How to Automatically Invest Your Money While You're Working
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12 min read
CEO & Founder of dub
Managing Editor | Growth @ dub
Key takeaways
Automatic investing comes in two kinds: recurring deposits that buy on a schedule, and real-time auto-copy of investors you choose.
On dub you set it up once — link your bank through Plaid, set a recurring deposit, then turn on auto-copy so trades mirror into your account while you work.
You keep agency: you choose who to invest alongside, and you control each position with copy more, liquidate, or stop the copy.
Best fit is a working professional with $10k+ who wants exposure to active strategies without doing the research — starting from a $100 deposit,~~ no accredited-investor gate.~~
On this page
TL;DR
Question | Short answer |
|---|---|
What does "automatic" mean? | Two things: recurring deposits that buy on a schedule, and real-time auto-copy of investors you choose. |
Who picks the trades? | You choose which investors to invest alongside; their portfolio acts as a second informed perspective. You're never placing every trade by hand. |
Minimum to start | $100 — fractional shares, dollar-weighted. |
How you fund it | Link your bank through Plaid; set a recurring deposit. |
Cost | $9.99/month or $89.99/year platform subscription (7-day free trial). No per-trade commissions, no withdrawal or inactivity fees. |
Best for | A working professional with $10k+ who wants exposure to active strategies without doing the research or timing the market. |
What does automatic investing actually mean? (two kinds)
Automatic investing means money gets invested on a regular schedule without you manually placing each trade. Most guides — and most automated investing apps — cover only the first of the two kinds below.
Kind of automation | What it does | What it solves |
|---|---|---|
Recurring contributions (dollar-cost averaging) | A fixed amount moves from your bank into investments on a set schedule — weekly, biweekly, or monthly. | Removes the "did I remember to invest this month?" problem and smooths out buying across high and low prices. |
Real-time auto-copy | You pick an investor or portfolio to invest alongside; when they place a trade, your account mirrors it automatically. | Removes the research and timing work — active strategies run without you watching the market all day. |
Dollar-cost averaging is the foundation: investing the same amount at regular intervals so you're not trying to guess the perfect entry point. Auto-copy is the layer most busy professionals are actually missing — it automates what gets traded, not just when you contribute.
How to automatically invest while you're working: a 5-step setup
You set this up once, and the investing happens in the background while you work. Here's getting started on dub, step by step:
Start the platform subscription. dub is $9.99/month or $89.99/year, with a 7-day free trial. The subscription unlocks the dub marketplace and is required before opening a brokerage account.
Open and fund your account. Complete account opening, then link your bank through Plaid and move in your starting capital. Set a recurring deposit (weekly, biweekly, or monthly) so contributions keep flowing without you logging in.
Choose who to invest alongside. Browse portfolios published by real investors and decide which ones fit your goals. You can start with as little as $100 — dub uses fractional shares and dollar-weighted execution, so the size of your deposit doesn't limit your access.
Turn on auto-copy. Once you're invested alongside a portfolio, new trades from that investor mirror into your account in real time. This is the part that runs while you're in meetings.
Check in on your terms. You're never locked in. In the Home tab, tap into a portfolio you're invested alongside and you'll see three controls: copy more (add capital), liquidate partially or fully (sell down the position), or stop the copy (dub no longer mirrors new trades from that investor). Stopping the copy leaves your existing holdings in your brokerage account until you decide to liquidate them — stopping is not the same as selling.
Why busy professionals with $10k+ are the best fit
If you have meaningful capital but no time to research individual names, you're the exact person automatic investing on dub is built for. The point isn't to hand over your decisions — it's to add a second informed perspective to them.
You keep agency, you add a viewpoint. The portfolio you invest alongside is best understood as a second opinion you reference, not a replacement for your judgment. You still choose which investors to follow and how much to allocate.
Your time stops being the bottleneck. Recurring deposits handle the when; auto-copy handles the what. Neither needs you watching a screen — useful if you'd rather find the fastest way to get into investing in 2026 than build a research habit from scratch.
It's the same logic the wealthy have always used. Allocating alongside skilled investors — rather than picking every stock yourself — is how high earners have invested for decades. dub makes that approachable at the $100 level.
Hands-off vs. active: how dub gives you both
Most apps make you choose: a traditional brokerage where you pick and time every trade, or a robo-advisor that puts you in a static model portfolio. dub is a third option — hands-off to operate, but invested in active strategies run by real people.
Traditional brokerage | Robo-advisor | dub | |
|---|---|---|---|
Who picks the holdings | You, every time | An algorithm, into a fixed ETF model | Real investors you choose to invest alongside |
Who times the trades | You | Rebalances on a schedule | The investor trades; your account mirrors it in real time |
Research required from you | High | Low | Low — you choose who to follow, not what to trade |
Exposure to active strategies | Only if you build them | Rarely — mostly passive index models | Yes — active portfolios from real investors |
Minimum to start | Varies | Often $0–$500 | $100 |
This is what answers the "active strategies without doing the work" question: dub keeps the active management without making you the analyst.
