In this comparison review, I’ll be comparing Moneyfarm vs Wealthify, two of the leading robo-advisor investment platforms in the UK.

I’ll be putting Wealthify and Moneyfarm head-to-head on a number of metrics to see which comes out on top. This includes portfolio performance, ethical investing offerings, products and, of course, fees.

Most people want to get the best possible return on their money for the least cost. As an experienced investor and a Chartered Accountant, I know how important it is to balance costs against returns!

Robo-advisors are great if you’re looking for a hands-off way to invest your money, as both Moneyfarm and Wealthify offer ready-made portfolios. 

Moneyfarm has a wider range of investment options to choose from and charges lower fees if you’re investing more than £50k. 

Wealthify works out cheaper if you have under £50k to invest and also allows you to get started with a lower minimum investment, of just £1.

But let’s take a look at a detailed comparison of Moneyfarm vs Wealthify to see which is the superior platform.

Read on for my full Moneyfarm vs Wealthify comparison, or use the links below to jump straight to a particular section.

• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: At A Glance
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Fees
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Products
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Portfolios
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Ethical Portfolios
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Performance
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Research, Tools & Advice
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Which Has The Better App?
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Is My Money Safe?
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Pros & Cons
• Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Final Verdict

You can also read my in-depth reviews of each platform here:

• Moneyfarm Review
• Wealthify Review

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: At A Glance

Here’s my overview of Moneyfarm vs Wealthify in case you don’t want to read the whole comparison. 

The table below looks at the key features compared against each other.

Moneyfarm offers more portfolio options and a greater range of products, which now includes Thematic Investing. But Wealthify is cheaper if you’re investing anything up to £50k. Moneyfarm is cheaper if you’re investing £50k or more. 

So if you’re focused on cost and have under £50,000 to invest, then you may prefer Wealthify. If you have more than £50,000 to invest, then you may prefer Moneyfarm as it works out cheaper.

Both now offer socially responsible, or ethical, investment options in addition to their traditional investment options. They also both offer Investment ISAs, General Investment Accounts (GIAs), Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs) and Junior ISAs (JISAs). 

Moneyfarm now also offers Thematic Investing as part of your investment portfolio. This allows you to pick from 4 high-growth investment themes to allocate up to 20% of your portfolio to. More on this below under Portfolios.

You can also choose to put your money into lower cost fixed allocation portfolios with Moneyfarm. These portfolios are not actively managed and are instead rebalanced once per year, which means they have lower fees. Wealthify does not offer fixed allocation portfolios.

Neither Moneyfarm nor Wealthify currently offer a Lifetime ISA (LISA) or regulated financial advice, unlike their rival Nutmeg. You can read more on this in my Nutmeg review.

If you’re looking to get started with passive investing with a small amount of money, then you may prefer Wealthify as its minimum investment is just £1. 

For more portfolio and risk options, and for investments of over £50k you may prefer Moneyfarm for its wider choice of portfolios and lower fees above £50k.

What is Moneyfarm?

Moneyfarm is currently one of the largest digital wealth management companies in Europe with over 90,000 users and more than £2 billion in assets under management. It launched in Italy in 2011 and then in the UK in 2016. Of the big 3 robo-advisors in the UK along with Wealthify and Nutmeg, it’s the only one still not wholly-owned by a large investment company, although it does have large institutional investors backing it.

It is a ‘robo-advisor’ which means rather than individually managing your investment it provides ready-made portfolios to invest in based on your risk appetite. It does this by asking you to complete a detailed questionnaire upon signing up and, based on your responses, you’ll be recommended a portfolio to invest your money in.

Robo-advisors are therefore a good low-cost investment option for you to consider if you don’t want to actively manage your own money.

Once you’ve signed up and funded your account, Moneyfarm then manages this portfolio for you over time. Their investment professionals constantly analyse the market and rebalance your portfolio when necessary. I’ve personally been using Moneyfarm since 2017 to invest my own money.

When I signed up I was placed into the ‘Pioneer’ category, which is risk level 6 out of 7. Since late 2017 and up until February 2023 it has returned just under 13% on a money-weighted basis. On a time-weighted basis, it has returned just over 19%. To understand more about the difference between money-weighted and time-weighted returns, you can read more in my Moneyfarm review.

What is Wealthify?

Wealthify is a robo-advisor similar to Moneyfarm. Their stated aim is to make investing accessible to everyone.

Founded in 2016, Wealthify was fully acquired by Aviva – one of the UK’s largest financial services companies – in June 2020. It has not disclosed its assets under management (AUM) but it’s estimated that as of June 2021 Wealthify had around 50,000 clients.

