Direct indexing platforms compared: fees, minimums and the best direct indexing providers.
Every platform an individual can actually open, with the published minimum and annual fee next to it, checked against each provider's own pages in August 2026. Then a tool for modeling the basket yourself before you hand it to anyone.
Educational only · Never places a trade
In short
Four direct indexing platforms are open to an individual investor without going through a financial advisor: Wealthfront, Fidelity, Frec and Schwab. The cheapest entry point is Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct at a 0.09% annual fee with a $5,000 minimum, matched on minimum but not on price by Fidelity Managed FidFolios at 0.40%. Frec Classic sits at 0.09% to 0.35% from $20,000 and offers the widest index choice. Schwab Personalized Indexing starts at $100,000 and charges 0.40%. Everything larger, Parametric, Aperio and Vanguard Personalized Indexing, is advisor-only and publishes neither a minimum nor a fee. Betterment does not offer retail direct indexing yet despite having announced it for 2026. For context a plain S&P 500 ETF costs about 0.03%, so the fee difference is what you are paying for tax loss harvesting at the individual stock level.
Last updated August 2026
Direct indexing fees and minimums
Every direct indexing platform, side by side
Figures taken from each provider's own published pages in August 2026. Where a firm does not publish a number we have left it blank rather than repeating a figure from a comparison blog. Confirm before you fund anything, because these change without much notice.
| Platform | Access | Minimum | Annual fee | What you end up holding | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct | Direct to consumer | $5,000 | 0.09% | Individual S&P 500 companies, whole and fractional shares | The cheapest way into managed direct indexing at a small balance |
| Wealthfront Nasdaq-100 Direct | Direct to consumer | $5,000 per Wealthfront support docs | 0.12% | Individual Nasdaq-100 companies | Large-cap growth exposure with loss harvesting at the stock level |
| Wealthfront US Direct Indexing | Direct to consumer | $100,000 | 0.25% advisory, direct indexing included | A broad US portfolio held as individual stocks plus ETFs | Existing Wealthfront automated investing clients past six figures |
| Fidelity Managed FidFolios | Direct to consumer | $5,000 | 0.40% index tracking, 0.70% actively managed | A sampled basket tracking a chosen index | People who already custody at Fidelity and want one relationship |
| Frec Classic | Direct to consumer | $20,000 to $50,000 depending on the index | 0.09% to 0.35% | Direct holdings across 25 index choices | Index choice beyond the S&P 500 at a low advisory fee |
| Frec Long Short | Direct to consumer | $100,000 to $500,000 | 0.50% to 1.30% plus 0.23% to 0.86% financing | A leveraged long and short book built around an index | Investors chasing far larger harvested losses and accepting the complexity |
| Frec Diversify | Direct to consumer | $100,000 to $500,000 | 0.60% to 1.10% plus 0.23% to 0.57% financing | A concentrated position unwound into an index over time | Anyone sitting on one oversized low-basis stock position |
| Schwab Personalized Indexing | Direct to consumer | $100,000 | 0.40%, dropping to 0.35% above $2M | A sampled basket tracking a US index with screens applied | Six-figure accounts wanting values or sector screens |
| Vanguard Personalized Indexing | Financial advisors only | Not published | Not published | A separately managed account tracking a chosen index | Clients of an advisor already on the Vanguard platform |
| Parametric Custom Core | Financial advisors only | Not published, commonly quoted near $250,000 | Negotiated with the advisor | A separately managed account with deep customization | Advisor-led households with complex tax situations |
| Aperio (BlackRock) | Financial advisors only | Not published, commonly quoted at $1M and up | Negotiated with the advisor | A separately managed account built around values screens | High-net-worth clients with specific exclusion lists |
| Betterment | Not offering retail direct indexing yet | Not applicable | Automated Investing 0.25%, Premium 0.65% | ETF portfolios today, direct indexing announced for 2026 | Watch this one: Betterment bought Rowboat and says minimums will be low |
| A plain S&P 500 ETF | Any broker | One share, or less with fractional shares | 0.03% expense ratio | One fund holding all 500 companies | Almost everyone who does not have a large taxable gain to manage |
| Indexes (this site) | Software, no account, no trades | No minimum | From $12 per month | Nothing. You hold the shares wherever you already trade | Designing and backtesting the basket before or instead of paying a manager |
The single most useful line in that table is the access column, because it splits the market in a way the marketing does not. Parametric and Aperio manage far more direct indexing money than Wealthfront and Frec combined, which is why they dominate every "largest providers" list, and neither of them will open an account for you. If you do not have an advisor, the entire institutional tier is decoration. The four retail platforms are the real shortlist, and the choice between them is mostly a question of what your balance is and where your assets already sit.
