Cheapest Direct Indexing: Low Cost Platforms Ranked by Fee

The cheapest direct indexing in the US is 0.09% a year, and two providers charge it: Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct from $5,000 and Frec's S&P 500 strategy from $20,000. Below $5,000 the only option is Public at 0.19% from $1,000. For anything other than the S&P 500 the ranking changes: Frec is cheapest for the total US market at 0.13%, Wealthfront for the Nasdaq-100 at 0.12%, and Public's flat 0.19% undercuts Frec on its pricier Russell and international strategies. Fidelity and Schwab both charge 0.40%.

That answer depends on two things most "lowest fee" lists ignore: which index you want and how much you have. A provider that is cheapest on the S&P 500 can be the most expensive option for small caps, and the lowest fee in the market is useless if the minimum is four times your balance. Below, every self-serve US direct indexing product is ranked on the fee you would actually pay, with the exit cost next to it, because leaving is the one charge nobody puts in the headline.

Figures are from each provider's own pricing page, fee schedule or Form ADV, read in September 2026. We build index construction and backtesting software; we do not manage money or give tax advice.

Cheapest direct indexing platforms, ranked by fee

Two footnotes change how you read that table. Fidelity's 0.40% is a gross fee: its Form ADV says it "will be reduced by a credit amount" tied to the core money market fund and securities you transfer in, and the size of that credit is not published, so the net fee is somewhere below 0.40% and you cannot know where until you open the account. And the 0.09% headline at Frec applies to one strategy out of 25. Frec's full menu runs from 0.09% to 0.35%, which we list strategy by strategy on the Frec direct indexing review.

Is Frec the cheapest direct indexing platform at 9 bps?

Frec is tied for cheapest, not alone. Frec and Wealthfront both charge 0.09% (9 basis points) for an S&P 500 direct index, and nothing self-serve in the US is lower. Frec is cheaper than Wealthfront for most other indexes, because Wealthfront sells only the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 as standalone direct indexes below $100,000. Wealthfront is cheaper to leave: $0 to transfer out against Frec's $75.

The 9 bps is real, but it is not how Frec pays its bills. Frec's own Form CRS, dated August 20, 2026, lists revenue from margin interest, payment for order flow, securities lending and cash sweep interest alongside the advisory fee, and advisory clients are required to open a margin account. None of that is a hidden charge on the direct index. It is the reason a 0.09% fee is sustainable, and it is worth knowing before you borrow against the account.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Wealthfront direct indexing?

For the S&P 500, no: Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct at 0.09% from $5,000 is tied for the lowest fee and has the lower minimum of the two 0.09% options. For a broad US portfolio, yes. Wealthfront US Direct Indexing charges 0.25% and needs $100,000, while Frec's Morningstar US Total Market strategy is 0.13% from $50,000. On $150,000 that is $195 a year at Frec against $375 at Wealthfront.

The fairer comparison, though, is what the 0.25% buys. Wealthfront US Direct Indexing sits inside its automated portfolio: the 0.25% is the advisory fee for the whole portfolio, with direct indexing included at no extra charge. If you only want the US stock sleeve as a direct index and hold bonds elsewhere, you are paying for management you do not use. Our Wealthfront direct indexing fees and minimums page breaks down the three Wealthfront products.

Which direct indexing platforms charge under 15 bps?

Eight products in the US charge less than 0.15% a year, and all of them come from two providers. Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct (0.09%) and Nasdaq-100 Direct (0.12%). Frec's S&P 500 (0.09%), Morningstar US Large Cap (0.10%), Morningstar US Total Market (0.13%), and three more Morningstar strategies at 0.14% (US Large Cap Growth, US Large Cap Value and US Mid Cap). Everything else, including Public at 0.19%, sits above that line, and the advisor-channel managers start at 0.20% (Vanguard) to 0.35% (Aperio and Parametric) before the advisor's own fee.

Where the cheapest provider depends on the index

Here is the part a single "lowest fee" number hides. Frec prices each strategy separately, and its broader or more specialized benchmarks cost far more than its S&P 500: the Russell 1000 is 0.22%, the Russell 2000 0.26%, the Russell 3000 0.27%, MSCI World ADR 0.29%, and its semiconductor and Shariah strategies 0.35%. Public charges a flat 0.19% on every index it offers. So on the ten Frec strategies priced above 0.19%, Public is the cheaper provider, as long as it carries the same benchmark. Check Public's index list for the exact index before you rely on that, because "a Russell index" and "the Russell 2000" are not interchangeable for tracking.

The index choice matters for more than the fee. Frec publishes a historical harvest rate for each strategy, and it ranges from 16% on the semiconductor strategy to 55% on the Russell 2000. A small-cap index at 0.26% that harvests twice as many losses can be the cheaper product per dollar of tax benefit than an S&P 500 at 0.09%. If the reason you want the semiconductor strategy is really a view on one or two chipmakers, a rule-based backtest of that single-stock thesis will tell you more for less than paying 0.35% on the whole index.

What is the cheapest direct indexing at each balance?

Public's own help center adds a wrinkle at the low end. The $1,000 is the account minimum, but Public sizes each portfolio so the smallest position is at least $5.00, so a full index with hundreds of stocks needs more than $1,000 to hold all of them. At $1,000 you are buying part of the index. We work through that rule, and what Public's harvesting schedule and single-account wash sale check mean in practice, in our Public direct indexing review.

The cheapest way to do direct indexing without an advisor

Go direct. Every product in the ranking above is self-serve, and every one of them is cheaper than the advisor route, where a manager such as Parametric or Aperio charges around 0.35% and the advisor adds their own fee on top, often 1%. On $500,000 that is $6,750 a year against $450 at 0.09%. The advisor may be worth it for planning, estate or concentrated-stock work, but not for the direct index alone. We price that choice at several balances in direct indexing without an advisor.

The fee you pay to leave

A direct index holds hundreds of individual positions, many of them fractional at small balances, and switching providers means moving them by ACATS or selling them. Selling can trigger the gains the account spent years deferring, so most people transfer. The exit fee then matters: $0 at Wealthfront, $50 for a full transfer at Schwab, $75 at Frec and $100 at Public, with no fee listed in Fidelity's brokerage schedule. On a $1,000 Public account the exit fee is 10% of the balance; on $100,000 it is noise. Whether the receiving broker accepts fractional shares matters more than the fee, and our ACATS transfer fees by broker page covers both.

Is the cheapest direct indexing worth it?

Only when the harvested losses have gains to offset. An S&P 500 ETF costs 0.03%, so even the cheapest direct index costs 0.06% more, $30 a year on $50,000. If you realize capital gains from RSUs, a business sale, a rental or concentrated stock, harvested losses offset them first and the fee is trivial by comparison. If you never realize gains, the losses offset only $3,000 of ordinary income a year and the rest carries forward, and a cheap direct index can still be a slightly worse ETF. The direct indexing fees compared with the tax benefit page puts both numbers on the same axis.

Design the index first, then buy it where it is cheapest

The single biggest cost decision is not the provider. It is the index: which benchmark, how many stocks, which weighting, what you exclude. Settle that first, then open the account at whichever provider sells that exact index cheapest at your balance. The studio at the top of this page lets you build the version you would hold, backtest it against the S&P 500, and see how much the exclusions and sampling cost you in tracking before you pay anyone a basis point.