I have referred a fair few people to Acorns/Raiz. It is a good platform for those without the minimum capital to invest when using a platform such as Commsec or Nabtrade, but allows people to invest in a range of stocks in some fairly reasonable diversified portfolios.
My partner uses it and as of today, is sitting on an 11% return on 12 months (sub $5000 invested). The dividends are invested back into the account and the fees are clearly not noticed. She also doesnt notice the withdrawals when they are rounded up.
A quick summary:
RAIZ Round Ups.
Raiz is linked to your "funding account" which is generally your standard everyday transaction account. You can set the roundup figure, but most keep it rounding to the $1 mark. This means that every transaction you make, it will take the remaining dollar amount and invest it into your account (eg. $4.50 coffee - 50c into your Raiz = $5 total OR, $100 transfer between accounts - $1 transferred to your Raiz). It accumulates the total of what the roundup should be and only transacts the deposit into your Raiz account when the minimum is reached (you can set this limit also) but generally its default is $5. If you transact more than a $5 minimum from your account each month (eg. 50 coffees), it will transfer the round up amount generally once a month. My partners average is $15.
RAIZ Rewards / Partners.
I noticed another poster on here state they never do and will never use this feature. I for one find it brilliant. Why? It is an affiliate program with major brands from Apple, to Virgin Airlines, to Dan Murphies. Like other affiliate programs, you login to your Raiz account and go through the links to to the brand sites, for instance, Dan Murphies. I have used this a couple times and this is how you can work it: You can buy your range of alocohol on Dan Murphies site through the Raiz link and arrange a click and collect (if you were going to head to the store anyway, you might as well get paid for it). You pay with the card linked to Raiz and within an hour, go down and collect your grog.
At some stage during the month, Raiz does their payment pull or whatever you call it and will invoice Dan Murphies as part of their partnership program a percentage of the overall Dan Murphies transaction (it is tiered based on type of alcohol).
Generally, they will deposit anywhere from 1.25-5% of your purchase back into your acorns - its basically a purchase kick back.
I also just bought $100 of t shirts from UNIQLO and received $5.50 back into the account - you wouldn't normally get this back, so why not just do it?
Recurring Deposits.
You can set up automatically withdrawals from your funding account to any dollar figure you want as a recurring deposit into Raiz.
Referral Bonus.
Raiz also offers a referral bonus which has promotions at some stages too. The standard referral (someone signs up with your unique link) will give you $2.50 for yourself and $2.50 for your referral person. Sometimes they up this to $5 a piece.
Fees.
Fees for accounts under $5,000 will be charged $1.25 per month. Accounts above $5,000 are charged .275% a month.
Other.
It is a set and forget thing. You cant just delete the app and bang, you are out of Raiz. You need to email or call them and advise you want to remove your account and close it down.
The retention of users in my opinion would be fairly reasonable and those who i have referred have generally stayed. I would say the commitment rate from the people i have referred is around 75%.
