Compare two of the top hybrid robo-advisors and find out which one works for you
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David Rodeck
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David is a financial content writer in New York City. He specializes in covering insurance, investing, and retirement planning. Before writing full-time, he worked as a financial advisor and passed both the CFP and Series 6 exams.
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Updated April 12, 2024
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If you want a robo-advisor for investing but are worried about trusting everything to a computer, Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor are two popular hybrid solutions that could be a fit. Both offer high-quality platforms to manage your portfolio, along with unlimited support from human financial advisors. In exchange, both require larger deposits to get started.
Vanguard Personal Advisor is the more affordable option, It requires a smaller account minimum of $50,000 and charges a modest fee of 0.35%, which keeps it in competition with non-hybrid digital investment management platforms. Investors with $500,000 in assets at Vanguard can access Vanguard Personal Advisor Select with a 0.30% fee and a dedicated financial advisor rather than access to a team. Empower’s hybrid platform demands a higher fee, starting at 0.89%, and requires a minimum deposit of at least $100,000, but offers customers more investment flexibility. Read on to see how Empower vs. Vanguard Personal Advisor compare.
- Account Minimum: $100,000
- Fees: Ranging from 0.89% for the first $1 million with tiers down to 0.49% for accounts over $10 million
Read full review
Key Takeaways of Empower
- Unlimited access to human financial advisors
- Good investment selection and portfolio customization
- Extensive investment and financial planning tools
- Account Minimum:$50,000
- Fee: Approximately 0.35% of assets under management (excluding cash) for up to $5 million; management fee tiers down after.
Read full review
Key Takeaways of Vanguard Personal Advisor
- Unlimited access to human financial advisors
- Competitive fee for a hybrid robo-advisor
- Lower investment minimum versus Empower
Account Setup
Both Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor require you to set up an account before you can use the investment tools. Empower asks you to enter your contact information, date of birth, and basic financial information. You also need to link at least one existing financial account, like a bank or investment account. You will then gain access to Empower’s free investing and financial planning tools.
Empower
If you’d like to use Empower’s robo-advisor to manage your portfolio, you must complete a questionnaire about your financial situation, goals, and risk tolerance. You could also schedule a free call with an advisor to discuss your investment strategy. From there, the Empower advisors and platform will create a portfolio recommendation. If you like the recommendation, you must transfer over at least $100,000 of either cash or existing securities to open your account.
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor requires you to open a Vanguard account to start. You must provide your contact information, date of birth, Social Security number, and employer. Next, you’ll need to deposit at least $50,000 with Vanguard to meet the account minimum for Vanguard Personal Advisor.
Once you've gained access to the platform, you'll be asked questions about your savings, goals, and risk tolerance. It will then suggest a portfolio for you, which you can choose to launch. If you'd like, you could schedule a call with a human advisor to discuss your goals and to get help setting up the portfolio through the robo-advisor.
Account Setup Verdict: Tie
Both of these hybrid digital investment managers provide easy access to human support on top of straightforward onboarding experiences.
Goal Planning
Empower
Empower offers an excellent combination of free goal-planning tools, such as a budget planner, an investment checkup, and a retirement planner. You enter your goals, such as your target age and income for retirement. Empower’s software will then look at your existing savings and investments to tell you how likely you are to hit your goals.
Empower pulls insights from your existing financial accounts and loans to give you detailed, individualized insights into how you’re doing and possible improvements, like ways to lower fees on your current investments or budgeting tips to save more. The human advisors will also consider your goals for creating your portfolio and financial plan.
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor is not quite as comprehensive for goal planning, but it still does a solid job in this area. When you sign up, you answer questions about your retirement goals, current savings, and income. The platform then runs 10,000 simulations to predict if you’re on track for your retirement goal.
After you’ve launched your retirement strategy through the robo-advisor, you can set up additional investment goals like saving for college expenses, buying a home, saving for vacation, etc. The platform designs your portfolio to best meet all the goals in your financial plan. If you’d like more information beyond what the platform offers, you can meet with a Vanguard advisor.
