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FutureAdvisor was one of the first robo advisors – founded in 2010, acquired by BlackRock in 2015, and quietly wound down as a direct-to-consumer product around 2018. If you’re looking to open a FutureAdvisor account today: you can’t. Here’s what happened to it, where its technology lives now, and the four robos that actually deserve the money you were about to send.
What FutureAdvisor Was
Bo Lu and Jon Xu launched FutureAdvisor in 2010, back when “robo advisor” still sounded like science fiction marketing. The product was unusual for the era. Instead of asking you to move your money to a new brokerage, FutureAdvisor plugged into the accounts you already had at TD Ameritrade or Fidelity and managed them in place.
The pitch was simple. You linked an existing brokerage account. FutureAdvisor built a globally diversified ETF portfolio across stocks and bonds, rebalanced it automatically, and harvested tax losses where it could. The minimum to enroll in the paid Premium service was $10,000. The fee was 0.50% of assets per year, billed quarterly, which was reasonable in 2010 and starting to look expensive by 2015.
FutureAdvisor also offered a free tier – a goal-based planning tool that gave you allocation recommendations without managing anything. It was a clever lead magnet and a real product in its own right. The free retirement and college savings analyzers pulled in users who would eventually convert to the paid Premium service once their balances crossed the $10,000 line.
By 2014, FutureAdvisor managed around $600 million in assets. It was a credible third-place finisher behind Betterment and Wealthfront in the consumer robo race. Then BlackRock came knocking.
The BlackRock Acquisition
BlackRock acquired FutureAdvisor in August 2015 for roughly $152 million. At the time it looked like BlackRock – the world’s largest asset manager, sitting on trillions in iShares ETFs – was buying a distribution channel. A retail robo advisor would put more BlackRock products in front of more individual investors. Clean story, easy to understand.
That isn’t what happened. Within a couple of years the strategy pivoted hard. BlackRock stopped pushing FutureAdvisor as a consumer brand and started repackaging the technology for banks, broker-dealers, and independent RIAs. The retail product kept the lights on for a while but the energy clearly went elsewhere.
By 2018 the direct-to-consumer FutureAdvisor product was effectively in maintenance mode. New retail sign-ups slowed to a trickle. The brand quietly faded from BlackRock’s marketing entirely.
Why BlackRock Killed the Retail Product
The math never worked. BlackRock manages around $10 trillion. Running a direct-to-consumer robo advisor charging 0.50% on accounts averaging $50,000 or so was, in BlackRock terms, rounding error. The customer acquisition cost in the retail robo space had also climbed sharply by 2017 as Betterment and Wealthfront cut fees to 0.25% and Schwab and Vanguard launched their own offerings.
The B2B play was the real prize. Banks and wirehouses wanted a digital wealth management front end and didn’t want to build it. BlackRock had the technology, the brand, and the ETF inventory to sell into that gap. The same engineers who had been building consumer flows started building white-label software for institutional clients instead.
That bet has paid off. BlackRock’s institutional digital wealth platform – bundled under the Aladdin Wealth umbrella – sits inside dozens of bank advisory programs. You may already be using FutureAdvisor’s old technology without knowing it, served through your bank’s advisor app with a different logo on top.
Where the FutureAdvisor Tech Lives Today
The portfolio construction engine, tax-loss harvesting logic, and rebalancing system that powered FutureAdvisor now sit inside Aladdin Wealth, BlackRock’s enterprise wealth platform. Aladdin Wealth licenses to financial institutions – it isn’t something a retail customer can sign up for directly.
If you walk into a bank in 2026 and get pitched a “digital advisor” or “guided portfolio” product, there’s a non-trivial chance the underlying technology is descended from FutureAdvisor. The brand died. The code kept shipping.
What Old FutureAdvisor Customers Should Know
If you had a FutureAdvisor account that you’ve lost track of, your money didn’t vanish. Assets were custodied at TD Ameritrade or Fidelity the entire time – FutureAdvisor was the manager, not the custodian. When the retail product wound down, accounts were either transitioned to other management arrangements or left with the original custodian for the client to handle directly.
Three places to check if you can’t find your old account:
- Your old custodian. TD Ameritrade is now part of Schwab as of 2023, so old TD accounts live at Schwab. Fidelity accounts remained at Fidelity.
- BlackRock client services. They can confirm whether your account was ever held under the FutureAdvisor advisory agreement and what happened at wind-down.
- The unclaimed property database for your state. If a custodian lost contact with you, funds may have been turned over to the state.
If you still have an active managed account somewhere that originated with FutureAdvisor, the 0.50% fee you used to pay is no longer competitive. The four alternatives below all undercut it.
4 Alternatives Worth Your Money in 2026
FutureAdvisor’s original audience – investors who wanted hybrid human-and-algorithm guidance, modest minimums, and proper retirement planning – hasn’t gone anywhere. The robos that serve that audience well today are different from the ones that did it in 2015. Here are the four that matter, in the order I’d consider them.
1. Vanguard Personal Advisor Services (the closest FutureAdvisor replacement)
Fee: 0.30% AUM. Minimum: $50,000. Includes access to a Certified Financial Planner.
If you liked FutureAdvisor specifically because it felt like a hybrid – software doing the heavy lifting, with a human you could call when you had questions – Vanguard Personal Advisor Services is the cleanest upgrade. The CFP relationship is the headline. Vanguard’s planners aren’t commissioned salespeople and they’ll talk through full financial plans, not just your portfolio.
The 0.30% fee is 20 basis points cheaper than FutureAdvisor charged, and that’s before you account for the lower expense ratios on Vanguard’s underlying funds. The $50,000 minimum is higher than FutureAdvisor’s $10,000, which is the catch. Read our full Vanguard Personal Advisor Services review.