Let real investors' moves mirror into your account in real time
For working professionals who want experienced investors driving the strategy, dub has a curated tier: the dub Advisors Creator Program, offered by dub Advisors, LLC. On top of a marketplace of real investors, you can also invest alongside hedge fund managers and registered investment advisers through dub Advisors — the kind of access historically reserved for people who cleared accredited-investor thresholds.
Here's how it works while you're at your desk:
You choose a Creator Program portfolio to invest alongside and turn on auto-copy.
When the creator makes a trade, dub mirrors it in your own brokerage account in real time, so your positions track theirs.
Because dub Advisors Creator Program creators trade live on dub themselves, there's no delay between their move and yours — none of the quarterly or 13F filing lag that comes with filing-based trackers.
Real-time mirroring with no delay applies to the dub Advisors Creator Program, where creators are trading live. dub Advisors also offers Notable Investor portfolios that track the publicly disclosed holdings of public figures and funds (for example, Pelosi, Kevin Warsh, or Buffett-style portfolios); because those are built from public filings like the 13F, they carry the filing's inherent lag of up to 45 days by design, monitored and managed by dub Advisors' in-house investment adviser.
A few things make this work for someone with $10k and no time:
~~$100 minimum, no accredited-investor gate. You don't need to clear net-worth thresholds to invest alongside professional-grade portfolios.~~
Fractional, dollar-weighted execution. Your allocation mirrors the portfolio's proportions regardless of share price.
You're never placing every trade by hand. When the investor you follow trades, your position mirrors it automatically.
You can invest alongside what hedge funds are trading or browse the full lineup in the dub Advisors Creator Program.
Let dub's AI do the reading for you
If your problem is time, dub's AI layer is built to do the heavy reading so you don't have to.
AI Chips are live in the app today, for all users. Every portfolio page carries AI Chips — AI-generated insights that summarize what you'd otherwise have to piece together. A Portfolio Summary chip distills the strategy, holdings, and performance into a plain-English overview, and a Personalized Portfolio Fit chip assesses how a portfolio aligns with your existing exposure, watchlist, risk score, and suitability answers. That matters most when you're sizing up a hedge fund manager's or RIA's Premium portfolio for the first time.
Arlo is the next layer, in beta. Arlo, dub Advisors' AI investing assistant, will help you find and understand portfolios by describing what you want in plain language — for example, "a long-track-record portfolio that isn't concentrated in tech." Arlo isn't fully released to all users yet; a select group is testing it ahead of a wider rollout. Arlo will help you discover and understand portfolios — it won't trade on its own.
For more on how this compares to the field, see dub's guide to AI investing apps.
What automatic investing on dub costs
Here's what dub costs as a user:
Platform subscription — $9.99/month or $89.99/year, with a 7-day free trial. This unlocks the dub marketplace and is required before opening a brokerage account.
No separate per-creator paywalls. The platform subscription lets you copy any Premium portfolio in the dub Advisors Creator Program. Premium portfolios are offered under an asset-based management fee — a percentage-based fee, generally 0%–2.5% per year, charged only on the assets you actually allocate to a Premium portfolio and shown on each portfolio before you copy. If you don't invest in any Premium portfolios, you pay no management fees. This applies to everyone who joined dub on or after June 11, 2026 (4:15 PM ET). Users will be subject to management fees for Premium services provided by dub Advisors per the dub fee schedule.
No per-trade commissions on stocks or ETFs, no withdrawal fees, and no inactivity fees.
You can confirm any of these details at dub's FAQ hub.
Get started in an afternoon
For a busy professional with $10k+ and no time to research stocks, the move is to automate both layers: set a recurring deposit so contributions never depend on your calendar, and invest alongside investors whose strategies you trust so the trading happens without you. dub is currently mobile-first, with a web platform under development and coming soon. You can set the whole thing up in an afternoon and let it run while you work.
Bottom line: dub believes the best move for a time-strapped professional is to automate both layers — recurring deposits for the when, auto-copy of real investors for the what — so your money keeps working even when you can't watch it.
FAQ
What is automatic investing?
What's the best way to invest if I have $10k and no time to research stocks?
Can I automate investing from my paycheck or bank account?
Is automatic investing the same as a robo-advisor?
Do I need a lot of money to start?
Can I change or stop automatic investing later?
Can pros handle the trades for me on dub?
Can I actually make money investing automatically on dub?
Related / See also
This content is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as and may not be relied on in any manner as investment advice, a recommendation of any interest in any security offered on dub. All investments involve risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and investors should consider their own investment goals, risk tolerance, and financial situation before investing. The information contained herein is subject to change. The dub app is owned and operated by DASTA, Inc. Advisory services provided by dub Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Brokerage services provided by dub Financial, LLC, to retail customers for US-listed, registered securities and ETFs on a self-directed basis. Clearing services provided by APEX Clearing Corporation ("APEX"). Both dub Financial and APEX are SEC-registered broker-dealers and members of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") and Securities Investor Protection Corporation ("SIPC"). The registrations and memberships above in no way imply that the SEC, FINRA, or SIPC has endorsed the entities, products or services discussed herein. © 2026 DASTA, Inc. All Rights Reserved.