Best Places to Open A SEP IRA

SEP IRAs are a great retirement saving tool for the self-employed.  These retirement accounts can allow you to save up to $61,000 a year and not pay any taxes.

These accounts allow self-employed individuals to run up the score on their retirement savings and run down the cost of taxes.

Many self-employed individuals face the problem of deciding the Best SEP IRA provider for their needs.  As a result, many choose banks and other high-priced options because they are entrepreneurs, not investment experts.

Best Places to Open a SEP IRA Account

So the tricky part of this is that different people have different needs. 

So there is no one best place to open a SEP IRA, but what I am going to do is break these down into categories and give you all the options I can to make this choice as easy as possible.

Betterment (Best SEP IRA for Hands-Off Investors)

Betterment works like traditional brokerage accounts, except they do all the trading for you.

All you have to do is answer a few questions that determine how much risk you want to take and your retirement goals, and the algorithm does the rest.

Betterment has become the leading robo-advisor for SEP IRAs and has excellent options for anyone looking for hands-off retirement investing.  Betterment is such an interesting company; I did a review of Betterment’s services.

Features of Betterment:

• Easy to Use Interface
• Built-in reinvestment of dividends
• Built-in portfolio rebalancing
• Low fees for all transactions
• Low starting balance of $250

Fundrise (Best for Real Estate Investing)

Fundrise allows you to invest in real estate without physically owning or maintaining the properties.

Investing is done through their eREITs (real estate investment trusts). This means you deposit the money into your account, and they invest in larger real estate investments.

This is a great diversification away from stocks and into the real estate market; without managing the property you own investing with Fundrise makes this very easy.

Ally Invest (Best Traditional Brokerage)

SavingFreak.com is a website dedicated to helping people find the best deal on anything.

With that in Mind Ally Invest is a traditional style brokerage account with very low cost trading at only $4.95 a trade.

Features of Ally:

• Zero account set up fees
• Zero account maintenance fees if you have no activity on the account for 12 months AND have a balance of less than $2500.
• Zero minimum deposit to open an account, but you get better perks if you put in $500 and even better if you start with $5,000.
• Commissions of $4.95 for trades on stocks or ETFs and no more than $9.95 for trades on mutual funds.

Prosper (Top SEP IRA Provider for Peer to Peer Lending)

Peer to Peer lending has become a huge industry and allows regular investors to invest in the loans to other individuals.  Prosper has become the industry leader and has issued over $18 billion in loans.

What you get to do with a SEP from Prosper is invest in these loans and get paid back interest from the borrower.

You can choose your risk tolerance based off the credit rating of the individual and Prosper gives you a ton of information on how loans are doing and what you can expect to earn.

You do need to be aware that if you start with less than a $5,000 investment there is a setup fee of $100.  Also, if you have less than $10,000 in your SEP IRA account then you will be charged $100 annually for maintenance of the account.

The fees are because this is a self-directed account that is set up through another company.  A $100 maintenance fee for a small account is pretty common in self-directed investment accounts.

Features of Prosper:

• Easy to use interface
• Automatic reinvestment available
• Easy to understand risk assessment

M1 Finance (Top SEP IRA Provider for ETF Investing)

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a way to invest in mutual and index funds without having the high cost of entry that most fund brokers require.

For example, many mutual and index fund will require a minimum investment of $3,000 to buy into the fund.

ETFs invest in the same funds but allow you to by just a small piece just like you buy a small piece of a company when you buy a stock.

So you can buy into a bunch of different funds, that buy into a bunch of different companies and really spread out your risk.

M1 Finance is the leader in ETFs because they offer over 2000 trading fee free ETFs.  That’s right, you buy in and pay nothing for it.  This makes them an easy choice for anyone looking to get into the ETF game.

Features of M1 Finance:

• Fractional Shares
• Good customer service
• Great mobile app

Zacks Trade (SEP IRA with the Best Trading Tools)

If you are a more experienced investor then you are going to want the best trading tools possible.

Zacks Trade makes one of the best claims to that mantle and frequently gets mentioned as the top trading platform for experienced investors.

What is also nice about this brokerage is that they directly compete with Ally Invest for low fees.  So if you are into the tools this really is a great option for your SEP account.

Features of Zacks Trade:

• Easy to use platform
• Great commission schedule
• Top of the line for options trading
• Great for active traders

SEP IRA Strategy

If you have significant income and are looking to put several thousand dollars a year into a SEP then I would shy away from using just one of the above investment options.  What is nice about SEP accounts is that you can have more than one.

The only limits you have are on how much money you can put into your SEP account(s), not on how many accounts you have.  So whether you have one SEP IRA or four you can only put 25% of your income or $61,000, whichever one is smaller.

So instead of putting all my investments in one SEP account I would open three.  I would do one account with Betterment to take advantage of their robo-advisor platform and have a set and forget strategy.

A second account with LendingClub.  This gives me investments that are not dependent on stock investments and should be more stable, even if they produce slightly less interest over some periods of time.

Finally I would open a brokerage account for active trading.  If you want to invest in individual stocks I would choose Ally Invest.

I like their interface and they have really done a great job.  If you want to go the ETF route, the TD Ameritrade is your best option.

Who Qualifies for a SEP IRA

Any employer is able to establish a SEP IRA.  This means if you are a sole proprietor, nonprofit, partnership, any type of employer. 

So if you have 1099 income you can get your SEP on, but it probably isn’t worth your while until you get your business income above 22,000 a year. 

That is the point where you would max out your Roth IRA and could then Contribute to both a Roth and a SEP.

Final Thoughts on Finding the Best SEP IRA

SEP IRA accounts are a big benefit to small business owners.  They allow people who spent the early part of their business scraping by personally and reinvesting their money into the business to catch up quickly with those who have been saving a little each month in more traditional types of retirement accounts.

If you have the option to go the SEP IRA route with your business, then it is something I highly recommend you explore.

If you have multiple employees that are not family members, then it may not be your best option. 

However, for anyone running a one man show or small family only business it can be the best investment option for your needs.