Acorns alternatives in Canada (2026): 4 apps compared

Acorns is open to people living in the United States, so the best Acorns alternatives in Canada are the apps that do its jobs here. Wealthsimple is the closest: it manages a portfolio for you and automates the deposits. Questrade’s Questwealth Portfolios does the same job at a lower fee. KOHO is the one app still rounding up card purchases, and Lodavo is free and rewards what you save with tickets in a weekly cash draw. Whether you tried to sign up and hit the residency wall or you’re just weighing your options, the table above shows what each one costs and what it automates.

Why look for an Acorns alternative in Canada?

Because you can’t open an Acorns account here, and because the Canadian app that used to fill the gap is gone. That leaves three separate jobs Acorns did in one place: managing a portfolio, automating the money going in, and making small amounts feel worth saving. Different apps now do each of them.

Acorns is open to US residents only

Acorns’ program agreement (opens in a new tab) says the program is intended solely for natural persons who are citizens or other lawful residents of the United States, and it asks you to confirm you’re located there. That isn’t a soft geo-block you can talk your way around with a VPN: the account is a US brokerage account tied to US tax reporting. The $3, $6 and $12 a month tiers (opens in a new tab) you’ll see quoted are in US dollars and none of them are open to a Canadian resident.

Round-up investing has thinned out here

Moka was the Canadian answer for years, and it retired its brand. moka.ai now redirects to Intelligent Investing (opens in a new tab), which has no round-up feature. Wealthsimple ran round-ups as a beta and ended them on April 11, 2025 (opens in a new tab). So the specific Acorns mechanic, spare change swept into a portfolio, currently has no Canadian equivalent. What’s left is the more useful half anyway, and our roundup of the best automatic savings apps in Canada covers the automation side in more depth.

The best Acorns alternatives in Canada, at a glance

The four sort themselves by job. Two manage a portfolio for you and differ mainly on price. One keeps the round-up mechanic but saves the money instead of investing it. One is free and runs on the account you already have, aimed at the part Acorns was really selling, which was making small amounts feel worth putting aside. Here’s how each works, what it costs, and who it suits.

Wealthsimple, the closest thing to Acorns in Canada

Wealthsimple is where most Canadians looking for Acorns land. You answer a few questions, it builds a diversified ETF portfolio and manages it for you, and there’s no minimum, so $1 gets you started. Managed investing costs 0.5% a year, or 0.4% once you hold $100,000 in assets (opens in a new tab), on top of the underlying ETF fees, as of August 2026.

What it automates

A recurring deposit (opens in a new tab) pulls a fixed amount from your bank on the schedule you choose, and the money is invested when it arrives. Set it for the day after payday and the decision is made once. Twenty dollars a week gets you to $1,040 a year, which is more than most people accumulate in spare change, and that’s the honest case for doing it this way rather than mourning the round-ups.

Where it differs from Acorns

There are no round-ups any more, so if the spare-change mechanic is the specific thing you wanted, this isn’t it. The fee is also double Questwealth’s, and what the extra pays for is a more polished app with investing, chequing and trading in one place, plus its Monthly Millionaire draw, which pays out $1 million a month and runs on the money you move into Wealthsimple. Worth knowing on the protection side: Wealthsimple isn’t a bank, chequing balances are held in trust at CDIC member institutions, and investments are covered by CIPF instead.

Questwealth Portfolios, the same job at a lower fee

Questrade’s Questwealth Portfolios is the cheapest managed option in Canada, and it does the core Acorns thing: you pick a risk level, it builds an ETF portfolio and rebalances it for you. It charges 0.25% a year on balances from $250 to $99,999, and 0.20% at $100,000 or more (opens in a new tab), plus ETF fees of 0.09% to 0.12% (0.20% to 0.24% on the socially responsible portfolios), as of August 2026.

Against Wealthsimple’s 0.5%, that’s half the management fee for the same basic service, and on a $20,000 balance the gap is about $50 a year. You can automate the money going in with a pre-authorized deposit (opens in a new tab), choosing the amount and the frequency, and each one gets invested for you.

The catches are real, though. You need $250 to start, where Wealthsimple takes $1, and Questrade’s app is built for self-directed traders first, so the experience is less friendly than either Acorns or Wealthsimple. There are no round-ups. Investment accounts are protected by CIPF, which covers a member firm failing rather than the market falling. Best for someone who knows they want a managed portfolio and would rather keep the fee than pay for polish.

KOHO, the only real round-up app left in Canada

If the round-up itself is what you came for, KOHO is the one mainstream Canadian app still doing it properly. Its RoundUps (opens in a new tab) feature takes every card purchase up to the next $1, $2, $5 or $10, whichever increment you set, and parks the difference in your KOHO Savings once the transaction settles.

The real difference from Acorns is where the change lands. KOHO saves it, at 2% on the free Essential tier and up to 3.5% on the $22 a month Everything plan (opens in a new tab), as of July 2026. Acorns invested it. Over decades that gap matters, though on the sums round-ups actually produce it matters less than people assume. Round-ups are free on every plan, and Essential costs nothing with direct deposit or $1,000 a month in deposits. On protection: KOHO isn’t a bank, and eligible balances sit in trust at CDIC member banks.

Best for a heavy card user who wants money moving into savings without deciding each time. A poorer fit if you’d rather not route your daily spending through a prepaid card just to save the change.

Lodavo, a free app that rewards you for saving

Acorns charged $3 a month partly for the portfolio and partly for something else: a reason to care about small amounts. Lodavo is built around that second part, and it’s free. It’s Canada’s first prize-linked savings app, it works with virtually any Canadian bank or credit union, and every $25 you save earns you a free ticket in that week’s cash draw. Top prizes reach $10,000, and every week at least $100 goes to a user as a guaranteed prize, so somebody always wins.

It’s a different shape from the other three. Lodavo never holds your money, so there’s no account to open and nothing to transfer: your savings stay where they are, earning whatever your bank already pays, and the tickets are free on top. Every result is published on the winning numbers page, and the provably fair page shows how each draw is verified.

Where it’s the wrong fit: it invests nothing. If you want your money in the market, you need Wealthsimple or Questwealth, and Lodavo can sit alongside either one. But if the reason you never got around to Acorns was that saving felt like homework, this is aimed squarely at that.

How to choose the right one for you

Start with which of Acorns’ jobs you actually wanted:

A lot of people run two: one app investing on a schedule, and Lodavo making the week-to-week saving something to look forward to. For the wider field, our roundup of the best savings apps in Canada covers where to keep the cash, and Lodavo vs Wealthsimple goes deeper on the two prize draws and how they differ.

Terms and conditions apply. No purchase necessary (alternate method of entry available). Skill-testing question required. Open to legal residents of Canada who are the age of majority. Odds depend on the number of eligible entries received. Full rules and odds at our contest rules.