The second thing worth reading twice is how far the minimums have fallen. Wealthfront cut S&P 500 Direct from $20,000 to $5,000 in June 2025, and its Nasdaq-100 Direct product launched that October using fractional shares specifically so the entry point could stay low. Fractional trading is what made this possible: a platform no longer has to buy a whole share of every constituent, so a $5,000 account can hold a recognizable slice of 500 companies. Five years ago the honest answer to "what is the minimum for direct indexing" was $250,000. The two cheapest options are worth putting side by side on their own, which we do in Frec vs Wealthfront direct indexing. Per-vendor detail sits on our Wealthfront direct indexing, Fidelity direct indexing, Frec and Schwab Personalized Indexing pages.
Direct indexing fees
What direct indexing actually costs, beyond the headline percentage
Every platform advertises one number. Five things determine what the strategy really costs you, and only the first is on the pricing page.
| Cost line | Typical range | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Advisory or management fee | 0.09% to 0.70% on the platforms above, negotiated in the advisor-only channel | This is the number every provider advertises. On $50,000 the gap between 0.09% and 0.40% is about $155 a year. |
| Underlying fund fees | Zero on the stock sleeve, because you own the shares directly | This is the honest structural win of direct indexing. There is no fund wrapper charging an expense ratio on top. |
| Trading costs and spreads | Usually not itemized, absorbed by the platform | Holding 200 to 500 positions and rebalancing them means far more transactions than owning one ETF. Rebalancing frequency is the driver. |
| Tax drag or tax benefit | The whole point, and the hardest line to predict | Harvested losses offset gains, then up to $3,000 of ordinary income a year with the rest carried forward. The benefit is largest early and in volatile markets. |
| Exit friction | Rarely mentioned before you sign up | Leaving means either transferring hundreds of individual lots or selling them, which can trigger the gains the strategy spent years deferring. |
Run the arithmetic before you decide, because it is less dramatic than either side of the argument suggests. On a $50,000 taxable account, moving from a 0.03% S&P 500 ETF to a 0.40% direct indexing account costs about $185 a year in extra fees. For that to be worth paying, the harvested losses have to be worth more than $185 after tax. In a volatile year with plenty of dispersion between the 500 names, that is easy. In a year where the index grinds steadily upward and nothing is underwater, there may be almost nothing to harvest, and you paid the fee anyway. The benefit is also front-loaded: a portfolio harvests hardest in its first few years, when most positions are still near their purchase price, and gets progressively harder to harvest from as unrealized gains build up.
The loss itself is worth something specific rather than something vague. Harvested losses first offset realized capital gains, then up to $3,000 of ordinary income a year, $1,500 if married filing separately, with anything left carried forward indefinitely. That $3,000 cap is the reason direct indexing is a poor fit for someone with no other gains: without gains to offset, a very large harvested loss releases at $3,000 a year, which takes a long time to matter. The full arithmetic is in direct indexing tax loss harvesting, and the per-provider cost comparison in how much direct indexing costs.
One trap deserves its own sentence because it is permanent rather than merely expensive. Under Revenue Ruling 2008-5, if you harvest a loss in a taxable account and buy a substantially identical security inside an IRA within the 61 day wash sale window, the loss is disallowed and your IRA basis is not stepped up. The loss is gone for good rather than deferred. Platforms manage this inside their own accounts, but none of them can see the IRA you hold at a different broker or the one your spouse holds anywhere.
How to choose a direct indexing platform
Four questions that narrow the list to one
Do you have gains to offset?
