Wealthsimple Inc. Managed Investing Fee Schedule
Our investment management fee varies by your client tier, as set out below:
Tier & Fee on AUM*
Core: 0.50%
Premium: 0.40%
Generation: Starting at 0.4%, as low as 0.2%
Smart Savings Balance (discontinued for new clients): Above $1
Fee on AUM: 0.25%
* Please note that your tier is determined by whichever is higher - the value of your net deposits, or the value of your total assets across your Wealthsimple accounts. While your tier determines the investment management fee rate, you are charged that fee rate on your assets under management with Wealthsimple Inc.
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 or Private Investment Vehicles, issuers of the ETFs or Private Investment Vehicles may have embedded expenses and other fees, including those relating to management, brokerage, legal, accounting, or custody. Similarly, for portfolios invested in Private Investment Vehicles which themselves invest in other fund investments, all fees, expenses, and amounts that are allocated to the Private Investment Vehicle as a direct or indirect investor in underlying fund investments, including investment management and performance fees charged by their respective investment managers, are borne directly or indirectly by the Private Investment Vehicles. Such fees, expenses and amounts are set out in the relevant constating documents and/or offering documents of the underlying fund investments. 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 at https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/360056584334-Wealthsimple-Invest-management-expense-ratio-MER-fees. 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 and/or for any deposits, transfers or withdrawals involving currency conversion 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.
Wealthsimple Work Administrative Fee
Wealthsimple Work accounts may be subject to an additional administrative fee (“Administrative Fee”) that is negotiated with your employer. The specifics of this fee are included in the “Wealthsimple Work Fee Schedule” that you receive upon opening your group retirement savings plan account(s). The Wealthsimple Work Fee Schedule supplements this Managed Investing Fee Schedule. The Administrative Fee only applies to your group retirement savings plan account with Wealthsimple Work. Please reach out to your HR team or w4w@wealthsimple.com if you have any questions.
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 earned by Wealthsimple by dividing the annual fee by 365 days and applying it to the value of your Smart Savings account plus daily interest earned. This fee is paid directly to Wealthsimple by the CDIC member institution holding the cash balance of your account in trust. The interest rate provided in your Investor Policy Statement is net of this Fee. 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.