Goal Planning Verdict: Empower
Overall, the Vanguard and Empower retirement planning tools both offer helpful information, though you get more insights from Empower.
Account Services
Empower
Empower offers a cash management account called Empower Personal Cash. It earns a 4.70% APY. There’s no debit card, so you must transfer funds to another bank to get your money in and out. Empower also offers an individual investment account that allows you to buy stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). You manage these investments yourself, outside of the robo-advisor.
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor is fairly limited when it comes to account services, as it only provides the robo-advisor investment service. While setting up automatic deposits from an external account is easy, traditional banking options are not available. While borrowing on margin is also not available through digital investment accounts, customers with a Vanguard self-directed brokerage account do have access to this feature.
When it comes to cash management, investors receive monthly dividends from their cash based on the yields of the money market. It is also noteworthy that investors are not required to hold cash balances. If there is a cash balance in the account, however, no fees are charged on those assets.
Account Services Verdict: Empower
Both these hybrid robo-advisors are part of a larger investment ecosystem with self-directed options and a plethora of financial tools. We give Empower a slight edge on account services for its cash management account.
Portfolio Construction
Empower
Empower builds your portfolio based on your goals, time horizon, current savings, and risk tolerance. A human advisor will consider this information as part of creating your portfolio recommendation. It’s not fully automated, as Empower’s advisors will be involved in designing the portfolio through the robo-advisor.
The available investments depend on the size of your portfolio. The lowest tier is for portfolios between $100,000 and $250,000. These investors only get access to ETFs. Still, Empower creates a diversified portfolio using these funds across multiple asset groups, including U.S. stocks and bonds, international stocks and bonds, commodities, and REITs.
The second tier requires $250,000 to $1 million. These portfolios include individual stocks as well as ETFs. Finally, investors with over $1 million could receive portfolios that include private equity investments.
Empower account types:
- Individual and joint brokerage
- Roth and traditional individual retirement (IRA)
- Rollover IRA and 401(k)
- Simplified employee pension (SEP) IRA
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor builds your portfolio using the robo-advisor software. You answer questions about your goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon to get the automated recommendation. While you can speak with a human advisor for help answering these questions, the robo-advisor creates your portfolio.
Vanguard Personal Advisor builds the portfolio using stock and bond ETFs from Vanguard. You pick between three different investment styles to determine what’s in your portfolio:
- All-index: This strategy uses passive index funds for U.S. and international stock and bond funds. The goal is to keep fees low while reaching your investment goals.
- Active/index: This strategy uses a combination of more expensive, active funds trying to earn a higher return and low-cost index funds.
- ESG: This strategy considers environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors as well as investment performance to pick funds for your portfolio.
Vanguard Personal Advisor account types:
- Individual and joint brokerage
- Roth and traditional IRA
- Rollover IRA
- Eligible 401(k)
Portfolio Construction Verdict: Tie
Both Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor offer the commonly used account types and mainly leverage ETFs to fill those portfolios. Usually, Empower would win this, based on its deeper diversification methodology that avoids asset concentration and maximizes diversification. But it is up against Vanguard, and that firm's fund universe offers much the same thing through its scale.
Available Assets
Both Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor tend toward safer means of wealth-building, so it is no surprise that neither of these hybrid digital investment managers offers access to cryptocurrency.
| Empower | Vanguard Personal Advisor | |
| Individual Stocks | Yes, for accounts larger than $250,000 | No |
| Mutual Funds | No | Yes |
| Fixed Income | Only through ETFs | Only through ETFs |
| REITs | Yes | No |
| Socially Responsible or ESG Options | Yes | Yes |
| ETFs | Yes | Yes |
| Non-Proprietary ETFs | Yes | No |
| Private Equity | Yes, for accounts larger than $1 million | Yes |
| Crypto | No | No |
| Forex | No | No |
Portfolio Customization
Empower
Empower offers a lot more flexibility for portfolio customization, but it is directly related to how much you have to put into the platform. When you set up your portfolio, the financial professionals work to understand your unique situation, preferences, and goals to create a personalized portfolio. From there, you can request a different portfolio asset allocation, ask that the portfolio screen funds for ESG, request that the portfolio add or remove certain ETFs, and set restrictions for future trades. Empower tailors the portfolio to what you want as you breach specific levels, like $250,000 and $1 million.
