Since its inception, Wealthfront has tried to use technology to automate financial services and undercut its competitors.
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Palo Alto, California’s Wealthfront, the 17-year-old robo-advisor that offers digital-only, automated investing portfolios and high-yield cash accounts, announced today that it has started selling mortgages to consumers in Colorado. Now licensed in 19 states, Wealthfront will make mortgages available to residents of California and Texas in the coming weeks, followed by people in 16 other states, which include Connecticut, Michigan and Florida.
CEO David Fortunato says the company began seriously considering offering mortgages as early as 2018, but it didn’t think the technology available then could support a good digital-home-buying experience. Over the years that followed, advancements in areas such as counties digitizing their homeowner records to fintechs electronically verifying people’s income have made the task easier. Companies like Rocket Mortgage have been selling mortgages digitally for years.
One way Wealthfront wants to differentiate is by undercutting competitors. The company says the small number of mortgages it has done so far have been at rates that are 0.55% to 0.70% below the national average. Its website says its mortgages will have interest rates roughly 0.50% lower than the national average for consumers with high FICO credit scores of 780-plus and home purchase prices of at least $750,000. The actual rates consumers get will vary depending on factors like their credit score, location and down payment.
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Wealthfront is following the same strategic playbook that cofounder Andy Rachleff developed when he first launched the company. In 2011, it started out charging (and still charges) just 0.25% of assets for its automated-investing robo-advisor, undercutting both typical financial advisors, whose fees then averaged 1.3%, and even Betterment, which subsequently lowered its prices and now also charges 0.25% of assets for regular stock and bond portfolios. Wealthfront focused sharply on using technology to automate its services and kept expenses low. The approach has helped it develop a profitable business–in a September 30, 2025, regulatory filing, it announced revenue of $339 million and net profits of $123 million for the year ended July 31, 2025.
Another way Wealthfront aims to make its mortgages stand out is by creating the equivalent of the Domino’s pizza-tracker feature for mortgages. Its app will let borrowers see the steps that remain to get their mortgage and what they need to do next, an attempt to improve a process that’s often slow and opaque. Wealthfront plans to fund its loans through lines of credit provided by banks and backing from United Wholesale Mortgage.
After filing its registration statement to go public in late September, Wealthfront’s IPO plans have been slowed down by the recent U.S. government shutdown, since the Securities and Exchange Commission’s work was largely paused until the government re-opened last week. Fortunato declined to comment on the company’s IPO timeline.
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