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Would love some insight/suggestions/experience from this well versed and knowledgeable group.
My husband has two tax deferred accounts that have a substantial balance and that he needs to rollover into an IRA now that he is fully retired. We currently have brokerage accounts at Schwab and Vanguard and I am torn between rolling over these 2 accounts fully into one of these two brokerage houses. I like having both accounts so I don’t see closing one but want to make one our primary account. Vanguard is the king of low cost funds but I have found Schwab to have better customer service when I call (rarely) with a question or concern. I have also heard that Schwab offers “free” CFP meeting if necessary over a certain balance, not sure exactly how this works and am a bit apprehensive about a big sales push if I call to inquire. While we have always managed our own investments and will continue to do so, the complexity in retirement can lend itself to a professional at times, so the concept of meeting with a CFP does have its appeal. I am leaning towards Schwab and will inquire about any kind of transfer bonus they may have as within the next year I will be needing to move my 403bs into an IRA as well and it is larger than my husbands so I would like to choose the brokerage that will provide us the most benefit.
If you have any experience with either or thoughts about how to approach this I would love to hear them as we will be making the decision in the next week. Thanks in advance.
I’m a Vanguard customer for nearly 40 years. I can’t really speak on customer service as I have rarely dealt with them.
Same here. My investment plan at Vanguard is so simple I also rarely need customer service. I’m also in charge of my 94 yr old mother’s account at Schwab. Her “account representatives” have never once returned a call or email. The sweep cash account is a joke. I’ll give Schwab credit for a more intuitive website.
Going into retirement a few years ago, I signed up for the Vanguard Personal Advisor Service. I was assigned an advisor who was OK, but he soon moved on and was replaced by someone more junior. At a point where I felt I needed a little higher touch to calm my nerves as I moved into the decumulation phase, the model seemed to be “we’ll talk to you for 30 minutes once every six months” and answer questions. I was not impressed. I canceled and went the DIY route with a lot of help and advice here (thanks, all!) and planning via New Retirement/Boldin (would recommend).
My rollover IRA (largest amount) is at Vanguard, taxable account at E*TRADE, and a small rollover from my last employer at Fidelity. Service at E*TRADE is fine/good. Based on positive feedback here, I may take a closer look at Fidelity.
I know the dataset is for Vanguard or Schwab, but I wonder why T.Rowe Price is not in contention? I have setup IRAs originally in T.Rowe along with a employment 401K. I have had nothing but good experience with their customer service and overall ecosystem. 5 years ago I moved a significant portion to Fidelity (for diversity purposes) and have been reasonably happy, although the reporting and account manipulation is better at T.Rowe.
I’ve worked with Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity and E*Trade over the years. I’m a DIY cheapskate when it comes to costs and fees, and I don’t expect a lot in terms of customer service. I’m not a very profitable brokerage customer. Still, I agree with the comments above on how badly Vanguard’s customer service has deteriorated over the years. Long gone are the days when we had a dedicated Flagship rep who got to know me and my family.
All told, I think there are only minor differences among these four brokerages. All are reasonable choices.
As mentioned above, one annoying hidden cost with Schwab is how cash balances pay almost nothing. So if you want to write checks on your account at Schwab, you either have to leave a lot of money in cash making barely any interest, or you can constantly shift funds between cash and a MMF. At Vanguard, you can leave all of your cash in a MMF that pays top dollar in interest, and also write checks on the account.
Who is writing checks anymore?
What is a lot of money?
My money in all accounts at Schwab, Fidelity and one bank is invested at 99+%.
Any time I need money I sell a portion of my funds.
Supposed you have a constant $20K and miss the 4%. It’s only $160. That’s peanuts.
I opened my first account at VG 30 years ago but closed it within 2 years. I got so much more at Fidelity and now mostly at Schwab. VG was and still behind.
$20,000 x .04 = $800. That’s not peanuts to me.
I am still angry with Vanguard for the way they sent one of my wife’s accounts to a company in Texas which charged a fee of $35 / year just to have the account, and they had no investment options.
Basic facts: when my wife left a job, she had a 403(b) plan at Vanguard worth about $4k which she could not roll over. Vanguard said it was less than $5k so they couldn’t manage it any more, and gave control of it to a small fee sucking company. Extracting it from the Texas comlany was not easy. Customer service with Vaguard was unresponsive. (We still have to deal with them for other accounts. When she retires, the plan is to tap them first and be done with Vanguard.)
Schwab, on the other hand, has great cusromer service. I have a friend who has been doing his checking through Schwab for years and thinks it’s great; he doesn’t even have a brokerage account. My experience with Schwab has been excellent. I was talking wirh an Uber driver a few weeks ago who volunteered that he invests with Schwab and they’re great.