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor gives you access to a bit more customization than its Digital Advisor offering for investors with smaller account sizes. Outside of the three main portfolio types, you can contact an advisor to help you adjust allocations at more granular levels. This includes assistance with overweighting or underweighting your portfolio in certain areas, but in a manner that matches your overall risk profile. You can also request reasonable restrictions as to what is in your account. However, if you make too many requests, Vanguard could close your Vanguard Personal Advisor account. A limit on portfolio customization is a noticeable drawback for Vanguard vs. Empower when it comes to retirement planning.
Portfolio Customization Verdict: Empower
Empower has more portfolio customization options than Vanguard Personal Advisor. It is important to note that many of these only open up at higher account balances.
Portfolio Management
Empower
Empower manages your portfolio through the robo-advisor platform. If one of your asset allocations drifts off target, Empower will automatically rebalance your portfolio. It checks your portfolio daily for rebalancing. With the lowest-tier account, you can request reviews with an advisor to ensure your financial plan and portfolio allocation in the robo-advisor still make sense.
If you have $250,000 or more with Empower, you get matched up with two financial advisors for an ongoing relationship. These advisors will personally review your portfolio and regularly schedule meetings with you. If you have outside workplace retirement plans, you can also give Empower permission to manage these accounts.
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor also manages your portfolio automatically through the robo-advisor. It rebalances the portfolio whenever a category gets more than 5% off your target. The platform also rebalances when you update your goals or life stage, such as when you get married. Vanguard Personal Advisor can track external accounts to plan your investments. However, it cannot manage these accounts.
Vanguard’s human advisors will not personally oversee your portfolio. You can meet them for advice and to discuss your progress. However, if you want more personalized advice from Vanguard, you could use its Vanguard Personal Advisor Select program, which requires a portfolio of $500,000.
Portfolio Management Verdict: Tie
Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor both actively monitor your portfolio and take action when allocations drift out of true. You can also reach out to a human advisor to discuss your portfolio management whenever needed.
Tax-Advantaged Investing
Both Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor offer automated tax-loss harvesting. The platforms review your portfolio to look for opportunities to sell investments for a deductible loss and replace them with a similar investment. The goal is for you to keep the same allocation while receiving a tax break.
Tax-Advantaged Investing Verdict: Tie
Here again, Vanguard Personal Advisor and Empower match up well. The digital investment management software looks for tax-loss harvesting opportunities and human advisors can provide advice on broader issues like timing withdrawals.
| Key Portfolio Management Features | ||
|---|---|---|
| Empower | Vanguard Personal Advisor | |
| Automatic Rebalancing | Yes, as needed based on portfolio drift | Yes, monitored daily, 5% threshold |
| Reporting Features | Dashboard, monthly statements, tax documents, custom reports | Online dashboard and checkups with advisors |
| Tax-Loss Harvesting | Yes | Yes |
| External Account Syncing/Consolidation | Yes, both for goal planning and the option to manage external workplace retirement accounts | Yes, for goal planning only |
Security
Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor both invest in high-quality security measures such as website encryption and two-factor authentication.
Both companies provide SIPC insurance to cover your account if the company goes bankrupt. Empower provides the standard $500,000 maximum, while Vanguard offers excess coverage if your portfolio is beyond this size.Empower and Vanguard also provide FDIC insurance for cash management accounts.
Security Verdict: Tie
Both Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor are up to industry standards when it comes to security.
