M1 Plus Review

Who is M1 Plus for?

The M1 Plus membership is offered alongside the M1 Finance investing platform. M1 Plus is the higher tier of the two M1 Spend tiers, offering a higher APY and cash back, and a lower borrowing rate, than the basic M1 Spend tier.

If you’re already holding an account on M1 Finance’s investing platform and invest heavily and regularly, the M1 Plus membership might be worth considering upgrading to as it offers tons of investing perks that the average investor on M1 Finance will not have access to.

With M1 Plus, you will receive a debit card and checking account directly linked to your M1 Finance investing account. This allows for directing the spending of the profits you earn from the investing platform using the card.

Ultimately, M1 Plus will only be beneficial to those who have built up a significant portfolio in M1 Finance and are looking for an increase in mobility in how they spend their funds. If you’re willing to pay a high annual fee to access this membership tier’s investing perks, then M1 Plus is entirely worth it. If not, the free Basic tier will suffice.

Cash Back

One of the main differentiators between the M1 Basic account and Plus account is the cash back percentage. With the basic tier, you will receive no cash back at all. However, with the Plus tier, you will receive 1% cash back on all transactions when purchasing with the debit card. Any cash back at all is quite rare in the debit card world. If you’re looking to actively spend your M1 Finance funds, then this cash back can be useful to you. Most people, however, are not looking to actively spend their investing profits.

Other Benefits

For most investors, the M1 Plus account will be most useful when you use the investing benefits that come alongside it. For starters, M1 Plus account holders will be able to participate in both a morning and afternoon trading window. Basic account holders are just limited to the morning window. It's important to note that you will only be able to participate in both trading windows when your investment portfolio on M1 Finance exceeds $25,000 in value, in order to comply with trading regulations.

In addition, M1 Plus account owners will also be able to participate in M1 Borrow with a discounted rate. M1 Borrow is M1 Finance’s loan platform that offers loans with low rates to investors on M1 Finance. You can borrow up to 35% of your portfolio value when using M1 Borrow. Whereas Basic tier investors will receive a rate of 3.5% on their loan, M1 Plus investors will be able to borrow at an extremely low rate of 2%. It’s also important to note that you must have $10,000 in your portfolio before you can borrow a loan.

Other benefits of M1 Plus include no foreign transaction fees on the debit card, an increased ACH limit from $10,000 to $50,000, and ATM fees covered four times a month instead of just one time a month.

APY

One of the last major benefits of M1 Plus over M1 Basic is the checking APY. M1 Plus investors will receive a 1% APY rate as opposed to 0% for M1 Basic. Although 1% may not seem too high, it is still significantly higher than the rate you would receive at any of the major banks.

Annual Fee

All of these investing and banking benefits, unfortunately, come at a cost of $125. For some investors on M1 Finance, $125 a year is entirely worth it. For other casual investors, it does not make much sense to upgrade to M1 Plus. In the end, it’s up to you. If you have a large investment portfolio and think the investing and banking benefits are worth upgrading for, M1 Plus can be a great choice to help you invest even smarter.

Conclusion

The value of M1 Plus over M1 basic lies entirely in the investing perks. The banking perks can be found at loads of other banks and are not special enough to worth paying $125 for. If you have at least $25,000 in M1 Finance’s investing platform, then investing perks are definitely worth paying just $125 for.