An advisory fee and a fund expense ratio are different charges

This guide separates an advisory fee from a fund expense ratio. It uses three published schedules: Fidelity Go, Vanguard Digital Advisor, and Schwab Intelligent Portfolios. It is for someone who is about to treat those costs as if they were the same kind of number.

An advisory fee is charged by the firm that manages the account. A fund expense ratio is charged inside the ETF or mutual fund the account holds. You can pay one, the other, or both. A program that advertises no advisory fee can still hold funds that have expense ratios. A program that states a 0.35% advisory fee still has those fund expenses on top.

Three schedules, three units

Fidelity Go’s Form ADV brochure dated March 30, 2026 lists no advisory fee when average daily assets are under $25,000, and 0.35% a year when they are $25,000 or more. The 0.35% applies to the whole balance, not only the portion above $25,000. The fee is computed from month-end average daily assets, summed across the quarter, and deducted after the quarter. The product page says trading, transaction, and rebalancing fees are not charged. Fund expense ratios are not waived by that sentence.

Vanguard Digital Advisor publishes a gross advisory fee of 0.20% a year for all-index brokerage portfolios and 0.25% for an active/index mix. Vanguard credits certain revenue it retains from the portfolio and describes the resulting net advisory fee as approximately 0.15% for a typical all-index portfolio, about $15 a year per $10,000. The brochure notes a band near 0.15% to 0.16% and says the actual net fee depends on the holdings. Expense ratios are extra. Third-party manager fees inside a fund are not credited, because they are not Vanguard’s revenue. There is no advisory fee for about the first 90 days. Enrollment of a brokerage account requires at least $100.

Schwab Intelligent Portfolios’ public page says “Pay no advisory fee and no commissions.” The program brochure says the cash allocation generally ranges from 6% to 30% of the account and is swept to FDIC-insured deposits at Charles Schwab Bank. Schwab earns on that cash, and the brochure describes the drag when other holdings outperform cash. ETF expense ratios, including those of Schwab ETFs, still apply. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium is a separate offer with its own planning fee and monthly fee. It is not the program in that “no advisory fee” line.

One balance, three advisory answers

Use $80,000 only as arithmetic, so the units are visible. It is not a projected balance from any of the three firms.

At Fidelity Go, $80,000 is above $25,000, so the brochure rate is 0.35% of the whole balance. That is $280 a year before fund expenses. The account is not partly on the $0 tier.

At Vanguard, the all-index gross fee of 0.20% is $160. The active/index gross fee of 0.25% is $200. The approximate net fee of 0.15% is $120. The net figure is the one Vanguard describes as typical after the revenue credit, and it still excludes fund expenses. During the first 90 days the advisory fee is waived, so a full-year multiplication overstates the first calendar year.

At Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, the advisory fee on $80,000 is $0. That matches the sentence on Schwab’s page. It does not mean the account is empty of cost. If the cash allocation were at the bottom of the published range, 6% of $80,000 is $4,800 in bank deposits. At the top of the range, 30% is $24,000. The brochure says the share depends on the risk profile. This guide does not assign a profile. The expense ratios of the ETFs sit on top of that cash sleeve and are not in the $0.

How an expense ratio comes out of the same account

Suppose, only as an illustration, that the funds in an account had a blended expense ratio of 0.05%. On $80,000 that is $40 a year, taken inside the funds. Add it to Fidelity’s $280 advisory fee and the combined figure is $320, of which $280 was the advisory fee and $40 was the funds. Add it to Vanguard’s approximate $120 net advisory fee and the combined figure is $160, with the same warning that 0.05% was not read off a particular Vanguard portfolio. Add it to Schwab’s $0 advisory fee and the fund layer is the $40, while the cash allocation is still a separate economic effect that this $40 does not measure.

The 0.05% was chosen because it is easy to multiply. It is not a claim about the funds those programs hold today. A reader who wants the real blended ratio has to open the fact sheets for the actual holdings. The point of the illustration is the addition, not the 0.05.

What not to do with the three numbers

Do not average $280, $120, and $0 and call the result a typical robo fee. The inputs are different products with different published conditions. Do not drop the $25,000 step and describe Fidelity Go as “0.35%” for every balance. Do not describe Schwab as free. Do not describe Vanguard’s cost as 0.20% if the sentence is about the net fee, or as 0.15% if the sentence is about the gross fee. Do not treat a 90-day waiver as a permanent price.

Mintcanopy links each of these schedules to its own review. The guide stops at the distinction: advisory fee, fund expense ratio, and, at Schwab, a disclosed cash allocation. A later page that quotes only one of those will be leaving out a cost the firm itself prints.

How cash sits inside an automated portfolio

This guide is about the cash that an automated portfolio can hold on purpose. It is for someone reading Schwab Intelligent Portfolios’ line “Pay no advisory fee and no commissions” and needing the other published fact that sits beside it: a cash allocation.

