Copy trading vs a robo-advisor: what's the difference, and what does each one cost you?

I'm Chris, co-founder of Autopilot. The way I think about this: a robo-advisor decides your allocation based on who you are. What people call copy trading lets you decide whose decisions to follow. We don't call it that, and I'll explain why in a second. That's the difference, and the fees follow from it.

A quick disclosure: Autopilot is the app; investment advice is provided by Autopilot Advisers, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Read the full details on Autopilot's disclaimer page.

A robo-advisor puts you in a model portfolio, usually a basket of index ETFs, based on a questionnaire, and charges a percentage of your assets every year. Following a Portfolio puts you behind a specific person or strategy, and your account is kept in line with theirs. Most apps in this category, ours included, charge a flat subscription instead of a percentage. We're an adviser that keeps the brokerage account you already have in line with a Portfolio you picked, for a cash subscription, not a cut of your assets. Why we say following and not copying: you're never trading at the same time as the Pilot, and your holdings won't match theirs exactly. Timing, fractional shares, and your account size all get in the way. Copying overstates it.

The three options people actually have

Just like you, I used to think index funds were enough. Then I worked in finance for a bit and saw what other people had access to.

Here's the problem I see with how retail investors are set up. There are really only three options. One, you invest on your own, and you're pretty much guessing. You're reading headlines, you heard about something from a friend, you're up on a Sunday night trying to figure out if you should buy Chipotle or Sweetgreen. Two, you put it in a passive ETF, which isn't bad, but it's not going to give you much beyond the market. Three, you hand it to a financial adviser who's a stranger, who has 300 other clients, and who's hard to leave.

A robo-advisor is option two with a questionnaire on the front. Following a Portfolio is the fourth option. You find someone who's better at this than you and your account does what they do.

1) What a robo-advisor does

You answer questions about your goals, time horizon, and risk tolerance. The service typically assigns a diversified model portfolio, often using low-cost stock and bond index ETFs, and rebalances it over time. Many robo-advisors charge an annual percentage of assets, although fee models vary. Compare each provider's current advisory fee, fund expenses, cash allocation, and any account minimum.

2) What following a Portfolio does

You pick a person or a strategy, and your account follows their trades. On some platforms that means following another user inside an account the platform holds. On Autopilot it means following a Portfolio in the brokerage you already have. Our Pilots include tracker Portfolios built on public filings (politicians through STOCK Act reports, institutional managers through 13Fs) and independent managers and creators like InTheMoney, Peter Wolff, Michael Sikand, Quiver Quantitative, and Unusual Whales.

It's a different bet from a robo-advisor. Instead of owning everything, you're choosing one approach and taking on its concentration and its risk. That's a real tradeoff, and it's why we publish a live client composite for every Portfolio on our fact sheets site, with a risk band and a maturity label, so you can see how it's behaved before you follow it. I'm not putting those numbers in here. They're on the sheet, dated. Go look.

3) Side by side

4) How the costs compare, without making up anyone's rates

A robo-advisor fee is a percentage. Some fraction of a percent a year. The dollar cost goes up as your balance goes up and down as it goes down. Small account, small dollars. Big account, big dollars.

A flat subscription is the reverse. Ours is a fixed Base Advisory and Licensing Fee, a cash subscription billed quarterly or yearly. It's not a percentage of assets, and it doesn't multiply by how many Pilots you follow. Pilot subscriptions are separate and add on if you follow more than one Pilot. Your brokerage's costs, the expense ratios inside any ETFs a Portfolio holds, and taxes sit on top, same as they do under a robo-advisor's own fund costs.

So the crossover depends on your balance. A flat fee is a bigger piece of a $2,000 account than a $50,000 one. A percentage is the same piece of both. Our methodology page says it plainly: smaller accounts experience a higher effective fee percentage because a fixed dollar fee is a larger share of a smaller account. Do the math at your balance, not at a headline rate.

5) Which one is for you

If you want to own the market broadly, never think about individual positions, and have your allocation shift automatically as you age, a robo-advisor is built for that.

If you want to follow a specific strategy, a politician tracker, a hedge fund's disclosed long book, an independent manager's picks, and you want it running in the brokerage you already use, that's what we built. It's more concentrated than a broad index. For filing-based trackers there's a delay, up to 45 days for STOCK Act reports and 45 or more for 13Fs. We publish both of those as risks.

Plenty of people do both. An index core with a followed-Portfolio position next to it in a separate account is a common setup. Nothing here is a recommendation to do either. That decision happens inside the app.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between copy trading and a robo-advisor?

A robo-advisor puts you in a diversified model portfolio, usually index ETFs, based on a risk questionnaire, and charges a percentage of assets. Copy trading, as people call it, follows a specific person or strategy's trades. On Autopilot that means following a Portfolio inside your own brokerage account for a flat cash subscription, not a percentage of assets.

How does the cost of a copy trading app compare to a robo-advisor's fee?

Robo-advisors charge a percentage of assets, so the dollar cost scales with your balance. Autopilot charges a flat cash subscription (no Base Advisory and Licensing Fee on Basic Tier; Premium Tier $29.99 to $199.99 a quarter or $99.99 to $699.99 a year, per Form CRS February 2026), plus separate Pilot subscriptions if you follow more than one Pilot, plus your broker's costs. A flat fee is a bigger share of a small account and a smaller share of a big one. Compare at your own balance.

TL;DR

If you'd rather follow a strategy you chose than an allocation an algorithm assigned, connect your brokerage, pick a Portfolio, and let it run.

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The disclosures below matter. You can also read Autopilot's full disclaimer.

Disclosures

© Autopilot Holdings Corporation 2026 — All rights reserved. “Autopilot” refers to Autopilot Holdings Corporation and its wholly owned and separately managed subsidiaries, including Autopilot Advisers, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. All investing is subject to investment risks, including possible loss of principal, and past performance is not indicative of future results. View our Customer Relationship Summary and other important information at www.joinautopilot.com/disclaimer.

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Robo-advisor descriptions are general and reflect common industry practice as of the publish date.