There’s a lot of emphasis on individual investing these days, particularly with regard to retirement accounts, where it’s an IRS requirement.
But plenty of folks want to have joint investment accounts. Not only is that typical among married couples, but it’s often necessary in other situations, such as an elderly investor who wants to include a sibling or adult child as a co-owner of the account.
Fortunately, there are plenty of brokerages offering joint accounts. There are so many, in fact, you’ll have your pick of the type of platforms and investing you want to do.
Here’s our list of what we believe to be the best brokerages offering joint accounts:
M1 offers an important element of self-directed investing – choosing your own stocks and exchange traded funds (ETFs) – then providing full automated management of your portfolio.
The portfolios are referred to as “pies”, which can be filled with as many as 100 stocks and ETFs. You can build as many pies as you want, with each built on a specific investment theme.
M1 Finance Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: None, but you will need at least $100 to begin investing in a taxable account, and $500 for a retirement account.
Available accounts: Joint and individual taxable investment accounts; traditional, Roth, rollover and SEP IRAs; trusts.
Investments offered: ETFs and individual stocks.
Fees: None.
M1 Finance Pros
Your can create your own portfolios that will then be managed by M1 Finance.
No fees of any kind.
Choose from pre-built pie templates or create your own.
Select the stocks and ETFs you want to hold in each pie.
Whether you’re opening an individual or a joint account, Betterment is an excellent choice for new or inexperienced investors. They provide complete portfolio management, including investment selection, regular rebalancing, and re-investing of dividends.
They also offer a cash account that pays interest several times higher than what’s available at local banks.
Betterment Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: None, but you will need at least $10 to begin investing.
Available accounts: Joint and individual taxable brokerage accounts; traditional, Roth, rollover, and SEP IRAs; trusts and nonprofits.
Investments offered: ETFs invested in stocks and bonds.
Fees: 0.25% per year for the basic Digital plan and 0.40% for the Premium plan (minimum initial investment, $100,000).
Betterment Pros
No initial investment required.
Low annual advisory fee on the Digital plan – $10,000 can be managed for just $25 per year.
Unlimited access to certified financial planners with the Premium plan, at a fraction of the cost of traditional, human guided investment advisors.
Tax-loss harvesting available on all taxable investment accounts.
This is an online cash management account, offering high interest, no monthly fees, mobile banking, periodic cash back offers and a debit card with access to over 55,000 of ATM machines across the country.
However, you can also take advantage of SoFi Wealth, offering a robo-advisor style investment service. In that way, you can combine high-interest banking and investing with the same company.
SoFi Money Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: None, but you will need a minimum monthly deposit of $500 to earn interest on your savings; $1 for SoFi Wealth investing.
Available accounts: Joint and individual cash management accounts; joint and individual taxable investment accounts; traditional, Roth, rollover and SEP IRAs for SoFi Wealth.
Investments offered: Interest-bearing cash management account; SoFi Wealth invests in index funds.
Fees: None on SoFi Money; for SoFi Wealth, the first $10,000 is managed free, then 0.25% on higher balances.
SoFi Money Pros
Combine high interest cash management with an investment account.
Take advantage of other SoFi services, including borrowing and financial services.
SoFi Wealth gives you access to live financial advisors.
SoFi loan customers pay no management fees for SoFi Wealth.
The company provides career and financial support services.
Their specialty is commission-free mutual fund trading. Firstrade offers more than 11,000 mutual funds. It’s also a brokerage platform designed for self-directed investors, as there is no managed investment option offered.
Firstrade Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: None.
Available accounts: Joint and individual taxable brokerage accounts; traditional, Roth, rollover, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs; trusts and custodial accounts.
Investments offered: Stocks, bonds, options, ETFs and more than 11,000 mutual funds.
Fees: Commission-free trades on stocks, options, ETFs and mutual funds.
This brokerage offers an advanced trading platform for experienced, self-directed investors. Offers one of the best trading platforms in the industry, including investment tools and resources.
