I had a financial advisor charging 1.85% per year.
That number sounds small. It isn't. On a $1M account, that's $18,500 per year. Every year. Forever — adjusting upward as my account grew. The math kept compounding, and not in my favor.
Here's what 1.85% actually means over time:
| Year | Account value (assuming 7% net of fees) | Cumulative paid in fees |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,070,000 | $18,500 |
| 5 | $1,403,000 | $117,000 |
| 10 | $1,967,000 | $295,000 |
| 20 | $3,870,000 | $847,000 |
| 30 | $7,612,000 | $1,937,000 |
By year 30, I would have paid out roughly two million dollars to the same person (or firm) for the same automated decisions. The service didn't get harder when my account got bigger. The fee just did.
The breaking point
Around early 2026 I started actually paying attention to what I was getting for that 1.85%. Two things happened at the same time:
First, I read everything I could find about tax-loss harvesting — the practice of selling losing positions to realize losses that offset gains and lower your tax bill. It's legal, it's well-established, and on a taxable account of my size it could be worth thousands of dollars per year. My advisor wasn't doing it. They were running a 60/40 ETF model that was perfectly fine, but boring, and definitely not earning 1.85%.
Second, I learned about direct indexing. Instead of holding one S&P 500 ETF, you hold the underlying 60–80 stocks that approximate it. The expected return is roughly the same. But now you have 60–80 separate positions that can each be harvested independently. When the market dips and your ETF is down 3%, you get one TLH opportunity. When you hold direct, half your positions might be down 10% even though the index is barely down at all — that's 30+ harvest opportunities, every quarter.
What I found in the market
I started shopping. The options I found were:
- Wealthfront PassivePlus — 0.25% AUM. Direct indexing included. But you have to move your money to Wealthfront, and 0.25% on $1M is still $2,500/year forever.
- Frec — similar shape, 0.09–0.35% depending on strategy.
- Schwab Personalized Indexing — 0.40% on the first $2M, $100K minimum. Same model: percentage of your account, every year.
- Parametric / Aperio — institutional-class direct indexing, but only available through advisors who add their own fee on top. So you're back to paying advisor fees AND a manager fee.
Every option was the same shape: a percentage of my wealth, paid every year, forever. Just smaller percentages. And every option required me to move my money to them — to hand custody to a new firm, sign new agreements, transfer accounts.
The thing that didn't exist
What I actually wanted was simple:
- Keep my money at the brokerage I already use.
- Run direct indexing + tax-loss harvesting on top of it.
- See every trade before it happens.
- Pay a flat monthly fee — software pricing, not asset management pricing.
It didn't exist. So I built it.
What HarvestEngine is
HarvestEngine is the software layer for self-directed investors who want direct indexing on their existing brokerage. You connect via OAuth — your money stays at E*TRADE (or Schwab, or Fidelity, or Interactive Brokers, as we add them). We design a 60–80 stock portfolio that tracks your chosen index. Every day we look for loss-harvest opportunities. You see them, you approve, the broker executes.
It costs $49/month for the core tier. That's $588/year. If your taxable account is $250K or more, you're already saving money versus a 0.25% AUM fee. At $1M, you're saving $1,912/year on the fee alone — before counting the tax-savings you actually capture from harvesting losses, which is the whole point.
The hard line we drew
One thing I want to be clear about, because it's important: HarvestEngine is software. It is not a registered investment advisor. We don't manage your money. We don't take custody of your money. We don't tell you what to buy. The AI assistant explains, simulates, and executes the rules you set. Every meaningful trade is presented for your approval, or runs inside policies you've turned on yourself.
That distinction matters legally, and it also reflects what most self-directed investors actually want. If you wanted someone to manage your money for a percentage, you'd hire Wealthfront. If you want sharper tools running on your own account, that's us.
What you can do today
Try it on a paper portfolio, no broker connection required. We'll design you a portfolio against your chosen index, simulate a year of tax-loss harvesting against historical prices, and show you the tax savings you would have captured. No card. No commitment. If the number is interesting, you can wire it to a real account next.
— Kyle, founder.