But a robo-advisor won’t leave you alone to fend for yourself either; they will place your savings in a generally low-cost, portfolio matched to your circumstances and needs. And they’ll be there should you need to change course.
Made possible by financial technology and the proliferation of their main investment vehicle, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), robo-advisors have been around for more than a decade in Canada. These days there are nine providers available coast to coast. As you’ll find below, some have settled into specific niches, while others continue to actively prospect for new customers, both from rival robos and from banks and mutual fund sales representatives. They differ in the investments they carry, the fees they charge and the way they charge them, the level of personalized service they provide, and their track record of performance.
Robo-advisors’ costs, including their own portfolio management fees and the management expense ratios (MERs) of the funds they use, range from about 0.5% to 1% of assets under management per year (some socially responsible and private-asset portfolios may cost more). Your returns probably won’t shoot out the lights, but they’ll be competitive with the alternatives.
We should note that, since 2019, there has been another, even lower-cost option for investors to obtain algorithm-assisted portfolio management in Canada: the all-in-one, globally diversified, asset allocation ETF. What robo-advisors offer that these ETFs don’t is advice. They will steer you toward the right portfolio for your needs and make changes as your needs change. The choice of what asset-allocation ETF to buy and whether to stick with it, by contrast, is all on you.
Related reading: Best all-in-one ETFs
A robo-advisor is a suitable, modestly priced solution for people who don’t feel comfortable investing on their own. And even if you do know a thing or two about investing, a robo can save you a lot of time tinkering with your portfolio. Just set it and forget it.
With this, the 2026 edition of MoneySense’s robo-advisors guide, we’ve sifted through all the options available to Canadians in the hope of helping you find the best provider for your situation.
What to know when assessing robo-advisors
- Providers scale their fees based on the size of your accounts with them. Larger customers are usually charged lower portfolio management fees expressed as a percentage of assets. Compare the level of fees you’ll be charged at prospective providers based specifically on your account size, now and in the foreseeable future.
- We have provided a snapshot of comparative performance in our table, but it only represents one type of portfolio: a balanced portfolio consisting of approximately 60% equities and 40% fixed income. Check out the performance of the providers’ other portfolio types, especially those you’re likely to use (conservative, growth, income, responsible, etc.). If the robo-advisor you’re considering doesn’t publish historical performance data on its website, ask for it.
- Providers offer temporary promotions from time to time, especially during RRSP season, such as a cash bonus credited to your account when you transfer it from another institution. Often these cash-back offers end up simply compensating for transfer fees charged by the institution you’re leaving, though the federal government is readying legislation that aims to eliminate transfer fees. While it’s fun to see free money pop up in your account, it won’t much affect your life savings over the long haul.
Why trust us
MoneySense is an award-winning magazine, helping Canadians navigate money matters since 1999. Our editorial team of trained journalists works closely with leading personal finance experts in Canada. To help you find the best financial products, we compare the offerings of major institutions, including banks, credit unions and card issuers. Learn more about our advertising and trusted partners.
The best 3 robo-advisors in Canada
These three providers offer the best balance of features and modest costs for retail investors.
Best overall (Gold): Justwealth
Best for: Investors with substantial sums to invest, multiple accounts, and complex needs (the minimum account size in most situations is $5,000); investors seeking more personalized service.
Justwealth is just a robo-advisor. That’s all it does, which, depending on your perspective, may be a plus or a minus. The upside is evident in the performance of its portfolios. Because Justwealth is free to make use of the best-performing ETFs regardless of the fund company, it tends to have the best or near-best returns in almost every portfolio category over various periods. Rival robos, by contrast, are often tied to certain fund families through their parent companies or industry partnerships.
Justwealth also assigns clients a dedicated advisor to deal with instead of an anonymous help desk. And it has by far the widest range of portfolio types—more than 80 of them. Need an account timed to your expected retirement date in 2040? Justwealth has it. Need a first home savings account? They’ve got it. Want the option of switching portfolios as your needs change? You can do that, too.
What Justwealth can’t offer is other financial services such as banking or brokerage services. It doesn’t have a sideline in crypto trading or tax preparation. But if all you want is low-cost, automated portfolio management, Justwealth is hard to beat.
Best Overall (Silver): Wealthsimple
Best for: Investors open to other investing and financial services, from cryptocurrency to physical gold holdings to personal lines of credit.
Wealthsimple started out as a robo-advisor—Canada’s first, in 2014—but has since branched out into just about every aspect of personal financial services. Indeed, it’s mounting a challenge to the country’s notorious banking oligopoly. If you open a managed investing account (as Wealthsimple now calls its robo-advisor service), expect pitches for a lot of other services too. For example, it recently launched direct indexing, a buzzy strategy for holding individual stocks instead of index ETFs.
In addition to basic index ETF portfolios, Wealthsimple now offers its managed investing clients the Summit Portfolio, which combines ETFs with private assets for greater diversification, and access to a private infrastructure fund (expect higher fees for these). It also introduced income portfolios designed to pay out a stream of cash every month, useful in a registered retirement income fund (RRIF).
And since our last survey, the company has added full-service wealth planning at a cost starting at 0.9% of assets under management per year, which includes portfolio management fees. Long an underperformer with respect to its portfolio returns, Wealthsimple has been competitive with its robo rivals in recent years.
Best Overall (Bronze): Questwealth
Best for: Frugal investors intent on paying the lowest fees; investors who also want to dabble in self-directed investing with a (mostly) commission-free brokerage account.
