Hi! I’m on the Wealthsimple team, and wanted to offer a bit of a different perspective. Obviously I'm biased, but I'm interested in the conversation you're having and this is not a pitch.
You might be surprised to hear that we have a ton of respect for Vanguard. In fact, pretty much every single portfolio we’ve built for clients contains a large share of Vanguard ETFs. They’re an inspiration for our company, and our founder quotes Jack Bogle all the time.
If you have the time, ability, and knowledge to manage your own diversified portfolio yourself — we believe that is what you should be doing. You can actually take a risk assessment on Wealthsimple and get the exact breakdown of the portfolio of ETFs we’d invest your funds in (some are Vanguard ETFs, some are iShares and others). Then you can go open a brokerage account, and start buying those ETFs. You can set up automatic deposits, and set aside time each month for rebalancing and dividend reinvestment. If you're interested, this is a great way to manage your money.
However, many people (like me) would rather have someone do that for them. Maybe we know we should start smart investing, but in the meantime we have thousands sitting in a savings account. So our goal is to take all the hassle out of long-term passive investing, and reduce the barriers to getting started as much as possible. For that service, we charge what we think of as a small convenience fee (half-a-percent or less)
We also believe that investing isn't all about asset optimization, but also about personal life goals. So all our clients have unlimited access to a team of expert financial advisors. If you're planning to get a mortgage or have a child, advice on taxes and planning from a real-life human can be quite valuable (when you need it).
Look forward to hearing your honest thoughts.