TradeStation Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: $500.
Available accounts: Joint and individual taxable brokerage accounts; traditional, Roth, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs; trust and custodial accounts.
Offers a mix of automated and human guided investment management for a much lower fee than traditional, human guided investment advisories. Also offers plenty of free tools, including the ability to track your net worth, screen your retirement plan for high fees, and even offers limited budgeting capabilities.
Personal Capital Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: $100,000 for investment management, $200,000 for Wealth Management.
Available accounts: Joint and individual taxable investment accounts; traditional, Roth, rollover and SEP IRAs; trusts and advice on employer-sponsored retirement plans.
Investments offered: US and foreign stocks and bonds, real estate investment trusts, energy and gold.
Fees: 0.89% per year on portfolios up to $1 million, gradually descending to 0.49% on portfolios greater than $10 million.
Personal Capital Pros
Offers a free financial dashboard that comes with budgeting, a cash flow analyzer, a 401(k) analyzer, retirement planner, investment check-up and net worth calculator.
Investment options are more diversified than most robo-advisors.
Unlimited access to financial advisors in the Wealth Management plan.
Offers an interest-bearing cash account, but the interest rate paid is low.
Schwab is the largest retail investment brokerage firm in the world, with more than $6 trillion in investor assets.
They offer nearly unlimited options for self-directed investors, but also provide a managed investment option in Charles Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. Customer service is top-notch, and includes 24/7 phone contact, as well as a network of branches serving most major cities in the US.
Charles Schwab Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: None.
Available accounts: Joint and individual taxable investment accounts; traditional, Roth, rollover, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs; Solo 401(k)’s, trusts and custodial accounts.
As the world’s second-largest investment broker, Fidelity offers virtually everything Schwab does, including their own managed investment option, Fidelity Go. This is not surprising since, as the two largest brokerage firms in the world, Schwab and Fidelity compete head-to-head. It’s a perfect platform for investors of all levels, whether you’re a newbie or an advanced trader.
The customer service is top-notch, as is their trading platform, and they have a network of more than 300 local branches across the US.
Fidelity Basic Features
Minimum Initial Investment: None.
Available accounts: Joint and individual taxable investment accounts; traditional, Roth, rollover, SEP and SIMPLE IRAs; Solo 401(k)’s,
Investments offered: Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, options, and other securities.
Fees: Commission-free trades of stocks, options, and ETFs; more than 3,000 commission-free mutual funds.
Fidelity Pros
Excellent brokerage platform for investors at all experience levels.
No minimum initial investment.
Commission-free trades on most investments.
24-hour customer service with branches across the country.
Top notch research and investment tools.
Fidelity Cons
High commission on non-Fidelity funds, at $49.95 on purchases.
It’s not surprising that the brokers on this list are some of the biggest names in the industry.
That’s because they offer all types of accounts to the largest number of investors, including joint accounts. Decide what your joint investing preferences are, then choose the brokerage that will work best for you.
Author Disclosure: I have investment accounts with both Charles Schwab and Fidelity.
Kevin Mercadante is a freelance professional web content writer for hire, and the owner of his own personal finance blog, OutOfYourRut.com. He has extensive backgrounds in both accounting and the mortgage industry. In fact, it was his career crash-and-burn from the mortgage business in 2008 that led him into blogging and freelance professional web content writing. Kevin and his family live in New Hampshire, after long stints in New Jersey and Georgia.
Choosing the right product and service is essential for your investing. Here are some of the tools and services to help your portfolio grow.
Robinhood
Robinhood provides an easy-to-use free trading platform for beginner investors. Robinhood has $0 account minimums. Get a free stock when you open an account below.
M1 Finance offers a free investing platform where users can build portfolios of stocks and ETFs. Users can also choose from a variety of pre-built portfolios offered for free.
Passively invest in private real estate deals with as little as $10. Fundrise allows you to own residential and commercial real estate across the U.S. starting at a 1% annual fee.
