Vanguard Review 2024: Low-Cost Investing (2024)

The College Investor is a non-client promoter of Vanguard’s investment advisory services. The College Investor receives compensation if you open an investment advisory account at Vanguard after clicking through a link on this page.The College Investor is a non-client promoter of Vanguard’s investment advisory services. The College Investor receives compensation if you open an investment advisory account at Vanguard after clicking through a link on this page.

The single most important trend in investing today is the trend towards passive, low-cost index fund investing.

Legendary investor, John Bogle founded the first index fund in 1975 with $11 million dollars. Today, that Vanguard 500 Index Fund (VFINX) has nearly $235 billion dollars under management for retail investors.

The Vanguard Group, John Bogle’s investment company, is now one of the largest investment companies in the world. They have over $7.2 trillion in assets under management (as of January 2021). Two-thirds of that is in funds or ETFs that track an index.

How hasVanguard become so popular over the last 45 years? They keep your investing costs low, so you stick with them. If you're interested in opening a brokerage account at Vanguard, here's what you need to know in our Vanguard review.

See how Vanguard compares to the best places to invest.

Vanguard's platform usually appeals most to long-term, buy-and-hold passive investors who take a passive investing approach. If that sounds like you, here are a few key Vanguard features that you should know about.

Plus, in 2023, Vanguard was named a top pick as one of the best places to invest in our annual readers poll. Our readers love Vanguard because of their low costs and fees. Best of Award for 2023 was given on February 16, 2023, based on a reader poll in January 2023.

Investment Minimums

Vanguard does not have any account minimum requirements. However, to start investing in mutual funds, you’ll usually need at least $3,000 for most index funds. In some cases (typically target date funds), Vanguard has lowered the barrier of entry down to $1,000. I

If you’re just getting started, you don’t need to despair about these minimums. Vanguard allows account holders to buy just one share of a Vanguard ETF. As a result, you can start investing in a well-diversified portfolio for just a few hundred dollars.

Research Tools

Unlike other full-service brokerages, Vanguard has clunky research and analysis tools. You can see a few portfolio insights from Vanguard’s portfolio watch feature. However, you can’t track your portfolio against an ideal asset allocation.

Vanguard’s best research is in PDF files that are tough to search. In keeping with the company’s commitment to passive investing, most of the research falls into the category of “timeless.” That means that the information you find won’t necessarily influence your portfolio today or any time soon.

This is lower than what you’ll see from other robo-advisors. Betterment and Wealthfront, for example, both currently start at 0.25% per year. However, it should be noted that both of those platforms have $0 minimums.

Learn more about Vanguard Digital Advisor here >>

Vanguard Personal Advisor

If you're looking for a little more "hand-holding" and want to speak to a financial expert that can help you manage your portfolio, set goals, and help you invest, you might consider Vanguard Personal Advisor.

With Vanguard Personal Advisor, you'll connect with a financial advisor to understand your goals, and they'll help you put a plan in place.

Once you have your plan, Vanguard Personal Advisor will review your portfolio quarterly and rebalance as needed. You can also connect with your advisor by phone, email, or video chat if you have questions.

The annual cost starts at 0.30% of assets under management. That's a very low price relative to what other companies charge for similar services. However, Vanguard Personal Advisor has a $50,000 account minimum, which will be unattainable for many investors.

Learn more at Vanguard Personal Advisor here >>

Benefits For Large Accounts And Service Levels

Vanguard does offer some benefits for large accounts, which in general are better than most other brokerage firms.

Vanguard has four main service levels: Voyager, Voyager Select, Flagship,and Flagship Select.

Note: For Vanguard, your benefit level is calculated on how much you have invested in Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs. If you have other funds or even stocks, that doesn't count towards your service level. This is different than Fidelity, which is based on account value.

Voyager

At $50,000 invested in Vanguard funds you get access to Voyager level benefits. This is the level needed to access Vanguard Personal Advisor Services (PAS) mentioned above.

You also get access to a Voyager level customer service number, which should queue you ahead of "regular" level customers.

Voyager Select

At $500,000 invest in Vanguard funds you become a Voyager Select customer. The main benefit of this level is that you can get help from Vanguard's financial planners and legal without needing to enroll in PAS. However, they will NOT implement any plan for you - this is just advice.

