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eToroWealthsimple Review
Written by Chris McKhann
Edited by Carolyn Kimball
Fact-checked by Steven Hatzakis
Reviewed by Blain Reinkensmeyer
Wealthsimple is a solid choice for passive investors in Canada, offering a streamlined approach to investing through its robo-advisor, Wealthsimple Invest, and a beginner-friendly trading platform, Wealthsimple Trade. With zero commissions for self-directed trading and an emphasis on socially responsible investing (SRI) through proprietary ETFs, Wealthsimple caters to those who want a hassle-free, automated way to grow their portfolios. For Canadians new to investing, its simplicity and accessibility are real strengths.
On the downside, Wealthsimple's minimalist design sacrifices advanced tools and research features that active traders might expect. While it excels at keeping things straightforward, its lack of interactive charts, news integration, and customizable screening tools may leave experienced investors wanting more. Wealthsimple is best suited for those focused on long-term investing rather than frequent trading or in-depth market analysis.
-
Minimum Deposit:
$0.00 -
Stock Trades:
$0.00 -
Options (Per Contract):
$0.00
Table of Contents
Pros & cons
Pros
- Wealthsimple is easy to use for beginners.
- Solid choice for passive investors.
- High-quality educational content.
Cons
- Lacks advanced tools and in-depth research.
- The mobile experience can’t compete with the best mobile apps
Range of investments
Wealthsimple provides a gateway to U.S. and Canadian regional stock exchanges, giving you access to securities such as individual stocks and ETFs. Canada residents who wish to trade U.S. stocks and ETFs must upgrade their account for $10/month, or have a Premium or Generation account. However, mutual funds are not available at Wealthsimple.
That said, Wealthsimple offers two proprietary ETFs that are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and that cater to Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) standards, under tickers TSX: WSRI and TSX: WSRD. The SRI account is akin to a robo-advisor solution for passive investors that want to put their investing on autopilot.
Cryptocurrency: Wealthsimple Crypto, which offers access to more than 30 popular cryptocurrencies, was recently expanded to offer full crypto wallet functionality.
Wealthsimple fees
The commissions and fees you will pay at Wealthsimple depend on the value of your account. Clients with less than $100,000 are signed up under Core, their most basic plan, while Premium covers those with more than $100,000, and Generation requires at least $500,000.
Commissions: Self-directed trading is commission-free. If you use Wealthsimple Invest, a robo-advisor — that is, a managed account — there is a management fee, meaning an annual percentage rate of your balance is charged as a fee. The amount varies depending on the size of your account.
Retirement accounts & tax-savings: In addition to individual, joint and business accounts, Wealthsimple Canada offers five types of retirement and other tax-efficient accounts, including a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP), tax-free savings account (TFSA), registered education savings plan (RESP), registered retirement income fund (RRIF), and locked-in retirement account (LIRA).
Dive deeper: See our picks for best Canadian online brokers.
| Feature |
Wealthsimple
|
|---|---|
| Minimum Deposit | $0.00 |
| Stock Trades | $0.00 |
| Penny Stock Fees (OTC) | N/A |
| ETF Trade Fee | $0.00 |
| Options (Per Contract) | $0.00 |
| Options Exercise Fee | $0.00 |
| Options Assignment Fee | $0.00 |
| Futures (Per Contract) | $0.00 |
| Mutual Fund Trade Fee | 0 |
| Broker Assisted Trade Fee | $0 |
Mobile trading apps
Wealthsimple offers two mobile trading apps: Wealthsimple Invest, which is its robo-advisor solution for ultra-passive investors; and Wealthsimple Trade, for more hands-on, self-directed investors.
Wealthsimple Invest: This robo-advisor app from Wealthsimple lets you set up automated deposits, along with recurring investments, and even round up change to the nearest dollar on credit card purchases and invest that difference for you automatically.
The investment portfolio is managed based on predefined investment preferences tailored to your personal preferences. The only caveat is that trading costs, in the form of a management fee, range from 0.20% to 0.50% per year, depending on how much you deposit into a Wealthsimple Invest account.
Wealthsimple Trade: The Wealthsimple Trade app is very light on the surface compared to the best mobile apps available from other online stockbrokers. Still, there’s plenty to say about its modern-looking design, which is clearly created to appeal to beginners and more passive investors.
On your first Wealthsimple Trade login, you’ll be greeted with a prompt to fund your account, if you haven’t yet, before you can start exploring.
Let’s start with the basics: The Wealthsimple Trade app has a purposefully rudimentary universal watchlist. This is where you can add or remove symbols to your liking, but that’s about it; you cannot create multiple watchlists.
The lack of details available in the watchlist columns may help avoid confusing inexperienced investors with too much information, as the app is meant to keep you focused on a few key points: buying securities by searching for a specific symbol or selecting one from a predefined list.