User Experience
Desktop
Empower
Our Empower and Vanguard reviews gave high scores to the desktop experience for both companies. Empower’s software offers one of the best user experiences for a robo-advisor. The desktop dashboard is beautifully designed. It provides a ton of information with all the investment and planning tools, yet it doesn’t feel overwhelming. Empower also makes adding new and outside financial accounts easy and immediately updates your plan with this extra information.
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor’s desktop platform is simpler but highly effective. It clearly walks you through the investment process while showing information about your goals and progress. There aren’t nearly as many tools and features as Empower’s financial planning software has, but what Vanguard offers is handled well.
Mobile
Empower
Empower’s mobile app includes most of the information and planning tools from the desktop version. However, Empower provides so much information that it can be hard to properly sort everything on a mobile device. It’s a better desktop experience.
Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor is also better suited for the desktop user experience. The mobile app allows you to check your balance and schedule transfers in and out of your account. However, you must use the desktop version for most of the functionality.
Customer Service
Empower and Vanguard Personal Advisor offer similar, decent levels of customer service. Both offer phone support during business hours, Monday through Friday. Both companies also provide email support but not live chat. Finally, both robo-advisors allow you to schedule phone or online virtual meetings with human financial advisors at your convenience for financial planning and investment questions.
| Empower | Vanguard Personal Advisor | |
| Phone Customer Service | Yes, Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. MT | Yes, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. ET |
| Email Customer Service | Yes | Yes |
| Live Chat | No | Yes, via video chat |
| Human Advisors | Yes | Yes |
Customer Service Verdict: Tie
It is expected that hybrid digital investment managers score highly on customer service, and these two both do. You can access human help at Vanguard Personal Advisor and Empower quite easily.
Fees
Empower charges an obviously higher fee than Vanguard Personal Advisors. If you have less than $1 million, Empower charges 0.89% of your assets under management (AUM) per year. Empower reduces fees for portfolios over $1 million but still charges considerably more than Vanguard. Vanguard Personal Advisor charges between 0.35% and 0.40% per year, depending on the investment style.
There will be underlying expense ratios on the ETF investments, of course. Vanguard credits some of these back to keep fees at approximately 0.35% for its standard portfolio. Empower doesn’t disclose expense ratios as these are likely to vary widely depending on the customizations to a portfolio. Neither company charges commissions to sell or buy investments, though. You also do not pay anything to schedule meetings with human advisors; unlimited calls are included.
Fees Verdict: Vanguard Personal Advisor
Vanguard Personal Advisor charges less than half what Empower does, making it the clear winner in fees. It is worth noting that both these platforms charge far, far less than traditional wealth management firms while offering solid investment methodologies proven to work for high-net-worth clients.
| Category | Empower | Vanguard Personal Advisor |
| AUM Fee | 0.89% for portfolios below $1 million; 0.49% to 0.79% for portfolios above $1 million | 0.35% to 0.40% |
| Monthly Fee | None | None |
| ETF Expense Ratio | Varies by portfolio | 0.05% average on the standard portfolio |
| Commissions | No | No |
The Bottom Line
Empower vs. Vanguard Personal Advisor are both solid choices for investors who want support from human advisors without paying the steep cost of hiring their own personal investment advisor. Vanguard Personal Advisor is better for fee-conscious investors. It charges less than half the annual fee of Empower for accounts of less than $1 million. Despite being low-cost, Vanguard Personal Advisors offers unlimited access to human advisors along with automated investment management and goal-planning tools through the robo-advisor.
Empower charges more because it offers more. It has more powerful planning tools, provides more investment options, and allows for more portfolio customization. The human advisors at Empower are also more actively involved with creating and managing your portfolio. Empower is better if you want this extra support and are willing to pay more. For investors with between $50,000 and $99,999, Vanguard is the only choice.In addition, those seeking a wider range of funds will find what they are looking for at Vanguard. Investors can also access private equity at Vanguard Personal Advisor at a lower account value compared to Empower.
Which Is Better, Vanguard or Empower?