Some anecdotes to answer your question.
Outside of my current work SIMPLE-IRA, I have had all of my retirement savings at Vanguard for close to 30 years, attracted by the low costs. For the past several years, I’ve paid the 0.30% fee for a personal advisor, who has always provided excellent service to us. As I approach retirement (4 more years unless the job ends prematurely), I like having access to wholistic financial advice. I also rest easy knowing that my advisor is there for my wife if something were to happen to me.
It depends on how much you need to call customer service. I’ve had good success with Vanguard’s customer service but I do not call them much. All 3 are good when it comes to investment costs. VG does not spend as much on custienr service but they also do not try to sell you products.
My experience with Vanguard customer service has been awful. Will be transferring my remaining account next week. Have been promised call backs and documents several times with no follow through. A very bad experience. Blake
I have accounts at Schwab, Fidelity, and Wealthfront. All hold Vanguard funds. Don’t be concerned about the contents of your accounts – all can buy publicly-traded funds.
I qualified for a free meeting with a Schwab CFP and sat down with him last summer. No sales pitch at all – he really was speaking independently. I found it to be thoughtful and helpful. We discussed a variety of issues unrelated to the holdings at the brokerage (Social Security plans, umbrella insurance, etc.). It was worth doing to get the info and an outsider’s advice. They didn’t have authority to make changes to my accounts, of course. Go for it.
I tried to open a trust account for my wife at Vanguard three years ago. A week later, still waiting for them to approve the emailed trust documents, I called Schwab and had the account open the next morning.
In The Whole Earth Catalog back in the 70s there was a review of the new Apple computer by a banker. He was excited at being able to keep track of the fractions of pennies that don’t get deposited as interest in customers accounts because they are below a half a cent, and how much money the bank (or he) could realize as profit by tracking it. I noticed on my Vanguard accounts the rounding of shares reinvested usually worked in Vanguard’s favor, I was paying an eighth, quarter or half a penny or so more than the actual price most of the time. I tracked it one year at a cost of about a dollar for me, but if true for all their customers, a big deal for a mutual company that claims to be concerned with their customers’ welfare.
Vanguard would not withhold state tax from my RMD because my state doesn’t require it
My final straw with Vanguard was the automatic selling of the fund and sending of money every year from the inherited IRA I moved there. Because investment companies only take the number of shares out three decimal places, Vanguard sold about a dimes worth more of the funds to reach the RMD two years in a row, but they only sent me the actual amount of the RMD. The extra funds vanished. I called asking for them to either deposit it into a money market account or transfer it to my checking account like the RMD was. Was told it was a rounding error and not worth the cost. I moved my retirement funds to Fidelity, rounding evens out, I get exactly the amount of money generated from the annual sale of the fund, and they will withhold funds for my state income tax.
Vanguard has better money market accounts, and three wonderful tax advantaged mutual funds I still use, but today I wouldn’t open an account with them.
MHG,
Could you provide the “tax-advantaged mutual funds” you like?
I have generally had issues with Vanguard’s customer service. Admittedly, my situations weren’t run-of-the-mill, but they still should have handled things better. I would label at least one of the situations as “nightmare.” It went on for months. Even now, I am getting paper confirmations when I have clearly checked I want no paper. No person there seems to be able to resolve my issue, so I live with it. I have a personal account there that I am slowly closing out by donating the funds to charity. We have a trust account there that I would move if I thought I wouldn’t incur capital gains or if I didn’t mind the general hassle that goes along with moving an account. Love the mutual funds, dislike the customer service, and as one person noted the website doesn’t exactly kick butt.
Vanguard’s greatest strength was its attention to cost management. However, over time, that has become its greatest weakness. They are now perceived to have poor phone customer service and online tools because they don’t want to spend the money. You seem to want custom guidance from what you stated. Fidelity, Schwab, and Vanguard all have that (word is that Vanguard made a push to focus on that vs. providing services to assist the DIY community). Just know that your personal rep is there to help you AND their firm. If they can refer you to another division (e.g. Annuities) they make a commission. Free help with upsell potential. They usually don’t hard sell but just know that is a business that wants you to be successful and make money along the way.
Note that it is very easy to move accounts or even a single fund between these brokerage companies. Vanguard is the only one that charges you to do that. Why? Chorus: because they’re cheap!
HI Rachna,
My two cents.
I worked with a CFP who set up my accounts with Schwab. I was disappointed with the service, especially when it came time to leave.
