M1 Reviews 193

I've been very pleased with M1. Very easy and convenient means to invest, borrow and manage money. Really like the M1 app.

M1 is great, however I only use the "Invest" aspect of the platform and therefore I don't like the new landing page which includes invest, borrowing, spending etc. I wish there were a setting to set your own home page

I really like the platform of M1. It allows me to make the decisions that affect the balances of my accounts and not someone else. In my opinion, this is a huge benefit.

Just wish they offered HSAs (Health Savings Account). I'd be the first to sign up!

$830.32 taken from my account with NO EXPLANATION. A transaction in February got reversed in June and no one at m1 knows a thing, even though the investigation was “complete”. I will not renew my account or my mothers.

This has been one of the easiest investment platforms I have ever used. I enjoy the ability to fractional purchase shares and make a percentage pie to dollar cost average on a weekly basis. Thank you M1!

I am trying to get an honest, straight answer as to why a security that I have been buying for 2 years (TELL), suddenly does not meet M1's standard for their platform. All that I receive are canned, scripted answers. I have even had a customer service rep call me and explain that there is a link they will send me for a deeper explanation but, the information was never sent to me. I'm still waiting for a logical response.

My experience with M1 so far is great! I hope you can come up with more exciting products and services.

ETF EDEN still unavailable. Yet M1 has begun offering access to OTC securities. EDEN is just a plain vanilla ETF that covers Denmark stocks.

I tried to transfer stock from my company ESOP plan to my M1 account. Still don't have the stock. M1 made the process horribly difficult: my statement has the wrong account number on it (extra digits that aren't acceptable to M1 even though it came from the pdf statement itself) and the transfer addresses are different from the M1 addresses, with no flexibility. The stock arrived twice (so far) and was returned both times. I still don't have my stock, but hey it's only been a 7 weeks so far. There's probably something else wrong that I haven't found out about yet - oh yea, and no notifications after the first error.

I have had a great experience with Mi.
It is easy to set up your account and fund your account. Easy to select your stocks , buy n sell.

I moved to M1 when Sharebuilder folded. I appreciated the fact it allowed for fractional share purchases, and customer support was super-helpful with the transfer process, but that ended quickly. Positions that M1 didn't support were kept in limbo for months and then cashed out without notice and for less than their value. It took weeks of arguing with customer service to apply a credit to compensate.

Then I realized that you can only buy shares at market open, which is ridiculous. To be able to trade a 2nd time (at an hour before market close) you have to pay a $125 yearly fee for their M1 Plus service. I signed up for a year, and then M1 began to give the service away for free as an enticement for customers... did I get my money back? Nope, but once I complained, I did get a six-month extension (not an equal value in my book).

Not to mention, trades are incredibly slow, since they use Apex Clearing as their broker (so M1 can take a cut of the trade). I placed trades at the beginning of the day today with both M1 and my brokerage account at Schwab -- Schwab executed my trades at 9:05am. M1 waited until 9:50am.

Back to the yearly fee: it does earn you a 1% interest rate and 1% cashback (without it, you get zero) of course keep in mind, you have to spend/bank $12,500 before you recoup that fee. Their credit card is also a $95 yearly fee, unless you pay the $125. I have two savings accounts right now that give me 0.61%, no fees, no strings attached. They also charge international purchase fees unless you pay - but don't dare use your debit card with an overseas retailer, because that will lock your card 99% of the time - which brings us to...

They only have customer support during trading hours. That's it. And you can't call and speak to a person, you can only get to them through e-mail. And if your card is locked after business hours, or on the weekend, and VISA's fraud protection service properly doesn't unlock your card after verifying any questionable transactions, then you are out of luck, VISA's automated system will hang up on you and there's no one to call at M1. Make sure to bring another card with you when travelling.

The web interface is nice and clean, and placing trades (the one or two times you are allowed to a day) is nice and clean. It's 'pie-based' system (set up that way to facilitate easy fractional trades across all your holdings, much like Schwab's 'stock slices') takes a small learning curve but is easy to figure out.

Their customer service began as friendly, in their early days, when they were wooing users, but now waivers between combative when you do reach them, slow to respond, or just non-existent. Remember, they only available during trading hours, so no weekends or holidays. The customer service number on their debit card rings to VISA, not M1.

Also, no support for Quicken, they use Apex Clearing for their trades and Lincoln Savings for their debit card, but you can't use your M1 credentials to set up Quicken to pull transactions online using those institutions.

They also used to fail to inform customers of upcoming mergers, acquisitions or if a ticker was no longer being supported, so they would liquidate positions without warning, although they have gotten slightly better in this regard. Still, keep an eye on any news for your holdings through your favorite 3rd party news service, just in case.

M1 is for passive investors only and for customers with large holdings where the fees involved is a blip to them. Better services and competitive interest rates are out there if you do some research. Their credit card has a nice generous cashback program that rolls the proceeds back into stock in those companies (Target, Starbucks, Tesla) but retailers can drop in and out, and again, it carries a $95 fee if you don't use their other services.

Their lending service was competitive, allowing you to borrow against your portfolio at only 1%, but that has been gone for some time, the rate is now 2.25%, and rockets up to 4.5% if don't (repeat it with me) pay the $125 M1 Plus fee.

M1 is another example of another online-only bank that started strong and hungry, but now like Aspiration, Empower, etc, have trimmed their customer support to a bare minimum and needs to gouge their customers for fees for services other banks give for free or substantially less to survive.

M1 is the easiest investment platform I have ever used, and I’ve used many. The automated investing using pies makes managing your portfolio a breeze.

A game-changing product for automating personal finance. Simple to use and keeps investors from being victims of both their actions and inaction. Only critiques: Mobile deposit is really needed especially for small business owners and consultants. We should be able to fund our M1 accounts from more than just one bank.

Good financial app ! Once real time quotes, and real time trading ( market / limit ) are added, then the app will be perfect !!!

There are a bunch of "normal" ETFs that they don't support at all even though you can easily buy them at other brokerages.

Also the pie model won't let you put more than 100 stocks/ETFs in your pies (not just one pie) and you have to keep juggling you holdings to keep going.

Also I thought their M1 Plus thing was a one-time payment, but turns out you get charged every year, and it's a lot of money for not much -- seems to counter their "free commission" claims.

I would like to see a forum to communicate with friends, family, referrals, and other investors on the platform similar to Public. Also, a more comprehensive auto-invest to buy/sell at limit orders or percentages. Is there a way to link multiple external bank accounts. Other than that, I like the simple nature of the platform and the easy of connection between invest, spend, and borrow.

M1 smart money features is what I have been doing with my savings and investing. It makes it easier.

I'm not a fan of the new dashboard home screen. Maybe it's nice for the people who use a lot of the different features, but I'd rather it just open up to the investment page. Other than that, I really like the platform, and it's easy to use.

Unlike so many other brokers you need to wait untill 9 am and 3 pm to trade and most of the time you end up not getting the best prices during the day . This is most annoying . One good thing is now we can trade ADR but giving more flexibility will help