Fundamentally, Wealthify is a robo-advisor in much the same way as Moneyfarm. However it appears to target perhaps a younger and less experienced type of investor, as it allows you to get started with only £1. They also have a very simple fee structure which beats Moneyfarm on cost for smaller investment amounts (under £50k).

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Fees

Let’s look at the all-important costs for Moneyfarm vs Wealthify. If you’re not careful when investing in general, you can end up paying much higher fees and charges than you need to. 

Investment accounts are considered to be ‘sticky’ from an industry point of view, i.e. clients rarely switch investment providers. It’s always good to check in on any changes to the fees that you’re paying with your current investment provider and switch if you think you’re overpaying.

Transferring an ISA to a different provider is now much easier to do than it was in the past. Both Moneyfarm and Wealthify offer ISA Transfers.

Wealthify has a simple fee structure – it charges 0.6% on all investments, no matter how much you have invested, with both its Original and Ethical portfolios. 

Moneyfarm, however, has a tiered fee structure which means that for over £50,000 of investments, it’s cheaper than Wealthify. But with under £50,000 to invest, Wealthy is cheaper.  

Example annual cost of investing £10k with each provider in their standard actively managed portfolios:

Moneyfarm (Actively Managed): £10,000 x 0.70% x 0.09% x 0.20% = £99 or 0.99%

Wealthify Standard: £10,000 x 0.6% x 0.16% = £76 or 0.76% 

Which is cheaper out of Wealthify vs Moneyfarm will depend on how much you want to invest and which type of investment you choose.

If you’re investing under £50k, Wealthify is the cheaper option for actively managed portfolios. 

For over £50k of investment, Moneyfarm is the cheaper option in an actively managed portfolio.

However, if you’re interested in a fixed allocation portfolio with Moneyfarm then this works out cheaper for any amount of investment than Wealthify’s actively managed portfolios. It’s also cheaper than Moneyfarm’s actively managed portfolios. This is because it’s rebalanced once per year and so does not require as much time and effort to optimise.

When it comes to ethical, or socially responsible, investing, then Moneyfarm is cheaper for any amount of investment. This is because Wealthify’s ethical fund fees are 0.7% compared to Moneyfarm’s 0.3% (both including market spread). More below on Ethical Investing.

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Products

Moneyfarm and Wealthify both offer stocks and shares ISAs, General Investment Accounts (GIAs), Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs) and Junior ISAs (JISAs).

Neither currently offer a Lifetime ISA (LIFA), unlike Nutmeg. Moneyfarm is apparently working on offering a LISA, though.

Similarly, neither Moneyfarm or Wealthify offer personalised financial advice, which is again something that Nutmeg does offer.

There’s not much to choose between Wealthify and Moneyfarm when it comes to the products they offer. The main differences between them come from pricing and the portfolios they offer.

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Portfolios

Wealthify offers 5 portfolios to choose from in its standard managed portfolios, with differing risk levels where 1 is the least risky and 5 is the most risky. Moneyfarm’s actively managed investment option has more portfolios to choose from with 7, each with a different risk level. 

Moneyfarm asks you to complete a detailed questionnaire to get an idea of the level of risk you’re comfortable with, then it reccommends which portfolio you should choose. Wealthify, however, allows you to pick your own risk level without completing a questionnaire which you may prefer if you want to quickly get started.

Moneyfarm goes further than its 7 actively managed portfolios though, as it also offers two more sets of portfolio options. The first is its Fixed Allocation portfolios which offer lower cost investing. There are 5 options to choose from here, again depending on your risk appetite. 

Fixed allocation portfolios cost less to manage as they are not constantly monitored and rebalanced like the active management portfolios are. Instead, they’re reviewed and rebalanced once annually. They’re a good option for you if you simply want low cost exposure to the market. However, returns may be lower than actively managed funds.

Secondly, Moneyfarm recently introduced Thematic Investing. Moneyfarm has created  4 investment ‘themes’ – Technology, Sustainability, Society and Multitrend. The idea of these themes is to get exposure to high-growth industries. Investments in these themes will be exposed to industries such as e-commerce, clean energy and AI. 

Rather than standalone portfolios, Thematic options can be added as a proportion of your existing portfolio allocation. You can choose to have up to 20% of your overall portfolio to be made up of the 4 themes, and you can choose which themes you want to invest in.

This Moneyfarm vs Wealthify review focuses on Moneyfarm’s Actively Managed portfolios, as these are closest in offering to Wealthify. Overall though, Moneyfarm offers a greater choice of portfolios for you to choose from.

Both Moneyfarm and Wealthify offer ethical/socially responsible investing options. Read on for more on ethical investing.

