These Automated Investment Accounts Help You Make Money Without Paying Big Fees. Here's How to Find the Right One.

Automated investment accounts are booming. Is there one that will work for your needs?

To find the right robo-advisor for you, there are a few basic things you need to know. For instance, how much money do you have to bring to the table? How much human help is available to you if you need more than digital assistance? What are the tools and services each robo-advisory offers to address your specific needs? And finally, how much does much it cost, a question that everyone—regardless of what state they're at as investors—needs to ask. Money has assembled the answers to those questions for more than 20 services our team reviewed this year for our first Best Robo-Advisor ranking.

All-in cost is calculated by adding the management fee to the average expense ratio of the underlying funds offered by a robo-advisor. Research and reporting for this story was completed in May and this chart, along with a complementary ranking of robo-advisors, originally ran in Money's August issue. At that time, we evaluated roughly 50 of the top robo-advisors, focusing on those with at least $50 million in assets or more than 1,000 investors. Money's edit staff fact-checked that the minimums required and costs were up-to-date as of Nov. 16.