I opened my Roth IRA at Fidelity at 19 with the first paycheck that felt like real money. Put $400 into FSKAX, took about 20 minutes to set up, and it was completely anticlimactic. That was the point. I wanted a place to park money and let it grow, not a platform to tinker with.
M1 Finance has come up in enough conversations with people in my program that I finally spent a few weeks actually using it. Both platforms will open a Roth IRA for free. Both let you buy index funds with no trading commissions. The differences are real, but they’re not always the ones people focus on.
| Feature | M1 Finance | Fidelity |
|---|---|---|
| Account minimum | $100 to start investing | $0 |
| Trading commissions | $0 | $0 |
| Fractional shares | Yes, automatic | Yes, on most securities |
| Fund options | ETFs and stocks only | ETFs, mutual funds, stocks, bonds |
| Mutual fund access | No | Yes, including zero-fee funds |
| Automated investing | Built in via Pies | Manual or scheduled deposits |
M1 Finance
M1 is built around a concept called Pies. You set up a portfolio, assign percentage weights to different ETFs or stocks, and every dollar you deposit gets automatically allocated to keep everything in line with those targets. It’s genuinely elegant. If you want 70% VTI, 20% VXUS, and 10% BND, you set that once and M1 handles it every time you add money.
The platform is clean and the automation is real. For someone who wants to set a contribution schedule and never think about rebalancing, M1 removes almost all of the friction. That’s not nothing. The behavioral side of investing matters more than most people admit, and M1 is specifically designed to keep you from messing with your own portfolio.
The limitations show up at the edges. M1 only supports ETFs and individual stocks. No mutual funds, which means no access to Fidelity’s zero-expense-ratio funds like FZROX or FZILX. You’re working with ETFs, so the cheapest comparable options are something like VTI at 0.03% or ITOT at 0.03%. Those are still excellent. But if you want the Fidelity zero-fee funds specifically, M1 can’t give you that.
There’s also a $100 minimum to start investing, and trading only happens during a single window each day unless you pay for M1 Premium at $3 per month. For a buy-and-hold Roth IRA, the trading window thing genuinely doesn’t matter. But it’s worth knowing.
Fidelity
Fidelity is where I actually keep my Roth IRA, so I’ll be direct: I think it’s the better platform for most people starting out. Zero minimum to open an account. Access to FSKAX, FZROX, and every major ETF you’d want. The interface is uglier than M1. I genuinely don’t care.
The mutual fund access is the biggest practical advantage. FZROX has a 0.00% expense ratio. That’s not a typo. Fidelity eats the cost entirely. FSKAX, which is what I hold, has a 0.015% expense ratio, which works out to about $1.50 per year on a $10,000 balance. These are not meaningful differences on a small account, but over 40 years of compounding, even tiny fee gaps add up. If you’re curious how compounding works across those timeframes, I wrote about it here.
Fidelity also gives you flexibility that M1 doesn’t. You can hold ETFs and mutual funds in the same account. You can set up automatic investments on whatever schedule you want. You can buy fractional shares of ETFs through Fidelity Flex funds or set dollar-amount purchases. It’s not as automated as M1 in the Pie sense, but it’s not hard to set up a recurring contribution and forget about it.
The one real criticism of Fidelity is that the platform assumes you know what you’re doing. M1 holds your hand through portfolio construction in a way that Fidelity doesn’t. If you land on Fidelity’s homepage with zero investing experience, it’s not obvious where to start. That friction is a real thing for some people.
How to Actually Choose Between Them
The honest answer is that for a Roth IRA you’re going to hold for 30 or 40 years, the platform matters less than what you put in it and how consistently you contribute. If you want a deeper look at which ETFs actually make sense inside a Roth IRA, I’d start here.
That said, if you are the kind of person who needs automation to stay consistent, M1 Finance is genuinely useful. The Pie system removes decisions that would otherwise become opportunities to procrastinate or second-guess. If setting up a recurring Fidelity contribution feels like too many steps, M1 is better than not investing at all by a wide margin.
If you want the lowest possible costs and maximum flexibility, Fidelity wins. FZROX at 0.00% is hard to beat. The platform has no gimmicks, no trading windows, no premium tier you have to think about. It’s just an account.
My actual recommendation is Fidelity for most people in college or just starting out, mostly because the fund options are better and the zero-fee mutual funds are genuinely unique. But I would not tell someone to switch from M1 if it’s working for them. A funded Roth IRA at either platform is orders of magnitude better than a perfect theoretical plan that never gets executed.
One thing that doesn’t get mentioned enough: both platforms are legitimate, SIPC-insured custodians. Your assets are protected up to $500,000 through SIPC coverage. That’s not a differentiator, but it’s worth having in your head when you’re handing over money to any brokerage.
What I’d Do If I Were Starting Over
I’d still open at Fidelity. Partly because I already know the platform, partly because FSKAX and FZROX are both there, and partly because I don’t need the automation enough to give up the mutual fund access. My setup is simple: I contribute on the first of every month, it goes into FSKAX, and I check the balance maybe twice a year.
If I had a friend who kept saying they were going to open a Roth IRA but never did, I’d probably tell them to try M1 instead. Sometimes the right tool is the one that actually gets used.
The 2026 Roth IRA contribution limit is $7,000 if you’re under 50. You can contribute as long as you have earned income and your modified adjusted gross income is under $150,000 as a single filer for the full contribution. Most college students and interns will qualify without any issue.
I’m not a financial advisor, just a finance student sharing what I’ve actually done and learned. Do your own research before making any financial decisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I transfer my Roth IRA from M1 Finance to Fidelity later? Yes, you can do a direct transfer between custodians at any time. It’s called a trustee-to-trustee transfer and it doesn’t count as a withdrawal or trigger any taxes.
Q: Does M1 Finance charge fees for a Roth IRA? M1 Finance doesn’t charge commissions or account fees for a standard Roth IRA. The premium tier, M1 Premium, costs $3 per month but isn’t required to use the account.
Q: What’s the minimum to open a Roth IRA at Fidelity? Fidelity has no account minimum to open a Roth IRA. You can open the account with $0 and start buying funds once you deposit money.
Q: Is FZROX actually worth using over something like VTI? Both are solid options. FZROX has a 0.00% expense ratio but is only available at Fidelity and can’t be transferred out in-kind if you ever switch brokerages. VTI has a 0.03% expense ratio and can be held anywhere. The cost difference is minimal, so the portability question is worth thinking about.
Q: Does it matter which platform I choose if I’m just buying index funds either way? In the long run, not dramatically. Fund selection and consistent contributions matter more than the platform. That said, Fidelity’s zero-expense-ratio funds give it a slight edge if you’re optimizing for cost.