Predefined watchlist: The flipside of having limited options to customize your watchlist is that there are curated lists to choose from. Again, the overly simple watchlist structure in Wealthsimple Trade is also what helps the broker easily deliver nearly 50 predefined lists for various sectors and theme-specific industries: for example, cannabis, “top Canadian” stocks, featured stocks of the day, or those that are most popular on the app. There are also lists such as top gainers and losers, which is a common feature I was glad to see available.
No stock screeners: A touch above the lists feature would be fully customizable stock screeners — which is simply a way for you to predefine your own criteria to scan for related symbols — and which is not available at Wealthsimple. Note: These limitations only affect you if you want to do custom screens or have multiple custom watchlists, otherwise you won’t even notice they’re missing.
Charts: When it comes to charting on Wealthsimple Trade, there are no customizations available to the default line chart, besides a few time frames. Literally, the only thing you can do on the Wealthsimple Trade charts is choose from six time-frames, including daily, weekly, one month, three month, one year, or five year time periods.
Intraday vs. long-term: By purposefully excluding time frames lower than one day (e.g., hourly, 30-minute, 10-minute charts), the Wealthsimple Trade app focuses you on longer-term time horizons; still, I was disappointed there weren’t other chart types such as a classic bar-chart or candlestick chart, which you almost always find on platforms that support active trading and market-timing strategies. Even a passive investor may want to analyze a security on a more granular time scale when investing for the long haul, so beefing up the charts would seem to benefit Wealthsimple Trade users.
Order Types: beyond a market and limit order, I was pleased to see a more complex order type available known as the Stop Limit, which can be used to set a stop price which acts as a trigger for a second Limit order, akin to a One Triggers Other (OTO) order. Such orders could be helpful in scenarios where you want to enter the market at a specific price or better, but only if another price is first reached. On the flip side, you cannot short stock or trade options at Wealthsimple.
Trading platforms
Wealthsimple Trade is a highly simplified web-based trading platform that comes with the absolute basic elements for passive investing.
For those that don’t want to spend much time or effort when looking at their investments, Wealthsimple Trade lets you focus just on buying specific symbols, where you can set up automated buys, deposits, and rebalancing, compared to Wealthsimple Invest, which does this for you.
I found the Wealthsimple Trade platform very easy to navigate as there are few options to choose from and limited customizations, as it is optimized for less demanding traders, compared to platforms available from industry leaders.
Wealthsimple Trade web charting: Charting is nearly identical to the Wealthsimple Trade mobile app; there are no customization options, and just five timeframes to choose from.
Given the modern look and appeal of the web platform, I was perplexed at the inability to zoom in and out, without adding undue complexity for beginners. Currently, charts are a static mosaic and not interactive.
I found myself wanting to change the default line chart to another chart type out of sheer habit; but I understand that certain investors might not care if all they are looking at is longer-time price trends. Still, the lack of functionality for charts didn’t sit well with my tastes for web trading platforms.
Research
Research at Wealthsimple is limited to content created by the company staff, including across its website, magazine, podcasts, email newsletter, and YouTube channel.
Compared to industry leaders, Wealthsimple does not provide news headlines or company news from within its trading platform, limiting the amount of research you can conduct on potential investments such as when searching specific stock symbols and other securities.
The best brokers in this category offer not just a variety of research tools but even reports provided from third-party analysts, along with ratings to help you assess potential trading opportunities.
This is one category that I feel Wealthsimple can improve to cater to passive investors, as they increase in the scope of research, such as ratings and research reports - is important for long-term investing, and not just for active or advanced traders.
Education
Wealthsimple delivers quality educational materials including articles, podcasts, videos and its own YouTube channel with organized playlists.
Overall, Wealthsimple trails the best stock brokers in this category which offer a wider variety of educational content and generally more extensive materials, for not just beginners, but also intermediate and experienced investors.
That said, I enjoyed Wealthsimple’s educational content and look forward to it expanding, such as by including more technical analysis and fundamental market data, which can benefit passive investors too.
Banking
While Wealthsimple doesn’t offer traditional banking services, it does offer a cash app that lets customers send and receive money easily and without fees. Wealthsimple also has a debit card in the works, but it has yet to launch.
Funds held in Wealthsimple Cash and Save accounts are protected by Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC), for up to $100,000 per beneficiary, subject to certain rules. Note: Crypto assets offered by Wealthsimple Crypto are not afforded any protection.
Final thoughts
Wealthsimple states that it’s building the “most human” financial company, and I must say they have done a solid job incorporating the human element and voice across their media formats and discussing a wide variety of life topics encompassing personal finance, such as can be found in their magazine articles and podcasts (example: “How to Break Up Financially When You Break Up”).