I have moved almost all my accounts (six of them) to Vanguard. I like using the website, I like the reporting, and I especially like the low management fees. Haven’t really found I need the customer service because the web-portal is above average. I have moved to all ETFs after having a bent toward mutual funds for the last 20 years. I’m not yet retired, but months away, so I’m not exactly in your position.
Due to planning complexities, I’ve wanted to have a planner looking at my portfolio. I’ve worked with two different planners that used an AUM model (Assets Under Management). I’ve now moved to a fee based arrangement. They got me access to a tool called Right Capital which does many of the things I wanted for visibility. I’d only give the tool a “C” grade, and my planner is young, but knowledgeable. I pay less that a 25% of the AUM costs for a portion of my portfolio, and I’ve rolled everything together in a single view. This is a flat monthly fee regardless of the value of my holdings. I didn’t know that fee based was an option until I listened to a podcast on Morningstar.
Good luck, and I hope this is just a little bit helpful. Let me know if you have any questions, but I don’t spend a ton of time on this forum.
John
Vanguard has the easiest to use money market funds. You can have your settlement fund in VMFXX, which pays more interest due to lower expenses. At Schwab you have to manually buy a money market fund every time something in your account throws off cash.
I agree with Randy on the settlement fund issue. It’s annoying to have to manually buy a money market fund when Vanguard and Fidelity automatically sweep it into a MMF. It’s sort of like Schwab wants your money for free.
If you’re planning on setting up a rolling bond ladder, I’d go with Fidelity, since you can auto-roll with no time out of the investment. With Schwab you wait a week or so on the rollover as your cash earns only bank interest.
Rachna, I have 95% at Fidelity and 5% at Schwab. I have found both brokerages to have excellent customer service; can’t comment on Vanguard. Many folks have commented about their experience using Fidelity and I would agree with their assessments. I’ll highlight one example that occurred recently using their Cash Mgt Account(eg we use Fidelity’s CMA as our checking account). I wrote a check to cover my daughter’s house rent(first check to this payee) and I received an email and text from Fidelity asking if this was a legitimate check that I wrote before processing the check. Since this was the first time the payee showed up in my bill processing, they held the check from processing until I confirmed that it was legit. I have had similar experiences with other financial dealings. All this to say they take “customer service and security” very seriously and in this day & age it’s needed. Also my experience with online access, security lockdowns, physical offices, wealth mgr assigned to your account, no upselling pressures, a slew of investment options, everyday bill pay & credit cards(earning 2%) are also reasons. Good luck with your brokerage evaluations.
Ten years ago I would have said Vanguard but their customer service became terrible and their website is limited. That being said we have had amazing service from Fidelity and their website is great plus we can go to an office not having to rely on snail mail or phone issues. I have no experience with Schwab but have heard good things and if they have an office you have access to its a no brainer.
I have accounts at Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard.
I like Schwab better than Vanguard – when I’ve had questions or issues, they are just easier to deal with. Also, when I had a potential computer security issue, Vanguard didn’t take it seriously at all. I had to force them into taking substantive action. Schwab was good and Fidelity was amazing – helping me quickly lock down then close all my accounts, then transferring them seamlessly to new accounts while retaining all the transaction history. They assigned an expert to me who spent literally hours with me to make sure everything was transitioned and safe and provided a lot of useful advice to prevent any issues in the future.
I continue to hold assets in 3 institutions because I like it as a form of risk mitigation due to fraud/hackers/other scammers.
I have all 3 also. I tend to like Schwab the most. Easy website.
Jackie, that is wonderful to hear that Fidelity was so helpful. We have our HSAs at Fidelity but don’t really want to add them to the mix because the majority of our brokerage accounts are at Schwab and Vanguard and it seem simpler to stay with one of them. I will say that the comments here are very heavily in favor of Fidelity so they are obviously doing a great job!
I just find the Vanguard website more cumbersome to use than Schwab. I have an email advisor assigned to me by Schwab and he has been very helpful and responds quickly when asked a question. He doesn’t push any advisory services, just lets me know his department is ready and willing to help with whatever I need.
I like the Vanguard Select Advisory Service: this requires $500,000 minimum in total investments with an assigned chartered advisor for a 0.3% annual fee. They meet with you online several times a year or when needed. I have found they can get by any glitches in the Vanguard site. The service provides a roadmap for retirement and financial planning. The economists guiding the programs seem to have good insight on economic trends, e.g international stocks were up 36% last year as they had predicted. They did well versus benchmarks and have transparent, low costs and recommend broad diversification. My only minor regret is that they don’t offer my state’s municipal bonds, though, their municipal bond funds are OK for avoiding federal taxes.
