Ally Invest Review

Ally Invest has zeroed out transaction fees on mutual funds, which makes it a good choice for fund investors. Its universal accounts experience and easy-to-use website offer a convenient, attractively priced solution. Unfortunately, Ally is toward the bottom of the pack as far as trading features.

Pros & Cons

Overall summary

Ally Invest Trading Platform Screenshots

Website:

Mobile app:

Customer service

To score Customer Service, StockBrokers.com partners with customer experience research firm Confero to conduct phone tests from locations throughout the United States. For our 2023 Broker Review, 168 customer service tests were conducted over six weeks, with wait times logged for each call.

Customer service representatives were asked for assistance or details in several areas of broker services, including account opening, trading tools, apps, rollovers, active trading, and more. Here are the results for Ally Invest, which ranked among our Best in Class in this category.

• Average Connection Time: 1-2 minutes
• Average Net Promoter Score: 8.4 / 10
• Average Professionalism Score: 8.4 / 10
• Overall Score: 8.3 / 10
• Ranking: 5th of 14 brokers

What is Ally Invest?

Ally Invest is the brokerage arm of Ally Financial, which offers traditional banking services such as checking and savings accounts, mortgages, and consumer credit cards and loans.

Is Ally Invest a good broker?

Current Ally customers who are willing to accept a limited roster of features to manage most of their finances at the same firm will find Ally Invest to be, well, convenient. We were pleasantly surprised by the research available on the website.

Ally brokerage also has excellent fixed-income market access and research and offers a very wide choice of mutual funds. Short-term traders, mobile-only, and tool-hungry investors should consider other brokers.

Is Ally Invest good for beginners?

For beginners looking to bank and invest under one roof, Ally Invest could be a good place to start, especially if you already have ties to Ally.

Does Ally charge brokerage fees?

Ally doesn’t charge commissions or fees on no-load mutual funds and stock and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), except for stocks priced under $2, which have a minimum of $4.95 a trade and a maximum of 20% of the principal value. Options trades are 50 cents per contract, with no exercise or early assignment fees. Bond trades are $1 per bond. There are also incidental fees.

What is the minimum balance for Ally Invest?

Like many online U.S. brokers, Ally Invest doesn’t have a minimum balance and there’s no minimum deposit required to open an account, making it a good choice for investors who want to regularly invest in mutual funds.

How do I get my money out of Ally Invest?

Select “Transfers” at the top of the Ally Invest website to move money. Ally allows you to withdraw available cash or margin via ACH, a check, an instant transfer to your Ally account, or a wire.

Is Ally Invest good for day trading?

Ally Invest doesn’t charge stock commissions (like almost all brokers today) but is missing features many traders rely upon, such as Level 2 quotes, adjusting trades on charts, low margin rates, and detailed option data, among many others. See our five top picks in our 2023 Best Day Trading Platforms guide.

Is Ally Invest trustworthy?

Ally Invest is a member of both FINRA and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, or SIPC, which carries protection for customer accounts in the event of a broker’s bankruptcy. It’s important to understand that, as with any broker, SIPC insurance does not protect against market losses — investing is a risky endeavor.

Is Ally Invest’s robo advisor any good?

Ally’s robo portfolios, also known as automated investing services, make it easy for investors to invest in portfolios aligned with their goals. Ally uses low-cost exchange-traded funds and rebalances them as market conditions change. The investment minimum is just $100 and Ally doesn’t charge for robo portfolios with cash allocations of 30%. Otherwise, the annual fee is 0.30% of assets under robo management.

How does Ally Invest make its money?

Ally Invest makes money in the same way that other banks and brokers do. On brokerage accounts, Ally makes money from the practice of payment for order flow, or PFOF, as do nearly all other brokers in this age of $0 trades. Read more about PFOF.

About Ally Invest

Ally Invest is the online brokerage arm of Ally Financial (publicly traded, "ALLY"), which also operates Ally Bank. Ally Financial is best known for its FDIC insured banking services through Ally Bank, which includes online banking (you can read a review of Ally’s high-yield savings account on our sister site, investor.com), auto financing, and home loans.

2023 Review methodology

Our mission at StockBrokers.com is simple: provide thorough and unbiased reviews of online brokers, based on an extraordinary level of hands-on testing and data collection. Our ratings and awards are based on this data and our experts’ deep authority in the field; brokers cannot pay for preferential treatment. Here’s more about trustworthiness at StockBrokers.com.

For the StockBrokers.com 13th Annual Review published in January 2023, a total of 3,332 data points were collected over three months and used to score 17 top brokers. This makes StockBrokers.com home to the largest independent database on the web covering the online broker industry.

As part of our annual review process, all brokers had the opportunity to provide updates and key milestones and complete an in-depth data profile, which we hand-checked for accuracy. Brokers also were offered the opportunity to provide executive time for an annual update meeting.

Our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .001% each year, providing site visitors quality data they can trust. Learn more about how we test.

Ally Invest 2023 Results

For the StockBrokers.com 2023 Annual Awards, published on Jan. 24, 2023, all U.S. equity brokers we reviewed were assessed on 196 different variables across eight areas: Commissions & Fees, Investment Options, Platforms & Tools, Research, Mobile Trading, Education, Ease of Use, and Overall.

StockBrokers.com also presented “Best in Class” awards to brokers for additional categories Beginners, Options Trading, Futures Trading, Active Trading, IRA Accounts, Investor Community, Penny Stock Trading, Banking Services and Customer Service. A “Best in Class” designation means finishing in the top five brokers for that category.

For more information, see how we test.

Primary categories

Secondary categories

Ally Invest fees and features data

The data collection efforts at StockBrokers.com are unmatched in the industry. The following tables show a deeper dive into the offerings available at this broker. You can also compare its offerings side-by-side with those of other brokers using our Comparison Tool.

In addition to meticulous annual data collection by our in-house analyst, every broker that participates in our review is afforded the opportunity to complete an in-depth data profile. We then audit each data point to ensure its accuracy.

Trading fees

Account fees

Margin rates

Investment options

Order types

Beginners

Stock trading apps

Stock app features

Stock app charting

Trading platforms overview

Trading platform stock chart features

Day trading features

Investment research overview

Stock research features

ETF research features

Mutual fund research features

Options trading overview

Banking features

Customer service options

Best Broker Guides

Explore our broker rankings:

• Best Trading Platforms 2023
• Best Online Brokers for Beginners
• Best Options Trading Platforms
• Best Futures Trading Platforms
• Best Day Trading Platforms
• Best Brokers for Penny Stocks

About the Editorial Team