Robo-Adviser or DIY? What the Yearly Fee Actually Buys You

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Last updated: 16 October 2026 · By Spencer Li, CFTe

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A robo-adviser costs more each year than a DIY portfolio of index ETFs, and in return it does 2 jobs for you. It rebalances the portfolio on a schedule, and it removes most of the decisions you could get wrong. If you would hold a plain ETF portfolio through a crash without touching it, DIY is usually cheaper. If you know you would panic, sell or fiddle, the robo’s yearly fee may be the cheapest insurance you can buy against yourself.

So the real question is behavioural before it is financial. What would you do if your portfolio fell 30% in 3 months?

Do note that we sell neither. We don’t run a robo-adviser and we don’t sell an ETF, and this post names no platform. It answers a question Singapore investors ask constantly: should I put my monthly savings into a robo-adviser, or do it myself?

What does a robo-adviser actually do?

MoneySense, the national financial education site, defines it as “a digital platform that uses algorithms to build and manage an investment portfolio for you”. You answer a questionnaire about your goals, your time horizon and how you would react to a big loss. The platform picks a mix of funds, usually ETFs, invests your money and rebalances when the mix drifts away from its target.

That is the whole product. There is no secret sauce in the fund selection, because most robo portfolios hold the same kind of low-cost index funds you could buy yourself. What you pay for is the machinery around them.

How much more does the robo cost?

MoneySense describes the robo’s cost as “a percentage of the assets under management per annum, plus underlying investment fund fees”. It also gives the right way to compare: “Add the platform’s management fee to the weighted average TER of the underlying ETFs to get your true total cost.” TER is the fund’s own yearly running cost.

Here is a hypothetical comparison. Suppose the robo’s all-in cost is 0.7% a year and a DIY portfolio of index ETFs costs 0.2% a year. You invest SGD 1,000 a month for 20 years, and the portfolio grows 6% a year before costs. That growth rate is an assumption for the example only.

Read the gap again. SGD 24,200 is real money, and it is the price of the 2 jobs the robo does for you over 20 years. DIY has its own costs too, like commissions and currency spreads on each buy, which the post on dollar-cost averaging from Singapore works through.

[INFOGRAPHIC: the 2 ending values side by side, with the SGD 24,200 gap labelled “the price of automation” and the crash question underneath]

Is the automation worth SGD 24,200?

It depends entirely on what you would have done without it.

Imagine 2 investors with the same DIY portfolio. The first holds through every crash, rebalances once a year and ends the 20 years at the DIY number. The second sells everything in a panic during the first big fall, sits in cash for a year out of fear and buys back after the recovery. That one decision can cost far more than 5.4%, and it happens in a single bad month.

MoneySense names this directly. A human adviser may suit you if “you need someone to hold you accountable and provide behavioural coaching”, and its example is talking you out of panic-selling during a market crash. A robo cannot talk you out of anything. But it does make doing nothing the default, and for many people the default is what decides the outcome.

Personally, I think this is where most comparison articles go wrong. They compare the fees to the second decimal place and leave the investor out of the sum entirely. It is as if the same person would behave the same way in a calm year and in a year when the news is full of words like “crash” and “wiped out”. A fee is a small, certain cost. One panic sale is a large, uncertain one. Our post on whether to sell everything or hold on in a crash goes deeper into that moment.

What do you give up with a robo?

Control, mostly. Here is the honest comparison.

You cannot pick the fund domicile, which matters for US dividend tax and estate tax, a topic in how to choose an index ETF. You cannot hold something outside the platform’s menu. And if the platform changes its fees or closes a portfolio, you follow.

Is my money safe with a robo-adviser?

Check the licence first. MoneySense says robo-advisers in Singapore must be regulated by MAS, and tells readers to check the platform in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory. In its words: “Do not invest through any platform that is not on this list.”

On the platform failing, MoneySense says “Your invested assets (the ETFs) are held in custody separately from the robo-adviser’s own assets”. It also says your investments “are not covered by the Singapore Deposit Insurance Scheme (SDIC)”, which only covers bank deposits. And on the market itself, it is blunt: “robo-advisers do not protect against market losses.” A robo portfolio falls in a crash like any other.

So which one should you pick?

Ask yourself the crash question first. If your portfolio fell 30% in 3 months, would you hold, rebalance and keep buying, or would you sell?

If you can honestly answer “hold” and you are willing to set a rebalancing rule, DIY is usually cheaper, and rebalancing is less work than it sounds. MoneySense’s own suggestion is to do it “on a schedule (annually is typical) rather than in response to market events”.

If you are not sure, the robo’s fee buys you a default you will probably stick to, and that has value. You can also split the two. MoneySense notes many investors use a robo for the long-term core while working with a human adviser for things like insurance and estate planning, and some people run a robo for one goal and a DIY portfolio for another. Whether a human adviser is worth their fees is a separate sum, covered in is your adviser or bank RM worth the fees.

The full map of the DIY route is in the DIY guide to building your investment portfolio.

If you also trade, the free 15-Minute Swing Trader’s Checklist keeps that side to a short daily routine. It is at the end of this post.

So, what did you actually do the last time the market fell hard, and does your answer change which column you belong in?

FAQ

Is a robo-adviser better than DIY investing?

It is more expensive each year and less flexible, but it rebalances automatically and makes holding through a crash the default. DIY is usually cheaper if you would hold and rebalance on your own.

How much does a robo-adviser cost compared with DIY?

Add the platform’s yearly fee to the funds’ TER. On a hypothetical SGD 1,000 a month for 20 years at 6% a year, a 0.7% all-in robo ends about SGD 24,200 below a 0.2% DIY portfolio.

Are robo-advisers in Singapore regulated?

MoneySense says they must be regulated by MAS. Check the platform in the MAS Financial Institutions Directory before depositing.

Can I lose money with a robo-adviser?

Yes. MoneySense says robo-advisers do not protect against market losses, and the investments are not covered by deposit insurance.

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About the author. Spencer Li is the founder of Synapse Trading and a Certified Financial Technician (CFTe). His trade log is public: every trade since April 2024, dated, losses left in.

Educational content only, not personalised financial advice. Trading carries risk, including loss of capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Synapse Trading is not licensed or regulated by MAS.

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Educational content only, not personalised financial advice. Trading carries risk, including loss of capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Synapse Trading is not licensed or regulated by MAS.