The robo advisors charge an extra 0.3-0.4% on top of Vanguard&#x27;s expense ratios.  So at the very least, from a cost perspective, they&#x27;re more expensive than just using Vanguard.<p>(Side note:  The target date funds have slightly higher expense ratios than just rolling your own with the same underlying funds and &quot;Admiral&quot; share classes.)<p>The question is, what is the value you&#x27;re getting out of Betterment&#x2F;Wealthfront?  I don&#x27;t recall where, but I&#x27;ve seen one or the other say that its estimated value-add was 0.7-1%.  So less their fees, that&#x27;s net positive (if you trust that).<p>Automated tax-loss harvesting is a big deal for workers.  It saves you a little income tax at your marginal rate.<p>Automated rebalancing removes some of the annual work associated with maintaining your own portfolio (but so does a target-date fund).<p>At the end of the day, I&#x27;m not sure they&#x27;re worth the fees... I still manage my own (simple index-fund portfolio).  But they&#x27;re pretty close to worth it.