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Betterment is the best option for most investors.Take the Betterment challenge – sign up for both services and you’ll see why Betterment is the largest and fastest growing automated investing service. 3x more customers choose Betterment to manage their money, based on ADV filings. Betterment is free to try, with no minimums, and I think you’ll love it.Today, automated investing services have a feeling of inevitability and momentum, which they lacked in 2012 (when this question was first posed). We’re part of a rising tide. Personal Capital, Future Advisor, LearnVest, SigFig, FeeX, Wealthfront, and more – these are all interesting companies and together, we’ll help millions of investors. Here are some things that make Betterment the best choice for most investors.1) Better Returns. We do more than any service to get you better net returns (net of tax, net of cost, net of behavior). These include:a) Tax Loss Harvesting+: Our algorithm is move effective than other tax loss harvesting strategies. It’s also more accessible, available for customers with at least $50,000 managed by us. More basic algorithms, which blindly switch back to the primary asset 30 days later, mean lower-yielding, less frequent harvests. At worst, they can actually leave you owing more tax, due to “negative tax arbitrage.” Algorithms matter. Don’t take my word for it. These guys know what they are talking about.Here's a screenshot from our whitepaper:And an introductory video on TLH+:b) Smart tax selling: We put our customers first, and approach tax-efficiency holistically. Harvesting may get the headlines, but we tax-optimize every transaction (WF doesn’t). This can end up being at least as valuable as TLH, if you ever plan on making a withdrawal or portfolio change. Our algorithms go to work every time you or we make a transaction, getting you the best tax treatment. One transaction handled inefficiently could more than wipe out the benefit of TLH.c) Wash sale inoculation: We minimize wash sales with every transaction, by managing parallel positions in every asset class. It doesn’t matter if a loss was realized from a harvest or a customer withdrawal. Our algorithm's also bulletproof against any interference with your IRA by using a third ticker. It’s really cool.d) Smart rebalancing: We rebalance your account with every transaction, so you’re always low drift and tax efficient. But if we need to sell to rebalance, our algos sell losses first, then long-term gains, and always stop short of triggering short-term capital gains. Ask your digital advisor if they do that.e) Asset location: We place tax-inefficient assets in IRA accounts and lower-tax instruments (municipal bonds) in taxable accounts. The result of allocating to munis is up to a 1.0% higher after-tax yield than the asset class they replace. But we also personalize the allocation: we’ll give you state-specific munis if you live in NY or CA (the two states where it makes the biggest difference).f) Better behavior: By optimizing not only your portfolio, but also behavior, Betterment customers earn 1.3% better returns than the average investor. We closely monitor this “behavior gap” and it informs our product design.g) Lower costs. Betterment costs 0.15% for accounts over $100k, because we’re so damn efficient.2) Better Experience. Betterment is the only vertically integrated investment service. Other online advisors are “glorified apps”: shiny portals, handing you off to traditional back office operations, running legacy technology, rife with inefficiencies. To truly reinvent the investing experience, you have to start from scratch. Betterment handles everything: trading, cash movements, statements, basis tracking, tax statements, and everything in between. Like Apple, Warby Parker and Netflix, we can make the entire user experience better. Here’s what it means for our customers:a) Unbeatable cash movements: We built our own ACH optimizations. ‘Cause it’s sexy. Deposits made before 11 PM ET are traded the next morning. (The West Coast loves this!) That means you’re invested in as little as 12 hours. Everyone else takes 3-4 days.b) Actually legible statements and tax forms: Our designers make these in-house, presenting only the information that’s necessary. Try reading a statement generated by a legacy third-party broker, like everyone else uses. We always generate tax forms on the first day possible, and people love it. We work better with tax prep software, because we’re in control of every integration.c) Fractional shares: We’ve engineered our trading system to support fractional shares, to six decimal places. Whole shares are a relic of a low-tech past. You can diversify $100 across 12 asset classes, just as you would $10 million. There is no cash in your portfolio, ever. That’s what checking accounts are for.Here’s what it means for Betterment to be “vertically integrated.” Other digital advisors perform only a fraction of what Betterment engineered in-house, using legacy third-party systems for most of their operations. Guess whose are more