What are Aspiration's fees? What is "Pay What Is Fair?"
At Aspiration, you decide how much to pay us. We’re confident enough in our products and in our customers to trust you to make this decision. We call this optional fee “Pay What Is Fair.”
Most financial firms impose a flat management or service fee on their customers. That means you pay them a set amount no matter how well the investment does, how hard they’re working, or how much you like what the bank or the company stands for. Not only do we think this is wrong, we also feel it’s disrespectful to customers.
“Pay What Is Fair” gives us a daily incentive to work hard for you and live up to our mission; something that no other firm has done before.
How do I know how much is "fair" to pay?
Big banks can charge monthly service fees up to $25 per month.*
By contrast, with the Aspiration Spend & Save Account, you choose how much you’ll pay. This optional fee ranges from $0 - $20 on a monthly basis. While we hope you choose to pay us, the amount you pay is up to you.
For our investment accounts, the option is 0-2% annually (charged quarterly), and we provide you with the average fee for that kind of investment product (based on data from sources such as Morningstar) within our online application. We also tell you the range of fees that exist elsewhere, so you can make an educated decision on what you think is right to pay. (For IRA investments there is a $15.00 annual fee charged by the IRA custodian).
We also commit to donating 10% of Pay What is Fair profits to charity.
*Based on monthly fee data from Bankrate.com
How do I set my fee? Can I change it?
After deciding on a Pay What is Fair fee when you first sign up, you can change it anytime and as often as you wish from your account dashboard.
To make changes, login from the website (not the app) click Settings, and then Pay What is Fair.
If you change your fee, the change is retroactive from the beginning of the month for your Spend & Save Account, or the beginning of the quarter for the investment accounts.
For investment accounts, you are able to choose whether your fee payment will be debited from your linked bank account or from your Aspiration Spend Account quarterly, based on the fee level you’ve set. The fee is debited at 9 am PT on the last day of each quarter.
For Spend & Save Accounts, your monthly fee will come out of your Spend Account. You are able to change the amount of the fee until 9 am PT on the 30th of each month to be retroactively applied.
For now, fee changes can only be made from the web.
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