M1 Finance $30 Referral Bonus – Step-By-Step Guide

M1 Finance is a free investing app that I highly recommend. It’s my current favorite investing app and one that is great for anyone looking to start investing and that wants to make sure they’re doing it correctly. M1 Finance is also currently offering a $30 referral bonus if you sign up using a referral link. To earn your M1 Finance referral bonus, you have to do the following: 

1. Open an M1 Finance account using a referral link (here is my referral link). You can open either a taxable brokerage account or a retirement account such as an IRA or Roth IRA. The requirements are slightly different depending on whether you open a taxable account or a retirement account. I recommend opening a taxable account if you are only trying to earn the bonus.
2. If opening a taxable account, fund your account with $100. If opening a retirement account, fund your account with $500. 
3. Leave the $100 or $500 in your account for 30 days. M1 Finance will then give you $30 after you meet this 30-day requirement. Note that you’ll need to open a taxable account in order to get the $30 bonus (M1 Finance can’t put money into your retirement accounts).

In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly what you need to do to earn your M1 Finance referral bonus and give you my thoughts as to why I think M1 Finance is an investing platform that’s worth using.  

One important thing to know is that you do not have to invest the funds that you deposit into your M1 Finance account to be eligible for the referral bonus. Accordingly, if you only want to get the bonus and don’t actually want to use M1 Finance, your best bet is to open a taxable account, fund it with $100, and then leave it in your account in cash for 30 days. We’ll talk about this more later in this post.

What Is M1 Finance? 

M1 Finance is an investing app that offers taxable investment accounts, as well as tax-advantaged retirement accounts in the form of IRAs, Roth IRAs, and SEP IRAs. The app is what you could call a roboadvisor. Rather than manually choosing each individual investment, M1 Finance instead uses a pie-based interface. When you invest, you select your pie and M1 Finance will automatically distribute your contributions in the percentages you’ve set up in your pies. 

There are two ways to create a pie. You can either create your own custom pie or you can use M1 Finance’s expert pies. I generally recommend using M1 Finance’s expert pies if you aren’t exactly sure what you’re doing or if you aren’t comfortable creating your own pie. Even if you create your own pie, remember that when it comes to investing, simpler is often better. 

M1 Finance has a lot of expert pies. For example, under general investing, you can pick your investment pie based on how aggressive or conservative you want to be. Each pie consists of low-cost Vanguard index fund ETFs, which are empirically one of the best ways to invest.

I like to keep things simple when I invest, so my pie consists of a single investment, the Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI). This is a highly diversified index ETF that invests in every publicly traded company in the United States. Since I’m young and still have a long investing horizon, it’s fine for me to invest in this single ETF.   

What makes M1 Finance unique among roboadvisors is that they charge no management fees of any kind. Other roboadvisors such as Betterment or Wealthfront typically charge a management fee of 0.25%. This makes M1 Finance one of the only free roboadvisors currently on the market.

M1 Finance Referral Bonus Step-By-Step Directions 

M1 Finance is an excellent option if you’re looking to invest in either a taxable account or a tax-advantaged retirement account. I invest directly with Vanguard when it comes to my Roth IRA, but I use M1 Finance as a taxable account that I contribute to every month. 

Even if you have no interest in investing using M1 Finance, it can still be worth opening an M1 Finance account simply to collect the referral bonus. Importantly, M1 Finance has no fees, so you can easily open an account, earn your bonus, then take your money out. In addition, earning the M1 Finance referral bonus does not require you to actually invest your money once you contribute to your account. If you want, you can simply opt not to create an investment pie and leave your money as cash. 

That said, here are the step-by-step directions you can follow to earn your M1 Finance referral bonus: 

1. Open An M1 Finance Account Using A Referral Link. To earn your $30 M1 Finance Referral bonus, first open an M1 Finance account using a referral link. Here is my M1 Finance referral link. I recommend opening the Individual Investing account, as shown below.

2. Fund Your Account With $100 Or More. Next, deposit $100 or more into your new M1 Finance account. Remember that you do not have to actually invest the money you put into the account. You can simply opt not to create a pie. Your money will then sit as cash in your account, which you can then withdraw later without any issues.

3. Leave $100 In Your M1 Finance Account For 30 Days. The referral bonus terms require you to leave at least $100 in your M1 Finance account for 30 days. I recommend setting a calendar reminder 30 days into the future so you remember to check your account.

4. Your Bonus Should Post After The 30-Day Mark. If you left $100 or more in your M1 Finance account, your bonus will post after 30 days. The bonus should post immediately once you’ve hit the 30-day mark.

Refer Your Friends For Additional Bonuses 

M1 Finance also allows you to refer your friends and family members. which means you can earn more money by referring people that you know. You can find your referral link in the settings section of the app.

The referral bonus is normally $10, but occasionally, M1 Finance increases the referral bonus to higher amounts. There’s no way to predict when the referral bonus will increase and from what I’ve seen, it has only increased a handful of times in the past few years. When you see an increased bonus for M1 Finance, you should definitely sign up.

If you want to earn additional referral bonuses, consider sending your friends and family your M1 Finance link and walk them through the process. You can even copy and paste the directions in this post if you’d like.

Final Thoughts 

M1 Finance is an excellent investing app that I personally use. It’s especially good for beginning investors who want to make sure that their investments are properly diversified and that they have an appropriate asset allocation.

What makes M1 Finance particularly good is its fees. They charge no management fees and all of their investment options are low-cost, index ETFs from Vanguard. There’s really no downside to M1 Finance.

The fact that you can earn a referral bonus for opening an M1 Finance account is the cherry on the top that makes M1 Finance, in my opinion, the best roboadvisor and best investing app out there.