Seems pretty close to being a target for the Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy, at least if we take their headline "round up" feature as the primary attraction.
First, at an average of $0.50 "saved" for each transaction, that works out to a measly 5% savings rate assuming your average credit card transaction is $10, and 100% of your expenses are paid via credit card. Since I bet the average credit card transaction is greater than $10, and people don't actually pay 100% of their expenses via credit card, 5% is the best-case scenario; for most people using this method, the rate would be much lower.
Worse, the "round up" feature psychologically links the concept of "saving" with "spending". Rather than "savings" being something that happens when you DON'T SPEND, Acorns sets up the opposite dynamic: in order to save, you MUST spend. Not only is this a horrible way to understand saving, I bet it can actually
induce more spending: "well, I probably don't really need my 3rd cup of Starbuck's today, but hey, it'll add to my investments, so that's a good thing!"
And then there's this:
Cruttenden [Acorns co-founder] says he is a typical user and through rounding up his card purchases has added $521.63 to his account over three months.
HOLY FUCKING SHIT! $521.63 in three months means that he is making over 11 credit-card transactions PER DAY! I don't even average 1 CC transaction per day. And despite that insane ability to be buying shit all day long, it still equates to only a measly $2k saved per year.