You also get a dedicated customer service phone number, which should offer more experienced customer service representatives.

Flagship

At $1,000,000 invested in Vanguard funds you become a Flagship member. With Flagship service, you get a dedicated customer service account representative, and you'll see their contact information. This is NOT a financial advisor, simply a dedicated rep (who is usually assigned to hundreds of accounts). However, this representative can streamline paperwork, setup meetings with a financial advisor, and more.

At this level, you can also invest in some Vanguard mutual funds that are closed to the public. Depending on your goals, this could be a good perk.

Flagship Select

At $10,000,000 invested in Vanguard funds you become a Flagship Select member. Not much is known about this level, other than the fact that you get much more personalized attention from Vanguard, you likely have a financial advisor and customer service rep assigned to your account, and you can access a variety of Vanguard services, funds, and more.

Vanguard offers nearly 130 of its own mutual funds and over 75 ETFs. You can buy and sell Vanguard funds at no cost. On average, the expense ratios on Vanguard funds are among the lowest. These days, Vanguard (through Vanguard Brokerage Services), Charles Schwab,Fidelity, and the iShares from BlackRock fight for the lowest expense ratios on common indexes.

No matter what, you can feel confident that you’ll pay very low fees on your mutual funds or ETFs. Even Vanguard’s actively managed funds have low fees relative to their counterparts.

Vanguard recently announced they are moving to commission-free investing like most of the other major brokers. They currently charge $0 for stock and options. Nearly all ETFs and over 3,000 mutual funds also have $0 commissions.

Vanguard consistently makes it onto our list of the best places to invest. DIY investors will love that its investment options have some of the lowest costs in the industry and its advisory options may appeal to those would like a little more hand-holding.

But Vanguard has a lot of competition in the online brokerage space. Check out this quick comparison here:

How Do I Open An Account?

Vanguard excels in helping people open new accounts. In particular, rolling over a retirement or after tax brokerage account is a pain-free process.

If you’re opening an account with funds from your bank account, you can log in to Vanguard’s personal investor page, and choose the type of account you want to open.

From there, you’ll connect to your bank account, and transfer funds. The whole process takes about 10-15 minutes. After that, it takes 2-3 business days for your funds to settle.

Yes, Vanguard is a member of the SIPC which offers up to $500,000 of asset protection in the (highly unlikely) event it was to go bankrupt. Vanguard has also secured additional insurance through Syndicates at Lloyd's of London that provides per-client coverage of up to $49.5 million for securities and $1.9 million for cash.

Vanguard also seems to take data privacy and security very seriously. In addition to securing its site with SSL encryption, it offers two-factor authentication, voice verification, and account activity alerts.

There are several ways to get in touch with Vanguard's support team. Here are their customer service phone numbers and hours:

• Personal investing: 877-662-7447 (Monday–Friday 8 AM to 8 PM, EST)
• Retirement plans: 800-523-1188 (Monday–Friday 8:30 AM to 9 PM, EST)
• Institutional investing: Monday–Friday 8:30 AM to 9 PM
  • For Profit: 800-523-1036
  • Nonprofit:888-888-7064
• Financial advisors: 800-997-2798 (Monday–Friday 8:30 AM to 7 PM)

You can also contact Vanguard by visiting its support page, reaching out through its mobile apps, or connecting via social media.

Why Should You Trust Us?

I have been writing about and reviewing investment firms and brokerages since 2009, and have reviewed almost every US-based investment firm open to individual investors. I have seen this space evolve from high cost to low cost options, and have seen the amount of investment tools grow for individuals.

Furthermore, we have been polling our audience for years to find out which investment firms they trust and use, and that's how we put together our annual rankings of the best investment companies.

Finally, we have our compliance team that regularly checks and updates the facts on our reviews.

Who Is This For And Is It Worth It?

As Vanguard continues to grow, we’re hard pressed to say it’s best days are behind it. Vanguard’s low cost promise means that investor dollars will continue to pour in for the foreseeable future. However, savvy investors can get the tools they want and the expense ratios they want too.

Vanguard offers great features for cost-conscious investors who want to use Vanguard’s inexpensive funds. However, you can find these same features at other low-cost brokerages like Fidelityor Charles Schwab.