2. Betterment (the lowest-friction option for most people)
Fee: 0.25% AUM. Minimum: $0. Premium tier with unlimited CFP chats at $100,000.
Betterment is the default answer for “I want a robo and I don’t want to think about it.” No minimum, half the fee FutureAdvisor charged, automatic tax-loss harvesting on taxable accounts, and a clean interface that hasn’t gone the way of some competitors and tried to become a bank, a crypto exchange, and a checking account at once.
The Premium tier kicks in at $100,000 and unlocks unlimited messaging with CFPs, which gets you most of what Vanguard PAS offers at the same fee level. Read our full Betterment review.
3. Wealthfront (best for taxable accounts over $100K)
Fee: 0.25% AUM. Minimum: $500. Direct Indexing unlocks at $100,000.
Wealthfront is the most software-forward of the four. There’s no human advisor option – everything runs through the app – which is either a feature or a bug depending on what you wanted. The reason to pick Wealthfront over Betterment is tax-loss harvesting. Wealthfront’s TLH at every balance level is aggressive, and once you cross $100,000 you get Direct Indexing, which harvests losses on individual stocks inside the index rather than just at the fund level.
For high-income earners with sizable taxable accounts, that extra tax alpha can outweigh the missing human advisor entirely. Read our full Wealthfront review.
4. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios (the free option)
Fee: $0 AUM (yes, zero). Minimum: $5,000. Tax-loss harvesting at $50,000+.
Schwab doesn’t charge a management fee on Intelligent Portfolios, which sounds too good to be true and isn’t quite. They make their money on the cash allocation – your portfolio always holds a meaningful slug of cash that Schwab Bank earns spread on. For long-time-horizon investors that cash drag eats some of the benefit. For everyone else, paying 0% in management fees is hard to argue with.
If you have over $50,000, Schwab’s Intelligent Portfolios Premium adds CFP access and unlimited planning for a flat $30/month, which beats every percentage-based fee structure on larger balances. Read our full Schwab Intelligent Portfolios review.
A Note for BlackRock Loyalists
If you specifically wanted to invest with BlackRock because you trust the brand, here’s the good news: you already are. BlackRock manages the iShares ETF family, and every robo on this list uses iShares funds somewhere in their model portfolios. Betterment, Wealthfront, Vanguard PAS, and Schwab Intelligent Portfolios all hold iShares ETFs in client accounts. You don’t need a BlackRock-branded robo to get BlackRock-managed underlying assets.
The Bottom Line
FutureAdvisor isn’t coming back. The brand was a casualty of BlackRock’s enterprise pivot, and that pivot has been successful enough that there’s no commercial reason for them to resurrect a retail product now. The good news is that what FutureAdvisor offered in 2015 – automated portfolios, modest fees, optional human advisor access – is available today from four established platforms that all cost less and most of which offer more.
If your old FutureAdvisor experience was as a hybrid customer, go to Vanguard PAS. If you were drawn to the simplicity, go to Betterment. If you have a taxable account and care about tax optimization, go to Wealthfront. If you’re fee-allergic and have at least $5,000, look at Schwab.
For more on how these platforms compare across the broader market, see our best robo advisors guide, our overview of how robo advisors work, and our take on robo advisors vs financial advisors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FutureAdvisor still available in 2026?
No. FutureAdvisor’s direct-to-consumer product was wound down by BlackRock around 2018 and there is no way to open a new FutureAdvisor account in 2026. The technology continues to power BlackRock’s enterprise Aladdin Wealth platform, which is sold to banks and advisory firms, not to retail customers.
What happened to BlackRock’s FutureAdvisor?
BlackRock acquired FutureAdvisor in August 2015 for approximately $152 million. After a couple of years operating it as a consumer robo advisor, BlackRock shifted the team’s focus to building white-label digital wealth software for banks, broker-dealers, and RIAs. The retail product was deprioritized and ultimately retired, while the underlying technology was folded into Aladdin Wealth.
What is BlackRock’s robo advisor called now?
BlackRock no longer markets a consumer-facing robo advisor under its own brand. The institutional version of the technology is part of Aladdin Wealth, which is licensed to financial institutions. If you want exposure to BlackRock-managed portfolios as a retail investor, the practical path is buying iShares ETFs directly or using a robo advisor like Betterment or Wealthfront that holds iShares funds in its model portfolios.
What’s the best alternative to FutureAdvisor?
For most former FutureAdvisor customers, Vanguard Personal Advisor Services is the closest match because it preserves the hybrid human-plus-algorithm feel at a lower 0.30% fee and includes a CFP. Betterment is the better choice if you have less than the $50,000 Vanguard minimum or just want a clean digital-only experience at 0.25%. Wealthfront wins if tax-loss harvesting on taxable accounts is your priority, and Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is the pick if you want zero management fees.
How do I find my old FutureAdvisor account?
Start with the custodian where the account was held. FutureAdvisor used TD Ameritrade (now part of Schwab) and Fidelity. Log in to those custodians directly to see whether the account is still open. If you can’t locate it, contact BlackRock client services to confirm what happened at wind-down. Finally, check your state’s unclaimed property database in case dormant funds were escheated to the state.
Did BlackRock kill FutureAdvisor?
Functionally, yes. BlackRock didn’t issue a press release announcing the end of the consumer product. They quietly redirected the team to enterprise work, stopped marketing FutureAdvisor to retail customers, and let the brand fade. By around 2018 it was clear the consumer business was no longer a priority, and the FutureAdvisor name has not been used as a meaningful retail offering since.