efficient? We pass the savings onto our customers.d) Multiple portfolios: Via one signup, one login, manage multiple sub-accounts, trust accounts, rollovers, each with its own portfolio, instead of having to go through the entire signup process each time you want to add an investment. Log in once, and conveniently manage all investment goals in one delightful-to-use place.e) More freedom: Change your portfolio allocations in each goal any time, in real time (though we don’t recommend trading often, circumstances change, and we provide guardrails to keep you on-track.) Deposit or withdraw any amount – even $10. (WF won’t let you withdraw less than $2,500).3) Better Service. We hear from customers that our service is the best, bar-none and we never get tired of this feedback.a) Operators standing by: We’re answering phones and emails 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We pick up right away, and we like talking to you.b) Radically distributed customer support: Everyone in our company contributes to customer support, by design. We rotate through, 2 weeks at a time, answering your calls. (We have a team of dedicated support specialists, too.) We do this so that every team member, no matter the role, understands our customers and what matters to customers. No feedback loop is more vital to building a customer-focused financial service.c) Unbeatable rollovers: Ours take 7 days, on average. The industry mean for rollover completion is 30 days. No one does it faster – our concierge service is available by email and phone 7 days a week. People who’ve done this elsewhere and then roll over to Betterment are amazed.d) Experts available: We’re high tech/high touch. If you have a complex situation, you can talk to an expert about taxes, planning, or even your employer-provided retirement account – we have CFAs, CFPs, and PhDs on staff, and love to find solutions for our customers. Our experts come from notable financial services firms, including Barclays, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and BlackRock.e) Mobile access: We have five-star rated apps available for iPhone and Android.4) Better Advice. We incorporate the best of behavioral finance into our design, helping our customers to make better decisions. We also go beyond asset allocation, giving you advice to help you reach your goals.a) Goal-based investing: Track your investments via personalized sub-accounts (goals) that make sense for you. Research shows that goal-based investing helps us save more. You can set up one goal for building wealth, one for your kids’ college, one for your IRA for retirement – each with an appropriate asset allocation and auto-deposit schedule. We’re always monitoring your progress, and we’ll let you know if you’re off-track, and how fix it.b) Automation encouraged: 70% of our customers sign up for automatic deposits, which improves after-tax performance and reduces behavioral error. More and more customers are using our auto-withdrawals, calibrated so that you can live off a pool of money for exactly the amount of time you specify, without fear of running out.c) The time is right: We base portfolio allocation advice on time-horizon and cash-flow needs – the scientific approach – and let you adjust to your risk tolerance based on your reactions to real expected outcomes. (Far superior to the old-fashioned and often spurious “risk questionnaires” used by the majority of the industry.)5) Better Principles. I founded Betterment to be better aligned with our customers. To that end, we adhere to the following principles:a) Efficiency: We’ve built the most efficient investment platform ever, so that we could pass the savings on to our customers. E.g., as any DIY investor knows, you don’t need Burton Malkiel as your CIO to benefit from his wisdom. His point was that brand name investing “expertise” (i.e. active management) is an illusion. A Random Walk Down Wall Street was published 40 years ago. Innovation isn’t about marquee names – it’s about driving down costs and using technology to squeeze out better net returns for customers.b) Transparency: We are transparent about our portfolio, our advice, our fees, and our team. The benefits of a Betterment account are many, but we take great care to give you the full picture. For example, it’s easy to overstate the benefit of tax loss harvesting to people who are not experts (i.e. most people), and it was important to us not to do that. The experts took note.c) Automation: When investing is automated, you win.d) Accessibility: We make investment strategies typically reserved for those with $10mm+ available to anyone. But we don’t require a minimum balance.e) Delight: At the core, people save and invest in the pursuit of maximum lifetime happiness. At Betterment, we find ways to delight you along the way and make that pursuit more fruitful.There you have it. This is Day 1 for automated investment management, and I’m excited for our customers about the continuing innovation at our company and in our space. I’m also excited for you to take the Betterment challenge. I feel good about the results.