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Ethical Portfolios

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing or Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is a growing area in the investment space.

Investors increasingly want to know which companies and industries their money is going into to ensure that they align with their values. So it’s no surprise that both Moneyfarm and Weathify offer a range of SRI options.

Wealthify uses the term ‘Ethical Investing’, while Moneyfarm uses Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). Each of their SRI offerings are created using Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) in the same way as Moneyfarm and Wealthify’s standard actively managed portfolios. The difference is that the specific ETFs chosen for SRI portfolios must adhere to socially responsible investment criteria. 

Moneyfarm says that its SRI portfolios mainly focus on environmental impacts. Wealthify says that its Ethical Investing focuses on environmental and social impacts. Both providers select funds that are signatories of the Principles of Responsible Investing (PRI), which claims to be the world’s leading proponent of responsible investing.

Moneyfarm offers 7 SRI portfolios to choose from, each representing different risk levels in the same way its regular portfolios are arranged. This is slightly more than Wealthify’s 5 Ethical Investing portfolios to choose from, which also range in risk levels.

When it comes to cost, both Moneyfarm and Wealthify charge their usual management fees for SRI investments. However, the fund costs with both providers are higher than non-SRI funds. 

For Moneyarm, the fund costs plus market spread comes to 0.30% on top of the management fee, which is only 0.01% higher than non-SRI fund fees. For Wealthify, their Ethical Investing fund costs are significantly higher at 0.7% on top of the 0.6% management fee. 

This means that Wealthify’s effective cost is 1.3% on Ethical portfolios, which is more expensive than Moneyfarm’s SRI investing no matter how much you invest with them.

So if you’re interested in the cheapest way of socially responsible investing, then Moneyfarm may be the better option for you.

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Performance

Given that Moneyfarm has 7 portfolios and Wealthify has 5, a direct comparison of performance is a little difficult. However, both have past performance data going back to early 2016. 

So let’s look at how the lowest risk, medium risk and highest risk actively managed portfolios compared against each other for 2022:

It’s important to note that 2022 was not a good time for most stock markets. Energy prices, a cost-of-living crisis and high inflation, particularly in Western economies, caused widespread sell-offs in many major stock markets.

The S&P500 in the US lost 18% during 2022 and the pan-European Stoxx 600 lost 12.5%. The UK’s FTSE100 fared slightly better, posting a modest 0.9% return for 2022. With that in mind, comparing Moneyfarm’s returns to Wealthify for 2022 is about which lost the least value. 

Although this is not a scientific analysis, looking at the table above it appears that Moneyfarm outperformed Wealthify at the lower and medium risk levels across 2022. Wealthify performed better in the highest level of risk portfolios.

Let’s also look at the past 6 year’s performance (at the time of writing, Feb-23) for Moneyfarm vs Wealthify:

Over a longer period of time, Wealthfiy appears to have outperformed Moneyfarm at the lower risk level. Moneyfarm, however, has outperformed at the mid- and higher-level of risk. As usual though, past performance is not a guarantee of future performance.

Which portfolio you fall into with either Moneyfarm or Wealthify is down to your own personal circumstances and risk appetite. I am invested in Moneyfarm’s portfolio 6, for example. If you have a higher level of risk appetite then you may lean towards Moneyfarm based on past performance. At the lower risk end, Wealthify may be preferable.

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Research, Tools and Advice

Both Moneyfarm and Wealthify are robo-advisors, so naturally they don’t have the level of research options and tools that more traditional investment platforms have where you make the investment decisions. 

That being said, Moneyfarm offers a pensions calculator as well as a range of investing guides and ebooks on its website. You’re also able to see the past performance of its portfolios. Wealthify offers very similar tools and information on its website too, so there’s not much to choose between them.

None of these guides and tools are particularly unique and can be found elsewhere online. However, both robo-advisors have regularly updated blog posts and market news on their websites and in their apps. These are useful for the casual or passive investor to keep up to date with the latest market news.

Moneyfarm also occasionally hosts live webinars with members of its investing team, often including a Q&A section. This could be a useful update for you if you want to keep up to date with the latest views and strategy from those investing your money at Moneyfarm.

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Which Has The Better App?

In my view, the Moneyfarm app is nicer than Wealthify’s. That being said, I have used the Moneyfarm app for longer than Walthify’s, so there is an element of feeling more comfortable using it.

I prefer the Moneyfarm app’s user interface and how easy it is to navigate around. The home screen clearly presents your investment performance, both graphically and with a percentage return. The in-app chat support feature has always worked well, too. 

Wealthify’s app is also easy to navigate and use, so there’s not much to choose between them, really. Both allow you to log in to their website to check your account too. 