Empower offers better investment options for its robo-advisor, more goal-planning tools, portfolio customization, and active support from human advisors. Vanguard Personal Advisor, though, costs less than half the annual fee (for portfolios below $1 million) while still offering a quality robo-advisor with unlimited access to human advisors. Vanguard is better for keeping costs low, while Empower is better for receiving more investment capabilities and support.
How Much Does Vanguard Charge Compared to Empower?
Vanguard charges between 0.35% and 0.40% per year of your assets under management to use Vanguard Personal Advisor, but its rebate system can bring it down to 0.30% in some cases. Empower charges 0.89% for portfolios under $1 million, roughly twice as much. Empower does reduce its fees for portfolios over $1 million but still charges more than Vanguard. Even on portfolios over $10 million, Empower charges 0.49% per year.
Does Empower Work With Vanguard?
Empower’s software does work with Vanguard. The software links with existing Vanguard brokerage accounts to track them for goal planning and investment recommendations. Empower also uses Vanguard exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for its investment portfolios.
Does Empower Have High Fees?
Empower has high investment fees compared to the typical robo-advisor, but these are reasonable fees compared to using a human advisor. Empower charges 0.89% on portfolios below $1 million, more than triple the 0.25% per year charged by Wealthfront, another top robo-advisor. However, Wealthfront does not provide access to human advisors, while Empower does. On the other hand, a human advisor might charge 1% to 2% a year for investment management, significantly more than Empower.
How We Review Robo-Advisors
Providing readers with unbiased, comprehensive reviews of digital wealth management companies, more commonly known as robo-advisors, is a top priority of Investopedia. We used our2023 consumer surveyto guide the research and weightings for our 2024 robo-advisor awards. To collect the data, we sent a digital survey with 64 questions to each of the 21 companies we included in our rubric. Additionally, our team of researchers verified the survey responses and collected any missing data points through online research and conversations with each company directly. The data collection process spanned from Jan. 8 to Feb. 9, 2024.
We then developed a quantitative model that scored each company to rate its performance across nine major categories and 59 criteria to find the best robo-advisors. The score for each company’s overall star rating is a weighted average of the criteria:
- Goal Planning - 21.00%
- Portfolio Contents - 17.00%
- Portfolio Management - 17.00%
- Fees - 15.00%
- Account Services - 10.00%
- Account Setup - 5.00%
- Customer Service - 5.00%
- Security & Education - 5.00%
- User Experience - 5.00%
Additionally, during our 2023 research, many of the companies we reviewed granted our team of expert writers and editors access to live accounts so they could perform hands-on testing.
Through this all-encompassing data collection and review process, Investopedia has provided you with an unbiased and thorough review of the top robo-advisors.
Read more abouthow we research and review robo-advisors.
Separately, our research team conducted a survey of 205 U.S. adults aged 18 to 72 who are current clients of one of 18robo-advisors. While the information collected did not influence the development of our ratings model, it was instrumental in gathering the valuable insights published inInvestopedia's 2023Robo-Advisor Consumer Survey.
Participants in our 2023Robo-Advisor Survey opted into an online, self-administered questionnaire from a market research vendor. Data collection took place between Aug. 30 and Sept. 15, 2023, with 11 video interviews conducted with volunteer respondents from Sept. 7 to Sept. 17, 2023. Multiple quality checks, including screeners, attention gauges, comprehension evaluations, and logic metrics, among others, were used to ensure only the highest quality responses were included.
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Article Sources
Investopedia requires writers to use primary sources to support their work. These include white papers, government data, original reporting, and interviews with industry experts. We also reference original research from other reputable publishers where appropriate. You can learn more about the standards we follow in producing accurate, unbiased content in oureditorial policy.
Vanguard. "Vanguard Personal Advisor."
Empower. "Wealth Management."
Vanguard. "How to Open an Account."
Empower. "Empower Personal Cash."
Empower. "Investment Accounts."
Vanguard. "Advisor Client Relationship Summary (Form CRS)."
Empower. "Personal Strategy Plus."
Vanguard. "Vanguard Personal Advisor Select."
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