This is the gate, not a preference. Direct indexing buys you harvested losses, and losses are worth money only against realized gains or, at $3,000 a year, ordinary income. No gains anywhere and no expectation of any means an ETF at 0.03% is the better product and the question stops here.
What is the taxable balance?
Under $5,000 nothing is open to you. From $5,000 the retail platforms start. From $20,000 Frec Classic opens up with the widest index choice. At $100,000 Schwab Personalized Indexing and Wealthfront US Direct Indexing become available. Past roughly $1M an advisor running Parametric or Aperio is realistic.
Which index do you actually want?
Most platforms track the S&P 500 and little else. Wealthfront adds the Nasdaq-100 as a separate product. Frec offers 25 index choices, which matters if you want something other than US large cap. If you want an index that does not exist yet, no managed platform will build it and you are into custom construction.
Is a screen or exclusion required?
Removing your employer, a sector you already have exposure to, or a category you object to holding is the customization direct indexing is genuinely good at. Schwab and the advisor platforms handle screens well. If the exclusion list is the whole reason you are here, weight it heavily in the choice.
Those four in order will get most people to a single answer within a few minutes. The one that trips people up is the third, because it is easy to assume that paying for direct indexing buys you index flexibility. It mostly does not. You are buying tax management on a standard benchmark, and the customization on offer is usually subtraction: drop these tickers, screen out that sector, cap this weight. Building a basket from a thesis rather than from a published index is a different activity, covered on index construction and build your own ETF.
Being straight about this
Indexes is not a direct indexing platform
What we do not do
We do not custody assets, hold cash, place trades or harvest tax losses, and we are not a registered investment adviser. If what you want is a managed account that runs the strategy for you, one of the platforms in the table above is the right answer and you should go open one. Nothing here is investment advice.
What we do instead
We are the modeling layer. Define the basket, set the weights, choose the rebalancing rule, then backtest that exact construction over real market history and track it as a named index against the S&P 500 or BTC. No minimum, no account to fund, from $12 a month.
When that is the better fit
When you are below the minimums, when the index you want does not exist, when you would rather run a 30 to 50 stock basket yourself at a zero-commission broker than pay 0.40% a year, or when you simply want to see how a construction behaved before handing real money to anyone.
The self-directed route deserves a fair description rather than a sales pitch, because it is genuinely more work. Replicating the S&P 500 by hand is not sensible. Running a 30 to 50 name basket is, and fractional shares at any major broker make the mechanics straightforward. What you are taking on is the rebalancing schedule, cost basis tracking lot by lot, and wash sale discipline across every account you and your spouse control. That is a real job, and it is the job the 0.09% to 0.40% pays someone else to do. What our tool contributes is the part before the trading: deciding what belongs in the basket, how it should be weighted, and whether that construction has behaved the way you assumed. Doing direct indexing yourself walks through the operational side in detail.
Questions
Direct indexing platforms, answered
What are the best direct indexing platforms?
It depends almost entirely on your balance. Below $100,000 the practical shortlist is Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct at 0.09% with a $5,000 minimum, Fidelity Managed FidFolios at 0.40% with the same $5,000 minimum, and Frec Classic at 0.09% to 0.35% starting around $20,000. Above $100,000 you add Schwab Personalized Indexing and Wealthfront US Direct Indexing. Past roughly $1M, an advisor running Parametric or Aperio becomes realistic.
What is the minimum investment for direct indexing?
The lowest retail minimums are $5,000, at Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct and Nasdaq-100 Direct and at Fidelity Managed FidFolios. Frec starts at $20,000 for its cheapest indexes. Schwab Personalized Indexing and Wealthfront US Direct Indexing both start at $100,000. The advisor-only platforms do not publish minimums, and the figures that circulate for them run from about $250,000 to $1M and up.
How much does direct indexing cost?
Retail direct indexing runs from 0.09% to 0.40% a year in advisory fees. Wealthfront S&P 500 Direct is 0.09%, Nasdaq-100 Direct is 0.12%, Frec Classic is 0.09% to 0.35%, and both Fidelity Managed FidFolios and Schwab Personalized Indexing charge 0.40% for index tracking. For reference a plain S&P 500 ETF costs about 0.03%, so you are paying roughly three to thirteen times the index fee to buy the tax management.
