Wealthsimple Managed Investing - Fee Disclosure

Here's our investment management fee breakdown (effective January 28, 2022):


Net Deposits to Portfolio*: Under $99,999

Fee on AUM: 0.50%


Net Deposits to Portfolio*: Above $100,000

Fee on AUM: 0.40%


Smart Savings Balance (discontinued for new clients): Above $1

Fee on AUM: 0.25%


* Please note that while your net deposits determine the fee rate, you are charged that fee rate on your assets under management.

What are the other fees besides your investment management fee?

Management Expense Ratio (MER) Fees Charged by Third Parties 

Depending on the nature of the securities or products purchased or sold in your investment account, you may pay other fees or expenses to third parties. For portfolios invested in ETFs, issuers of the ETFs may have embedded expenses and other fees, including those relating to management, brokerage, legal, accounting, or custody. The MER fee is charged by the underlying fund companies in your portfolio.  The range of MER fees across our portfolios, which may vary from time to time, is available on our website here. Since it is not charged by Wealthsimple, it will not be deducted directly from your Wealthsimple account but will be an adjustment to the prices of your ETFs. We attempt to negotiate MER fee rebates with third-party investment fund managers in respect of non-Wealthsimple ETFs, and when successful, we share the benefit of such rebates with you by adjusting the price of the applicable ETFs. When your portfolio is invested in Wealthsimple ETFs, such as those found in an SRI portfolio, Wealthsimple will benefit by receiving a portion of the MER fees for those ETFs. 

Please note: Wealthsimple will not be responsible for any fees or costs charged by a manager of an investment fund, such as an ETF, that Wealthsimple invests in on your behalf. Such fees or costs will be paid, directly or indirectly, from the applicable account pursuant to the terms of investment of each applicable investment fund.

Currency Conversion Fees

You are charged a forty (40) basis point (0.4%) currency conversion fee by Wealthsimple Investments Inc., an affiliate and the custodian of your account, on the applicable corporate exchange rate where we need to buy or sell foreign currency to trade securities in your account.

Here is a hypothetical example:

We are buying an ETF on your behalf for 100 USD and our corporate USD to CAD exchange rate is 1.30. The price of the ETF in CAD is the foreign currency price of the ETF (100 USD) multiplied by the exchange rate (1.30), which equals 130 CAD. The foreign exchange fee that Wealthsimple charges is equal to 0.4% of the price in CAD ($130), which equals $0.52. As a result, the 100 USD ETF will cost you 130.52 CAD once you factor in the currency conversion rate and the foreign exchange fee that you are charged.

The fee is calculated based on net settlement of individual foreign currencies during the trading day. 

Tax

The final thing to keep in mind about fees is that they are taxed. The same way you are charged HST on a purchase you make at a store, you are taxed on the fees you pay to Wealthsimple.

Investment Management Fee

For your investment portfolios, we calculate the fee on a daily basis by dividing the annual fee by 365 days and applying it to the closing market value of your portfolio on that day. These daily portions are added together and charged to your account monthly.

In short, our fee is quoted annually, calculated daily, and applied monthly. The end result for you, as a Wealthsimple client, is that your account will see a small charge each month.

In more complex terms, our investment management fee is equal to the aggregate of 1/365th of the applicable percentage, or 1/366th in any leap year, multiplied by the market value of the account as of the close of trading on the TSX. The fee will accrue and become due and payable on the last day of every calendar month and will be collected by Wealthsimple directly from the account assets. If you close your account, withdraw the entire balance of your account, or if you or Wealthsimple terminates the Discretionary Management Agreement, the accrued fee will be due and payable immediately.

Smart Savings

Please note that this product is no longer offered for new clients.  For grandfathered Smart Savings accounts, we calculate the fee by dividing the annual fee by 365 days and applying it to the value of your portfolio plus daily interest earned. These daily portions are added together and deducted from your monthly interest deposit before it reaches your account. To see a more detailed breakdown of our fees, you can always find them at the end of every quarter (March, June, September, December) in your account statements.