Two Ways to Own the Same Market
StashAway and Endowus are not exotic products. Both take a globally diversified basket of equities and bonds and run it for you. The difference is in the plumbing: StashAway's portfolios are built from ETFs (exchange-traded funds you could buy yourself), while Endowus's core portfolios hold unit trusts — mutual funds bought at end-of-day prices with the same kind of underlying exposure. Both platforms also layer their own wrapper on top.
If your goal is broad, low-cost, long-term exposure, the real question is never "StashAway or Endowus or DIY?" — it is "what does the wrapper cost, and what do I get for it?"
What a Robo Actually Charges
Robo fees come in two layers: the platform fee and the underlying fund costs (ETF or unit-trust expense ratios, which vary by portfolio). StashAway's platform fee is tiered by balance, from 0.8% on the first S$25,000 down to 0.2% above S$1 million, before GST. Endowus's current pricing varies by account and portfolio: cash advised portfolios are 0.60% below S$200,000, then 0.50%, 0.35% and 0.25% at higher tiers; CPF/SRS multi-fund portfolios are 0.40% and single-fund portfolios 0.30%, before GST. Check the provider's current schedule.
So a S$50,000 cash portfolio can land around 0.75–0.90% all-in in an early tier, depending on the platform, underlying funds and GST. That is an illustration, not a universal quote.
The DIY Alternative
The same exposure through a fee-focused broker (the profile this site wrote about in the Interactive Brokers piece) costs far less on the platform side: US ETF trades around US$0.005 a share with a US$1 minimum (commission-free on the Lite plan), Singapore shares around 0.08% with a S$2.50 minimum, currency conversion near 0.03%, and no platform or account fee. Your on-going cost is mostly just the ETFs themselves — 0.03% to 0.25% for the core funds on our dashboard.
A disciplined DIY monthly plan can run at ~0.1% all-in. The difference against a robo is roughly 0.7–0.8% a year.
If You Go DIY
The platform decision is simpler than it looks if you lead with costs at scale. For the core funds this site tracks — the LSE-listed UCITS route and US-listed ETFs — Interactive Brokers is still the default: the lowest commissions, direct access to the London market where VWRA and CSPX live, and an FX engine that converts SGD at a few basis points instead of the tenth-to-half-percent spread most app brokers build into the exchange rate. On a S$10,000 conversion, that spread alone can cost more than a year of commissions. (Full 2026 fee sheet in the Interactive Brokers post.)
Three caveats, honestly priced:
- Tiny monthly US buys. Webull (zero US commission and zero platform fee since May 2026) and Moomoo (zero US commission, about US$0.99 platform fee per order) genuinely beat IBKR's per-trade floor at small sizes — but their FX spread is wider on every conversion, and neither offers London-listed UCITS ETFs.
- SGX shares in your own CDP name. IBKR and the app brokers are custodian-only. FSM Global (formerly FSMOne) charges a flat S$8.80 per SGX stock trade and S$3.80 per SGX ETF, with no platform fee on stocks and ETFs — though its unit-trust platform fee returns on cash and SRS funds. POEMS' Cash Plus is also CDP-linked and has traded US stocks and ETFs commission-free since May 2026 — but bills S$15 a quarter whenever you skip a full quarter of trading.
- CPF-OA money. IBKR can't take it and moomoo can't either; Tiger's Cash Boost is the DIY door (FSM Global is CPFIS-approved as well).
Pick by your lane, not by the marketing.
The Real Price of That Difference
Run the numbers on S$50,000, a 7% gross return, zero further contributions, for 30 years:
- DIY at ~0.15% all-in → about S$360,000.
- Robo at ~0.90% all-in → about S$290,000.
Same market, same starting money — and the wrapper has quietly spent roughly S$70,000, about a fifth of the ending balance. Add monthly contributions over a working lifetime and the gap grows. At larger balances the robo tiers narrow the gap, but the direction never changes: fees compound against you exactly as returns compound for you.
What the Fee Actually Buys
Pay it only if it genuinely buys something you need:
- Rebalancing and automation — the portfolio is maintained for you. If doing that yourself reliably keeps you invested, the fee buys little; if it doesn't, it is cheap insurance.
- CPF and SRS access — Endowus (among others) wraps CPF and SRS money in diversified portfolios, which is materially harder to do DIY. This is the strongest reason to use a robo at all.
- Behavior — the average investor under-performs a plain index by around 1% a year, usually by selling and buying at the wrong moments. Paying 0.8% to a machine that never panics can be cheaper than paying your own worst instincts.
What it does not buy you is a better market. The underlying exposure is the same asset class, re-labelled and re-wrapped.
A Pragmatic Split
You do not have to choose one way. A common, sensible arrangement: run cash investments DIY in low-cost ETFs at a fee-focused broker, and use a robo for SRS and CPF money, where the wrapper does heavy lifting. As balances cross S$100,000-plus, the tiered robo fees shrink and the case for moving more to DIY strengthens.
The Takeaway
A robo fee near 0.8% a year is one of the few costs you can eliminate entirely with fifteen minutes of habit — or the best money you ever spend, if it is what keeps you invested. Decide based on which of those statements describes you, not on which app is shinier. Fee schedules change and lives differ — check current pricing and your own situation before moving a dollar.
Fee schedules cited as of 2026; always verify current pricing before acting.