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Is My Money Safe?

Both Moneyfarm and Wealthify are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and have Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection.

This means that if either company were to go bust, your money would be protected up to the value of £85,000 by the regulator. 

Additionally, both Moneyfarm and Wealthify keep customer’s money separate from their own by using trustee bank accounts. These separate bank accounts are also covered by the FSCS.

Wealthfiy is owned by Aviva, which is one of the largest financial services companies in the UK and dates back 300 years. Moneyfarm, on the other hand, is not wholly-owned by a large financial institution, so you may get more peace of mind with your money knowing that Wealthify has a huge company behind it.

Having said that, Moneyfarm has the backing of several large investment companies, and your money still has FSCS protection.

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Pros & Cons

To summarise my comparison of Wealthify vs Moneyfarm, I’ve outlined below what I believe are the main pros and cons of each robo-advisor.

Moneyfarm Pros & Cons

Moneyfarm Pros

• Lower cost investing vs Wealthfiy if you have more than £50,000 to invest
• Lower cost Socially Responsible Investing when compared to Wealthify
• Allows you to invest in fixed allocation portfolios at a lower cost than actively managed
• Invest in high-growth sectors through its new Thematic Investing option
• Intuitive and easy-to-use app
• Lots of resources and regular market updates through its website and in the app
• Good historical performance in its medium and higher risk portfolios when compared to Wealthfiy. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance, though
• Also a stronger performance in 2022 at the lower and medium risk levels compared to Weathfiy, which suggests it manages volatility well

Moneyfarm Cons

• On the flip side, it’s a more expensive option compared to Wealthify if you have less than £50,000 to invest
• Higher minimum investment to get started (£500 vs £1 with Wealthify)
• Slightly underperformed Wealthify historically on its lowest risk actively managed portfolios 

Wealthify Pros & Cons

Wealthify Pros

• Very low initial investment – get started from just £1
• Simple pricing structure – it charges a 0.6% management fee no matter the size of your investments
• Cheaper than Moneyfarm when investing under £50,000
• Simple and easy-to-use app
• Good historical performance in its lower risk portfolios when compared to Moneyfarm. Past performance is not an indicator of future performance, though
• Slightly better 2022 performance in its highest risk portfolio than Moneyfarm’s

Wealthify Cons

• On the flip side, it has higher fees than Moneyfarm if you’re investing more than £50,000
• Does not offer low-cost fixed allocation portfolios
• Has fewer portfolios to choose from (5 vs Moneyfarm’s 7 portfolios)
• More expensive Ethical Investing fund fees than Moneyfarm
• No Thematic Investing
• It also slightly underperformed Moneyfarm historically on its medium and higher risk fully managed portfolios 

Moneyfarm vs Wealthify: Final Verdict

Which you prefer out of Moneyfarm vs Wealthify will depend on how much you have to invest and the choice of investment options you would like.

If you’re mainly focused on the lowest cost way to invest, then Wealthfiy is the cheaper option up to £50,000. Above £50,000, Moneyfarm works out cheaper. 

Both platforms offer ethical, or socially responsible, investment options but Moneyfarm’s is significantly cheaper. This is because Wealthify has much higher fund costs for its ethical investments than Moneyfarm does.

Moneyfarm also offers more choice as you can choose to invest in its actively managed portfolios, socially responsible portfolios or its fixed allocation portfolio. Its fixed allocation portfolios are reviewed and rebalanced once annually but have lower costs than actively managed portfolios. Wealthify does not offer fixed allocation portfolios.

You can also choose themes as part of Moneyfarm’s recently launched Thematic Investing. This allows you to invest in high-growth ‘themes’ of your choosing such as e-commerce and AI as part of your portfolio. Again, Wealthify does not currently offer anything similar.

However, Wealthfiy is easier to get started if you don’t have, or want, to invest too much money. You can begin with just £1, but be aware that investing very small amounts is unlikely to significantly grow your wealth over time. Wealthify’s simple 0.6% management fee applies to any investment size, so its pricing is clear and easy to understand.

When it comes to performance, historically Moneyfarm has outperformed Wealthify at the medium and higher risk levels. At the lowest risk level, Wealthfiy’s past performance has beaten Moneyfarm’s. But it’s important to note that past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.

For me personally, Moneyfarm is the winner because it has delivered good returns and has a wider range of investment options, including fixed allocation portfolios and thematic investing. It’s slightly higher in cost for the £20-50k investment range that I fall into, but only marginally. Your decision may also come down to cost, or you may like the fact that Wealthify is owned by Aviva and therefore has the backing of a large financial institution. 

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