Now You Can Buy Load Funds Commission-Free
Pay a modest annual fee and open up a whole new world of choices.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Delivered daily
Kiplinger Today
Profit and prosper with the best of Kiplinger's advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and much more delivered daily. Smart money moves start here.
Sent five days a week
Kiplinger A Step Ahead
Get practical help to make better financial decisions in your everyday life, from spending to savings on top deals.
Delivered daily
Kiplinger Closing Bell
Get today's biggest financial and investing headlines delivered to your inbox every day the U.S. stock market is open.
Sent twice a week
Kiplinger Adviser Intel
Financial pros across the country share best practices and fresh tactics to preserve and grow your wealth.
Delivered weekly
Kiplinger Tax Tips
Trim your federal and state tax bills with practical tax-planning and tax-cutting strategies.
Sent twice a week
Kiplinger Retirement Tips
Your twice-a-week guide to planning and enjoying a financially secure and richly rewarding retirement
Sent bimonthly.
Kiplinger Adviser Angle
Insights for advisers, wealth managers and other financial professionals.
Sent twice a week
Kiplinger Investing Weekly
Your twice-a-week roundup of promising stocks, funds, companies and industries you should consider, ones you should avoid, and why.
Sent weekly for six weeks
Kiplinger Invest for Retirement
Your step-by-step six-part series on how to invest for retirement, from devising a successful strategy to exactly which investments to choose.
Score one for investors.
If you ever thought about investing in a terrific fund but didn't because it levies a fat sales charge, you will welcome a new Web-based service at Investforless.com. InvestForLess allows investors to buy load funds without paying a commission and, in some cases, to invest modest amounts in low-cost share classes that often require initial minimums of $100,000 or more.
The site takes its inspiration from the Costco business model. In exchange for an annual membership fee of $250, InvestForLess lets customers purchase load-free "adviser" and "institutional" share classes of funds available on its platform. This is possible because InvestForLess, although it looks and smells like a broker, is structured as a registered investment adviser, with Scottrade as its custodian. So InvestForLess members have access to the same share classes that other advisers on the Scottrade network can purchase for their clients. Among the load funds available without commission are all 12 featured in Our Favorite Broker-Sold Funds.
From just $107.88 $24.99 for Kiplinger Personal Finance
Become a smarter, better informed investor. Subscribe from just $107.88 $24.99, plus get up to 4 Special Issues
Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free Newsletters
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.
Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.
How you save. Granted, $250 may seem like a mighty sum if you ordinarily buy no-load funds without transaction fees through a discount broker. But the annual fee is dwarfed by the size of a typical sales charge. For example, investing $10,000 in the Class A shares of Amercian Funds' Growth Fund of America (symbol AGTHX) through the service would save you the initial $575 sales fee, more than offsetting the first year's membership. Plus, by getting Growth Fund of America's low-cost F-1 share class (GFAFX) through InvestForLess, you would also save $7 a year in annual fees. Should you decide you don't want to purchase any more funds through the site, you could transfer your fund shares to your ordinary brokerage account and avoid the $250-per-year fee.
The service's other plus is that it gives members access to share classes with prohibitively high minimums. Under InvestForLess's arrangement with Scottrade, the site can drop the initial minimum for many funds to $100 once its members' total assets in a given share class meet the minimum investment for that class (not all fund families permit this kind of aggregation, but InvestForLess will make use of the option for all funds that do).
If the thought of entrusting your money to a new advisory firm gives you the willies, you can take comfort in InvestForLess's relationship with Scottrade. As custodian, Scottrade has actual possession of client assets and sends out members' monthly account statements (convicted swindler Bernard Madoff, by contrast, had no custodian and sent out investors' statements directly from his own office). InvestForLess is negotiating to bring Fidelity on board as a second custodian. If that happens, clients will get to choose which of the two brokers they want to hold their assets.
Why hasn't anyone come up with such a business model before? "Any registered adviser could have done this in the past," says Kevin Knull, chief executive of InvestForLess, based in White Stone, Va. Maybe it's because loads, which typically run up to 5.75% for stock funds, are so lucrative for the brokers and advisers who pocket them. If InvestForLess catches on, it could deliver a serious blow to the commission-based compensation model.
-
How to Watch the 2026 Winter Olympics Without OverpayingHere’s how to stream the 2026 Winter Olympics live, including low-cost viewing options, Peacock access and ways to catch your favorite athletes and events from anywhere.
-
Here’s How to Stream the Super Bowl for LessWe'll show you the least expensive ways to stream football's biggest event.
-
The Cost of Leaving Your Money in a Low-Rate AccountWhy parking your cash in low-yield accounts could be costing you, and smarter alternatives that preserve liquidity while boosting returns.
-
Best Banks for High-Net-Worth Clientswealth management These banks welcome customers who keep high balances in deposit and investment accounts, showering them with fee breaks and access to financial-planning services.
-
Stock Market Holidays in 2026: NYSE, NASDAQ and Wall Street HolidaysMarkets When are the stock market holidays? Here, we look at which days the NYSE, Nasdaq and bond markets are off in 2026.
-
Stock Market Trading Hours: What Time Is the Stock Market Open Today?Markets When does the market open? While the stock market has regular hours, trading doesn't necessarily stop when the major exchanges close.
-
Bogleheads Stay the CourseBears and market volatility don’t scare these die-hard Vanguard investors.
-
The Current I-Bond Rate Is Mildly Attractive. Here's Why.Investing for Income The current I-bond rate is active until April 2026 and presents an attractive value, if not as attractive as in the recent past.
-
What Are I-Bonds? Inflation Made Them Popular. What Now?savings bonds Inflation has made Series I savings bonds, known as I-bonds, enormously popular with risk-averse investors. How do they work?
-
This New Sustainable ETF’s Pitch? Give Back Profits.investing Newday’s ETF partners with UNICEF and other groups.
-
As the Market Falls, New Retirees Need a Planretirement If you’re in the early stages of your retirement, you’re likely in a rough spot watching your portfolio shrink. We have some strategies to make the best of things.