Rachna,
I likewise have had accounts at both Vanguard and Schwab over many years. I admire Vanguard’s history, general philosophy, and low fees. I also like the fact that their money market funds have lower expense ratios than Schwab’s and so pay a higher interest rate. Additionally, their “Portfolio Watch” function is great, especially since you can include all your external assets and they will analyze those as part of your total portfolio.
But Schwab has substantially better customer service. When there’s any kind of issue or problem, they fix it right away whereas Vanguard will provide a dilatory response and then never actually fix it. And Vanguard’s IT Dept. is really 3rd rate as far as remedying any website glitches.
Finally, Schwab will definitely offer you a cash bonus if you transfer a substantial amount of new assets to them, conditioned on your keeping them there for a year.
Let me add something about Vanguard’s Portfolio Watch and external assets. There are two ways to add your external assets to Vanguard just for the purpose of analysis (i.e., not actually transferring them). You can provide your login credentials for the external account(s) to Vanguard and they will login daily and update share price, number of shares, total value of the holdings, etc. I used to do this so that Vanguard could include my Schwab assets in its analysis. But on reading Schwab’s security guarantee, I interpreted it to mean that if you shared your Schwab login credentials with any 3rd party or 3rd party app, it voided the guarantee.
So I discontinued that function and added my Schwab holdings manually at Vanguard. Vanguard still includes them in its analysis, and it updates the total value based on daily stock price changes. But since it can’t access the Schwab account, it can’t adjust the number of shares. So if you reinvest dividends or there’s a stock split, you have to adjust that manually. For me, the extra trouble is worth the security.
BTW, both Fidelity & Schwab have provisions to add “external accounts” and tools to analyze the overall portfolio.
Thank you for the detailed response, it is quite helpful.
Interestingly, you are the person in the best position to answer this question because you have personal experience with both Schwab and Vanguard.
As you can see from the comments the 3 brokerage houses that have risen to the top are the aforementioned and Fidelity. It appears that so long as you’re in one of the three you’re in good hands.
I only have experience with Vanguard and I’m satisfied enough to not be interested in changing anytime soon.
I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything but what I am hearing seems to be what I have experienced.
I picked Fidelity because they have a local office.
I do my own management of my portfolio at Fidelity for over 20 years.
I have a person assign to me and we talk once a year. He knows my plan and how to help my wife when the time comes.
Now that I am getting older I need a place where my wife can go if something happens to me as it relates to my portfolio.
Thats great to know!
What state do you live in? There are other considerations that come into play when rolling over an ERISA plan to an IRA.
We are in CA and Nevada and the reason to move the larger balances away from our employer is that we do not have access to ETFs or individual stocks, just Vanguard Mutual funds.
Hi Rachna, I’m late to the discussion and you may have already made your decision. However, I looked up California (p.80) and Nevada (p.128) in the White Coat Investor’s Guide to Asset Protection. The book is a few years old, so the laws may have changed. With that caveat, California’s IRA protection is “To the extent necessary for support, no protection for Roth IRA”. Nevada’s IRA protection is “$500,000”.
I know you asked about Schwab vs Vanguard but one thing I like about Fidelity is they have a security feature where you can restrict money transfers from your accounts to any other Fidelity account or external institution. If you need to do a transfer you go to their online security center and unlock.
Personal experience:
1) Fidelity website offers Money Transfer Lock for taxable and rollover IRA, not for 401K accounts. The lock prevents fraudulent ACAT transfer, and may be toggled on/off as needed. Fidelity sends alerts to phone and emails for transactions with appropriate settings.
2)Schwab locks down only with a call from customer, but it offers Schwab Security Guarantee for fraudulent transfer. Schwab sends alert ONLY if Schwab Mobile app is downloaded and phone number activated with alerts set to ON.
3) Vanguard: no experience. A website called independentvanguardadviser says customer must call or is required to mail in the lockdown request with account number and hand signature.
NY Times had a report of IRA transfer theft (October 3, 2025).
Thats good to know especially as every other week we get a letter about a hack to one or another of the companies we do business with. My husband recently signed up for Aura which is supposed to protect against all kinds of fraud. I’m still playing with it so can’t tell you if its worthwhile yet as I am always a little wary.
Those “hack” notifications are concerning. They could be factual or scams to prompt us to log in to our accounts but at a fake website!
I agree with you about having a primary and secondary account at different brokerages. We use Fidelity as our primary because of the services they offer, and are happy so far. Most of our investments are Vanguard funds.
