[eeeeeeeeeeeee]

This article didn't mention it specifically, but Betterment already put in a rate hike. You used to be able to get 10 basis points if you had over 100k and they just increased that to 25 in a really underhanded way. I had been using Betterment for about 2 years when they did this.

I had been happy with Betterment but it's clear that they want to get as many people in under the low rates and slowly increase it on you, knowing that you can't easily move it around to another provider (especially if you're dependent on their tax loss harvesting etc).

[suresk]

Yeah, that was really disappointing. I'd bought into the Betterment kool-aid, and shortly after funding my account, I saw their 'price increase buried in an unrelated product announcement' email.

I think these companies (Betterment, WealthFront, etc) are struggling with really high customer acquisition costs that take quite a while to break even on. I'm sure that not many people noticed/cared enough to transfer out (I'm doing it now, it isn't a small task), so they came out way ahead on it.

Unfortunately, I think it will be easy for them in a year or two, when they need more quick revenue, to look back and say "Hey, not many people said anything when we raised fees by 67%, what's another 10 bps or so?"

[eeeeeeeeeeeee]

Yep, I agree. I signed up based on the rates at the time, thinking they wouldn't change THAT often. But it sounds like this is going to become more common.

I'm in the process of moving everything to Vanguard.