Many wealth management tools are built with the assumption that customers will want to “set it and forget it” until retirement. Not Wealthfront. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company encourages its customers to experiment with life scenarios (retiring early, paying for college, buying a home) on an ongoing basis using its interactive online tools. The trade-off is that Wealthfront customers don’t have access to human financial advisors--but they don’t seem to mind. As of January 2018, the company had attracted $9.5 billion in assets under management, putting it in the same league as rival Betterment.