Schwab’s program brochure says the cash allocation will generally range from 6% to 30% of account value. The public page captured for the review shows the start of that idea in plainer language. Under “What else you should know,” the page says Schwab believes cash is a key component of an investment portfolio and that, based on the risk profile, a portion of the portfolio is placed in an FDIC-insured deposit at Charles Schwab Bank. The screenshot is that page. The 6% and 30% bounds are the brochure’s, not numbers read off a chart we drew.

What the range does to an $80,000 example

Use $80,000 only as multiplication. It is not a Schwab forecast and it is not the family in the marketing photo. Six percent of $80,000 is $4,800. Thirty percent of $80,000 is $24,000. The brochure says a given account’s cash share depends on the risk profile and generally lands somewhere in that span. This guide does not assign a profile, so it does not call $4,800 or $24,000 the typical amount. Both ends are what the published range allows.

That cash is swept to bank deposits. FDIC insurance applies up to the usual limits and does not cover a decline in the ETFs held alongside the cash. Schwab earns revenue on the deposits. The brochure describes the conflict in plain terms: when the other investments outperform cash, the cash allocation reduces the account’s performance compared with a portfolio that did not hold that cash. The “no advisory fee” sentence remains true and incomplete. The missing piece is this sleeve.

Where the other programs put the cost instead

Fidelity Go’s March 30, 2026 brochure does not use a 6% to 30% cash range as its headline price. It uses an advisory fee: none under $25,000 of average daily assets, and 0.35% a year on the entire balance at $25,000 and above. On an $80,000 Fidelity Go balance the advisory fee is $280 a year before fund expenses. That $280 is a different object from Schwab’s $0 advisory fee. It is also a different object from $24,000 sitting in deposits. A person comparing them has to say which one is an annual charge and which one is a slice of the account.

Vanguard Digital Advisor publishes a gross advisory fee of 0.20% for all-index brokerage portfolios and 0.25% for an active/index mix, then a net fee after a revenue credit, described as approximately 0.15% in a typical all-index case. Vanguard also says money-market or settlement-fund cash is excluded from the gross-fee calculation. That is a billing detail about which dollars are in the fee base. It is not the same disclosure as Schwab’s decision to allocate 6% to 30% to cash as part of the portfolio design.

What this guide will not turn the cash into

The cash yield is not stated here, because the captured Schwab page does not print a current APY in the lines quoted above, and a rate changes. FDIC insurance is not a return. A zero advisory fee is not a zero expense ratio on the ETFs. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium, with a separate planning fee and a monthly fee, is not this program. Mintcanopy is not scoring the cash allocation. Some investors want a buffer in deposits. Some do not want a third of the account out of the market. The brochure gives them the range. The page gives them the sentence that the deposits exist and that a bank at Schwab holds them.

A reader who wants the current range should open the brochure and the Intelligent Portfolios page together. If the homepage drops the cash sentence and the brochure keeps the 6% to 30% language, the brochure is the fuller disclosure. If both change, this guide’s arithmetic on $80,000 stops applying and has to be redone with the new bounds. The method does not change: read the percent, multiply by the balance you actually have, and keep the advisory fee, which is $0 on this program, in a separate sentence from the cash.

A check a reader can repeat

1. Open the Schwab Intelligent Portfolios page and find the sentence “Pay no advisory fee and no commissions.” Write it down as the advisory-fee fact. Do not add the word free.

2. On the same page, find the paragraph that says a portion of the portfolio is placed in an FDIC-insured deposit at Charles Schwab Bank. That sentence is the cash fact in the screenshot. The photograph of the family is not part of the calculation.

3. Open the program brochure and copy the range the cash allocation generally takes. The figure used in this guide is 6% to 30% of account value. If the brochure now prints a different range, use the brochure and drop these percents.

4. Multiply the low end by the balance you actually have. For an $80,000 illustration, 6% is $4,800. That illustration is not your account and not a Schwab projection.

5. Multiply the high end the same way. Thirty percent of $80,000 is $24,000. Do not pick the midpoint and call it typical. The brochure ties the point inside the range to the risk profile, which this guide does not know.

6. Keep fund expense ratios in a third sentence. They apply to the ETFs, including Schwab ETFs, and they are not cancelled by the zero advisory fee. Do not invent a blended ratio if you have not opened the fact sheets.

7. If someone quotes a $300 planning fee and $30 a month, stop and check whether they are describing Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium. That is a different offer from the program in the screenshot.

8. Compare Fidelity Go only after you have said Fidelity’s unit: $0 under $25,000 and 0.35% of the whole balance above that, from the March 30, 2026 brochure. An $80,000 Fidelity Go advisory fee of $280 is not a cash balance. It is an annual charge before fund expenses.

9. Compare Vanguard Digital Advisor with its own unit: a gross fee of 0.20% or 0.25%, then a net fee near 0.15% after a revenue credit, plus a statement that settlement-fund cash is outside the fee base. That is not a 6% to 30% portfolio sleeve.

10. Re-read the brochure before you enroll. A homepage can be edited. The range, the bank sweep, and the sentence about performance when other assets beat cash are the parts that keep the zero advisory fee from being misread.