Acorns
Reviews and Complaints

Firstly, I must say that despite the $1 monthly fee, this app should be getting 5 stars from me. I really do love pretty much everything about this app.

I’m a relatively new investor and I’m certainly not a financial advisor, but for those interested in my advice with Acorns: I advise that you do not start with a tiny amount like $5. Start with a minimum investment of $25 or $50 and then invest that same amount every week or so, depending on how much you can afford to invest. The reasoning behind this is that the faster and more money you invest in Acorns, the $1 fee will matter less and less, as it will be a smaller percentage of your portfolio. Your goal will be to get your portfolio’s investments to start growing and outpacing the $1 fee. So if you earn over $1/month, then the app becomes worth it. Don’t worry if you lose money the first few months as you grow your portfolio. The longer the investment sits, the more it will grow. Be patient.

Oh and do not download this app thinking that you’ll become rich over night, or even in a year. Investments take time to grow.

On to the review details:

The idea of roundups is a very great way to get people, especially young adults and beginners, to invest small dollar amounts weekly without even thinking about it. That’s really neat. I also love that they give you the option of automatic recurring investments or one-time investments.

Their portfolio system is simple and easy to understand (even if experienced investors prefer the customization of other investing options, Acorns simplicity is great for beginners). If the goal of Acorns as a company is to get more people involved in investing and saving for their future, they are doing a great job!

My one gripe I have so far is that I’ve had this app for well over a week now and my account has not been approved, meaning my initial investment is STILL pending.

I did make an error while signing up, but when I contacted customer support, they said that would be corrected in a few business days. That’s all well and good. I understand that my error would add on some extra time to get approved. After signing up, I got a notification saying I needed to verify my account information and that would also take roughly 1-3 business days. That’s to be expected, so that also is not what brought the app down to 4 stars.

Here’s where the problem is. Just today, a few days after verifying, I got another notification saying I STILL need to verify more information. All they seemed to need this time was confirmation of my address (which is on the picture of my ID that I initially sent, so I’m not sure why they need it again, but I sent another image verifying my address). Then they tell me once again it’ll take 1-3 business days. Oof. Between waiting for linking my bank account to multiple verification processes, that’s quite a long time to wait around just to get started.

Here’s my suggestion for how Acorns can improve their user experience: dear Acorns, please be certain that you receive all the information needed to verify an account in one sitting. Otherwise, it seems unprofessional, giving the impression that Acorns forgot what all needed to be verified. It also adds extra wait time for the user, so that is obviously not ideal.

Users download this app for the idea of quick, simple and easy investing. When the process just to get started takes longer than a week and they’re told to wait 1-3 business days multiple times, users will start to just give up. They will cancel their investments and uninstall the app.

I am not personally going to that, as I’m planning on investing for a long time and I see a lot of potential in this app, so a week is not a huge problem for me. But for the person who does get frustrated and gives up because it takes a little extra effort and time to get started, these investments could really change their financial situation if they only didn’t give up before they even began.

I hope this review helps. Hopefully Acorns can fix this user experience issue. I look forward to seeing how investing in Acorns goes for me, but for now I’ll just keep waiting to get approved.