Between Vanguard and Schwab, I’d probably go for the customer service offered at the latter. Like us, you can still buy Vanguard funds.
Dan, I just like having the flexibility of having two relationships.
Good question. It sounds like you’re guessing how likely you’ll need phone (or in-person) service. You’re discerning perceived better service at Schwab vs. perceived lower costs at Vanguard. Your decision will involve how important these factors are to you.
I, too, managed my own investments. For me what was important was not phone help. Yes, Vanguard helped tremendously by phone when I moved everything from TIAA to them when I retired in 2021. Still, while I’d heard good things about Schwab’s service, I chose Vanguard simply because of its true mutual fund structure and low cost. Since then I’ve found their website easy to use and haven’t needed to call them.
I would not have factored in the CFP availability at Schwab. (TIAA offered free access to a wealth management advisor; I remember asking a simple question and getting a complicated, useless answer.) If I ever want advice about my investments, I’ll look for and pay an independent, hourly flat-fee fiduciary professional.
Sending you best wishes for your decision!
Thank you for sharing your experience. In recent years Vanguard’s customer service seems to have deteriorated and as I am a maximizer I want to be able to have that option of meeting with someone. We have used a fee only advisor for specific things but we have a lot of changes and a lot of moving pieces in the next few years and sometimes I just need a simple answer to something:) not a full plan, which is why I thought having the availability of a professional would be helpful.
I was a longtime Vanguard customer until last year. They botched an end of year Roth conversion that cost me money because it under withheld state tax and over withheld Federal tax. After this, my wife had problems logging in which was her fault. However, she was dealing with offshore support that had thick accents, which were hard to understand. They required forms be sent via US mail to reinstate her logon. That took a week.
We moved our accounts to Fidelity and could not be happier. In the quest to lower fees, Vanguard has sacrificed service to the customer. Fidelity has a much better website, they are staffed on weekends and they have a local office if we need that. They have a great bond desk staff by experts which has been helpful to me in buying secondary TIPS.
I have always heard good things about Schwab which I would equate to Fidelity. If customer service is important to you, then the obvious choice is Schwab.
People warned me that Fidelity would try to sell things to me. There has been absolutely no pressure to sell us anything. I transferred my Vanguard ETFs to Fidelity.
I’m sorry to hear of the botched conversion. As we will be doing those over the next few years Vanguard’s handling of your account does give me pause.
I will echo what Howard said, Schwab (and Fidelity) have superior customer service than Vanguard (full disclosure, I left Vanguard in 2021 due to their poor service and I rarely called them. Not sure if it has improved much since). Not sure if it matters much to you, Schwab (and Fidelity) have local branches in most metro areas, Vanguard does not to the best of my knowledge. Yes, Vanguard has arguably the best-in-class products but you can buy their ETF’s at Schwab. Vanguard shines with their low cost PAS, should you ever need it at 30bps. The closest to this at Schwab is their “intelligent” services, a combination of robo and human advisors. And I wouldn’t make too much of the access to a CFP at Schwab, they don’t perform the role of a financial advisor. Best of luck to you
Good to know that you can purchase the Vanguard ETFs at Schwab.
With a transaction fee
There are no commissions or sales fees on essentially any products at Schwab. Certainly, all mutual funds and ETFs trade fee-free.
I transferred my Vanguard acct to Schwab. If I want to add to my Vanguard mutual funds I have to pay a fee. ETFs are free
Vanguard customer service is not as good as Schwab or Fidelity. They cut corners to save money and they can be frustrating to deal with. Schwab assigns you a wealth manager if the total relationship is over one million dollars. I meet or speak to Nick, my wealth manager at least annually and get zero pressure to do anything. We usually discuss strategy as I manage my own investments. BTW, you can get Vanguard ETFs from Schwab at no cost. Also, Schwab has many outside products that they make available. You will not get that at Vanguard.
I have had very similar experiences with Fidelity for over 10 years: assigned wealth manager based on assets in Fidelity accounts (I do not recall the minimum amount to qualify), good telephone service, very good website, a few zero cost index funds, and ability to buy Vanguard ETF, but not mutual funds, without a sales charge.
My past experiences with Schwab and Vanguard were too long ago to be relevant now.
Hi Rachna,
I don’t really have much to beyond the fact that you’re already focusing on the things that matter such as the level of customer service and so forth.
Another thing to keep in mind than other for sake of simplicity there is not much advantage rolling the funds over from the record keeper where they are. Some a better than others so the mileage does vary but there is nothing keeping from letting the funds sit where they are for now as you complete your evaluation. Just because he retired doesn’t mean the funds must move now. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.