Is Fidelity Managed FidFolios better than Frec for direct indexing?
They win on different things. Fidelity is cheaper to start at $5,000 versus Frec's $20,000, and it keeps everything inside an account you may already have. Frec is materially cheaper to run at 0.09% to 0.35% against Fidelity's 0.40%, and it offers 25 index choices rather than a narrower menu. On a $50,000 account the fee gap is roughly $125 to $155 a year in Frec's favor. If you value one login and a low entry point, Fidelity. If you value ongoing cost and index choice, Frec.
What is the cheapest way to do direct indexing without paying advisory fees?
Build and hold the basket yourself at a zero-commission broker with fractional shares, and accept that you are doing the work a platform would otherwise automate. You get the direct ownership and you pay no advisory fee at all, but you also personally handle the rebalancing, the wash sale rules across every account you control, and the record keeping. That trade is reasonable for a 30 to 50 stock basket and unreasonable for a 500 stock replication.
Does Betterment offer direct indexing?
Not for retail investors as of August 2026. Betterment's own pricing page lists Automated Investing at 0.25%, Premium at 0.65% with a $100,000 minimum, and a Self-Directed tier with no management fee, and it does not mention direct indexing anywhere. Betterment acquired the direct indexing firm Rowboat and has said the capability is coming during 2026, with no high dollar minimum and using fractional shares. Treat it as announced, not available.
Which platforms let you borrow against a direct indexing portfolio?
Frec runs a portfolio line of credit against its direct indexing accounts, lending up to 70% of portfolio value at a floating rate set at the effective federal funds rate plus one percent, which Frec published as 4.64% when we checked in August 2026. Schwab and Fidelity both offer securities-based lending through the wider brokerage rather than as a feature of the direct indexing product. Rates move with the fed funds rate, so check the current number rather than a figure quoted in an article.
Do direct indexing platforms reimburse ACATS transfer fees?
Transfer fee credits are promotional rather than structural, so no honest answer holds for long. Several platforms have run offers covering the outbound fee your old broker charges, typically capped and requiring a minimum transfer. Ask the platform directly before you initiate, and be aware the bigger cost of leaving a direct indexing account is usually not the ACATS fee but what happens to hundreds of individual tax lots.
What is the difference between direct indexing and custom indexing?
Direct indexing means holding the individual components of a published index instead of a fund that tracks it, so the manager can harvest losses at the stock level. Custom indexing usually means the same mechanics with the rules changed: you drop names, tilt weights, apply screens or start from your own list rather than a published benchmark. Every direct indexing platform above allows some customization, which is why the terms have largely merged in marketing.
Is direct indexing worth the fee?
It is worth it when you have enough taxable gains for the harvested losses to offset, and it is close to pointless without them. The strategy converts a fee into a tax asset, so the arithmetic only works if you have taxes to reduce. In a tax-advantaged account it is worse than an ETF, because you paid extra for a benefit you cannot use. The usual rule of thumb is a taxable balance in the low six figures with realized gains elsewhere, though the $5,000 minimums have pulled that threshold down.
Can I do direct indexing myself?
Yes, for a basket of a few dozen names. Fractional shares at the major brokers make a 30 to 50 stock replication practical, and the direct ownership and loss harvesting opportunity are real. What you take on is the operational load: rebalancing on a schedule, tracking cost basis lot by lot, and staying clear of wash sales across every account you and your spouse control, including IRAs. Revenue Ruling 2008-5 is the trap worth knowing, because a replacement purchase inside an IRA disallows the loss permanently.
What are the largest direct indexing providers?
By assets under management the leaders are institutional rather than retail: Parametric, Aperio under BlackRock, and the bank and wirehouse programs, all reached through a financial advisor. In the direct to consumer channel Wealthfront, Fidelity, Schwab and Frec are the ones an individual can actually open on their own. Size is not a buying signal here, because the largest platforms are the ones you cannot access without an advisor relationship.
Go deeper
Model the basket before you pay anyone to run it
Build the weighted index, backtest the construction over real history, and track it against the S&P 500. No minimum, no account to link, no trades placed. Educational and informational only.