Is AutoWealth more cost-effective than a DIY approach with Interactive Brokers when dealing with more than USD100,000?

Interactive Brokers is pretty hard to beat when it comes to large amounts - they will not charge you any monthly minimum commission as long as you hold 100,000 USD or more in assets with them.

Autowealth charges a 0.5% + $18 fee which is rather attractive. A cursory look at a few reviews and blogposts tell me a few things:

• The seem to offer a fairly decent exchange rate

• They invest in US-domiciled ETFs (30% WHT!)

• It does not appear that they factor in the costs of the ETFs (expense ratio)

I think investing into US-domiciled rather than Irish-domiciled ETFs is one of their biggest downsides, mainly because of the higher withholding tax rate of 30% (vs 15% for Irish-domiciled) and estate tax liability. They also seem to exclude ETF fees from the calculation of their fee so the overall costs are probably higher as well.

Personally, in this situation, I would rather invest into an Irish-domiciled, globally diversified ETF like VWRA/VWRD.