Finance is a portfolio manager that blends a brokerage and robo-advisor, letting investors build fully customizable portfolio pies and then automate contributions and rebalancing for free. This M1 Finance review covers a tool built for intermediate, hands-on investors who want automation without handing over control of what they actually hold. It is built for long-term investors, not active traders looking for signals or scanners, and designed for people who want a hands-off contribution schedule without giving up the ability to change their allocation whenever they want.

The core strength is the custom portfolio pies themselves, setting an allocation across stocks and ETFs slice by slice instead of accepting a preset robo-advisor model. Free auto-rebalancing keeps that allocation on target without manual trades every time the market moves it off balance. Because rebalancing runs automatically and for free, a pie that drifts out of target after a strong run in one holding gets corrected without the investor placing a single manual trade. Fractional shares mean every dollar contributed gets invested across the chosen allocation, so there is never uninvested cash sitting idle because a share price did not divide evenly.

The honest limitations matter for anyone comparing this to a full robo-advisor. There is no tax-loss harvesting, so investors who lean on that feature elsewhere will lose it here. M1 Finance also ships with fewer guardrails than a traditional robo-advisor, the customization that makes it appealing to hands-on investors also means less built-in protection against a poorly balanced pie. Investors coming from a full-service robo-advisor should expect to do more of that thinking themselves here, since M1 Finance trades some hand-holding for control.

M1 Finance covers US stocks and ETFs for long-term investing and automated trading, with full automation and a mobile app, though there is no API access for building custom integrations. Pricing runs Free / $3 mo platform, with no free trial since the free tier itself functions as the trial. Active traders who want scanners, alerts, or short-term signals should skip M1 Finance; this is a buy-and-hold automation tool, not a trading platform.

Pros

Cons

Is M1 Finance Legit? FAQ

Is M1 Finance legit?

M1 Finance is an established, working product rated 4.3 out of 5 on App Store. We list it because it has a real AI feature, not because it paid us. The biggest drawback we found: No tax-loss harvesting.

Is M1 Finance worth it?

M1 Finance is worth it if this matters to you: Fully customizable pies. The trade-off: No tax-loss harvesting. You can test it before paying, so start there.

How much does M1 Finance cost?

M1 Finance is listed at Free / $3 mo platform. There is a free tier, with paid plans above it. Prices change, so confirm on the official site before you pay.

Does M1 Finance have a free trial?

There is no time-limited trial listed, but the free plan lets you test M1 Finance before paying.

The FullStack Alpha Network

Four sites, one standard. Tested tools, no paid rankings.