Personal Finance · pricing
Vanguard pricing
Vanguard publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
- Entry price
- On request
- Model
- Transaction
- Tiers
- 2
- Free tier
- Not on record
Vanguard plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-Directed Investor | On request | 2 | Entry tier |
| Advisory Services | On request | 2 | Priced on request |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Self-Directed Investor
On requestThe entry tier. It covers low-cost index funds, commission-free trading.
Advisory Services
On requestOver Self-Directed Investor, this tier adds:
- All Self-Directed features
- Financial advisors
What the product covers
The full Vanguard feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Core
- Low-cost index funds
- Commission-free trading
- Retirement accounts
- Financial advisors
Integrations
- Bank accounts
- Investment accounts
Platform
- Web support
- IOS support
- Android support
People bring Vanguard in for holding low cost index mutual funds and etfs for long term investing, running iras and taxable brokerage accounts, employer retirement plan participation. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to Vanguard are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Personal Finance
Too few personal finance tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vanguard (this page) | On request | transaction | - | |
| Copilot Money | Free | freemium | - | vs Vanguard |
| Cash App | Free | free | - | vs Vanguard |
| Apple Pay | Free | free | - | vs Vanguard |
| Betterment | $5/month | subscription | - | vs Vanguard |
| Charles Schwab | On request | transaction | - | vs Vanguard |
| Acorns | On request | subscription | - | vs Vanguard |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the Vanguard badges page.
Before you pay for Vanguard
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between On request and On request, with the jump itemised above. With no free tier on record, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to compare Vanguard against the tools that do have one before committing.
Vanguard runs on web, ios, android, and is published by Vanguard Group of Malvern, Pennsylvania. The full record is on the Vanguard review, and the rest of the category is under best personal finance tools.
Vanguard pricing questions
- How much does Vanguard cost?
- Vanguard publishes 2 tiers, from On request for Self-Directed Investor up to On request for Advisory Services. The cheapest paid tier is On request.
- Does Vanguard have a free plan?
- Not on the record we hold: Vanguard is listed as transaction. Whether a free trial is offered is not something this record captures, so check the vendor's site.
- What is the difference between Self-Directed Investor and Advisory Services on Vanguard?
- Advisory Services costs On request against On request, and adds all self-directed features, financial advisors.
- Which personal finance tools can I use without paying?
- 4 of the 8 personal finance tools listed alongside Vanguard have a free tier: Copilot Money, Cash App, Apple Pay, Coinbase.
- What am I actually paying for with Vanguard?
- The record lists 9 features across 3 areas: core, integrations, platform. In practice it is brought in for holding low cost index mutual funds and etfs for long term investing, running iras and taxable brokerage accounts, employer retirement plan participation.
- Does Vanguard charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these Vanguard prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare Vanguard against before paying?
- The closest personal finance tools in this directory are Copilot Money, Cash App, Apple Pay, Betterment. Each has a side-by-side comparison with Vanguard covering price, platforms and features.