SigFig is an investing app that works using third-party investment brokerage accounts. This company’s investment strategies can work to analyze, monitor, and improve any portfolio. It automatically balances and diversifies investments while reducing risk and minimizing fees. SigFig’s goal is to basically be the middleman between retail investors and advisors.

SigFig offers 3 levels of products:

Portfolio Tracker — This is a no-cost tracking tool that puts your entire investment portfolio in one place. There are no minimum investment requirements with SigFig.

Asset Management — This system keeps your portfolio balanced and diversified while maximizing your investment earning potential. There is a 0.25% annual fee and $2,000 minimum investment requirement.

Diversified Income — With diversified income you will be able to make the most of your CDs, bonds, U.S. Treasuries, and bank interest rates in a low-rate environment. With diversified income, there is a 0.50% annual fee and a $100,000 minimum investment requirement.

SigFig has apps for iPhone, iPad, iTouch, Apple Watch, Android, and Windows 8 tablet.

Pros 

• Free Portfolio Tracker
• Free Portfolio Review
• No annual fee for under $100,000 of managed funds
• Investment Diversification — Your portfolio allocation includes real estate, stocks, and bonds.

Cons 

• The portfolio recommendations can be inaccurate.
• Customer service can be subpar
• Frequent scheduled maintenance periods when the system is down without customers getting notified​​

What Other People Are Saying

Customers are saying a lot about SigFig.  Some are loving it, while others are experiencing frustrations such as when the system is down for maintenance.  One customer explains his issues this way,

“It is very frustrating to log on to my account only to see the message ‘We are currently performing scheduled maintenance. Please try again later. Thank you for your patience.’ These ‘scheduled’ periods don’t conform to any schedule that I can determine. If THEY know when they are going to be, can’t they indicate such time periods or a duration… Can’t they send an email in advance so I won’t be left hanging in the middle of my computations and can plan ahead? This seems to put a total hold to my activities twice per week for endless hours on end.”

Cost and Process to Join

To sign up for SigFig, simply go to the app store on your mobile device or sign up on their website to start trying out their Portfolio Tracker for free.  There is no cost to sign up with SigFig at the entry level.  The process takes a minute or two to sign up.

Then you will be taken to an overview section that will let you add more accounts to your portfolio.  This lets you see all of your investments in one view.  SigFig will show your overall balance and current holdings.  In addition, it will show you the U.S. stock market ratings of assets in your portfolio.

You will have an option of optimizing your portfolio.  If you do that, be prepared to let the app know your age, your investment time horizon (less than five years, five to 10 years, or 10+ years), your household income, the amount of your income that you save, the amount of your liquid assets, and your risk tolerance.

Customer Support

I did come across a lot of complaints for SigFig as far as customer service.  There were multiple complaints of customer service not getting back with people or fixing problems timely.  Here is just one of many negative experiences that I read about,

“I noticed SigFig pricing was incorrect today. Their support said they are working on the problem and that it had just started today. They provided no notification of the problem and at this time have no plans to notify users when the problem is addressed. Failure to accurately reflect market prices is bad. Failure to notify users that the information they are looking at is based on inaccurate prices is unforgivable. Having discovered this problem and they’re approach to addressing this problem has proven to me that they can not be trusted.”

My Conclusion 

SigFig is one of the biggest and most well-known investment apps out there.  A nice thing about SigFig is that you can join for free and use their Portfolio Tracker which will give you a free review. However, keep in mind that the portfolio recommendations can be inaccurate.  I did find a lot of customer service and system complaints, especially concerning when the system is down for maintenance or when it is showing inaccurate information.  Overall, though, this is a popular app and it doesn’t hurt to try the Portfolio Tracker for fee.  After that there will be costs involved with the next levels to this app. I hope that this review helps you as you look to start investing in the future. 

For more reviews and information, check out our list of the Top Ten Investing Apps of 2018.