Beyond the content, I felt there was lots missing in terms of investing content, including market analysis, research, fundamental data, and news headlines, along with an absence of many common and advanced tools found across the best trading platforms. For example, adding detailed company fundamentals, along with ratings and research reports and interactive charts, would be empowering to investors.
It’s clear that Wealthsimple is best suited to passive investors who want to set-it-and-forget-it using its robo-advisor investing solution. Conversely, if you want a self-directed account to invest passively, you will be limited to using Wealthsimple Trade and choosing from the curated lists, or searching for a symbol manually. Just beware there aren’t many analysis tools to do your own research when investing from the app.
Wealthsimple's Star Ratings
| Feature |
Wealthsimple
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|---|---|
| Overall |
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| Range of Investments |
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| Mobile Trading Apps |
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| Platforms & Tools |
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| Research |
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| Customer Service |
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| Education |
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| Ease Of Use |
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StockBrokers.com Review Methodology
Why you should trust us
Chris McKhann is a former StockBrokers.com writer. He has worked in the investing industry for more than 20 years with many of the top names in the online trading space, including TD Ameritrade and optionMONSTER, which later became part of E*TRADE. His work has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Financial Times, Forbes, CNBC, Nasdaq.com and Nikkei. He has also been an advisor and outside trader for several hedge funds. He was one of the first traders to delve into the VIX tradable products and to write about them (back in 2006). Chris is also an educator who teaches high school statistics, finance and computer science.
Blain Reinkensmeyer, co-founder of StockBrokers.com, has been investing and trading for over 25 years. After having placed over 2,000 trades in his late teens and early 20s, he became one of the first in digital media to review online brokerages. Today, Blain is widely respected as a leading expert on finance and investing, specifically the U.S. online brokerage industry. Blain has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Fast Company, among others. Blain created the original scoring rubrics for StockBrokers.com and oversees all testing and rating methodologies.
How we tested
- We used our own brokerage accounts for testing.
- We collected thousands of data points for each broker.
- We tested each online broker's website, desktop platforms, and mobile app, where applicable.
- We maintained strict editorial independence; brokers cannot pay for inclusion or a higher rating.
Our research team meticulously collected data on every feature of importance to a wide range of customer profiles, including beginners, casual investors, passive investors, and active traders. We carefully track variables like margin rates, trading costs, fees, and platform features and use them to help rate brokers across a range of categories measuring ease of use, range of investments, research, education, and more.
At StockBrokers.com, our reviewers use a variety of computing devices to evaluate platforms and tools. Our reviews and data collection were conducted using the following devices: iPhone SE running iOS 17.5.1, MacBook Pro M1 with 8 GB RAM running the current MacOS, and a Dell Vostro 5402 laptop i5 with 8 GB RAM running Windows 11 Pro.
Each broker was evaluated and scored on over 200 different variables across seven key categories: Range of Investments, Platforms & Tools, Research, Mobile Trading, Education, Ease of Use, and Overall. Learn more about how we test.
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About Wealthsimple
Founded in 2014, Wealthsimple caters exclusively to residents of Canada. The brand is regulated as an investment dealer in all Canadian provinces and is a member of Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). Wealthsimple manages over $50 billion in assets, and provides services to millions of customers.
Founded in 2014, Wealthsimple caters exclusively to residents of Canada. The brand is regulated as an investment dealer in all Canadian provinces and is a member of Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC). Wealthsimple manages over $50 billion in assets, and provides services to millions of customers.
About the Editorial Team
Chris McKhann has been in the industry for more than 20 years. He has worked for many of the top names in the online trading space, including TD Ameritrade and optionMONSTER, which later became part of E*TRADE. His work has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, the Financial Times, Forbes, CNBC, Nasdaq.com and Nikkei. He has also been an advisor and outside trader for several hedge funds. He was one of the first traders to delve into the VIX tradable products and to write about them (back in 2006). Chris is also an educator who teaches high school statistics, finance and computer science.
Carolyn Kimball is a former managing editor for StockBrokers.com and AdvisorSearch.org (formerly investor.com). Carolyn has more than 20 years of writing and editing experience at major media outlets including NerdWallet, the Los Angeles Times and the San Jose Mercury News. She specializes in coverage of personal financial products and services, wielding her editing skills to clarify complex (some might say befuddling) topics to help consumers make informed decisions about their money.
Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Research for ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. Steven is an active fintech and crypto industry researcher and advises blockchain companies at the board level. Over the past 20 years, Steven has held numerous positions within the international forex markets, from writing to consulting to serving as a registered commodity futures representative.
Blain Reinkensmeyer has 20 years of trading experience with over 2,500 trades placed during that time. He heads research for all U.S.-based brokerages on StockBrokers.com and is respected by executives as the leading expert covering the online broker industry. Blain’s insights have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets.