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The Offer
Targeted offer sent out via e-mail. Subject line is ‘Get Up To $10,000 With SoFi Invest’
- SoFi invest is offering a 3% bonus when you fund your SoFi Invest account up to a maximum of $10,000.
The Fine Print
- To receive the bonus, the Active Invest account must have net deposits (meaning total deposits minus total withdrawals) of $100 to $1,000,000 in the offer period.
- The offer period is between now and May 31, 2020.
- The max bonus payout per user is $10,000.
- All bonuses will be paid within 5 business days of the conclusion of the offer period.
- Net deposits are required to remain in the account for 90 days following the conclusion of the offer period.
- SoFi reserves the right to recoup up to the bonus amount from any withdrawals that take place prior to the 90 day period.
- Bonus amounts of $600 or greater in a single calendar year may be reported to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as miscellaneous income to the recipient on Form 1099-MISC in the year received by applicable law.
- Recipient is responsible for any applicable federal, state or local taxes associated with receiving the bonus offer, consult your tax advisor to determine applicable tax consequences.
- SoFi reserves the right to change or terminate the offer at any time or without notice.
Our Verdict
The person who was targeted had just signed up for a SoFi Invest account for the free stock and hadn’t funded their account outside of that. For this promotion you need to keep the funds in the account for 90 days after the offer ends on May 31st, 2020. This seems like an absolutely exceptional offer, so much so that I feel like I’m missing something here. For example Chase offers a $725 bonus if you deposit $250,000. That same deposit here would net you $7,500.
Hat tip to ergodicthoughts
They posted the welcome bonus today for those of us lucky enough to get the 3% offer… pain in the ass to pull funds out from all the various bank accts I had – but worth it to see +6k today!!
Same here! Got the bonus yesterday. I learned all about SoFi’s $50k daily transfer limits, and realized I was cutting it close – was only able to initiate the final $50K transfer on the last business day of the month (5/29).
For those of us lucky enough to get the 3% welcome offer- what are you doing with the funds that you transferred into SoFi Invest? Are you just letting them sit there for 90 days? I’m not really interested in buying any of their stocks at the moment – don’t see any “safe” investment options available (treasury bills, etc).
Get up to $5,000 when you fund your SoFi Active Invest account.* SoFi will match 1% of net deposits by June 30, 2020, with a maximum bonus up to $5,000. In other words—if you make a $15,000 deposit, we’ll give you $150.
To receive the bonus, the Active Invest account must have net deposits (meaning total deposits minus total withdrawals) of $100 to $500,000 in the offer period. The offer period is between now and June 30, 2020. The max bonus payout per user is $5,000. All bonuses will be paid within 5 business days of the conclusion of the offer period. Net deposits are required to remain in the account for 90 days following the conclusion of the offer period. SoFi reserves the right to recoup up to the bonus amount from any withdrawals that take place prior to the 90 day period.
I got targeted for 1%. Email received today.
Same. Got 1% for me and my family.
Just got targeted with 1% bonus on up to $5k. Would be interesting to know if ACAT transfer counts as deposit.
I got the offer too.
William Charles
I got two of those emails, one with the subject “Get up to $5,000 with SoFi Invest®” and one with “Earn a 1% match on deposits thru 06/30.” Makes me wonder if everyone who’s getting targeted is supposed to be targeted. Anyway, I have a feeling ACAT transfer does not count – like the comparison at the bottom of this post, this is insanely better than general brokerage bonuses. So much so that if someone from Sofi were to tell me ACAT did count, I would worry that the decision would be changed later when they realized how easily people could maximize their earnings.
So they would be happier if you sold your stocks first, transferred in cash, and then bought them again? What would be the point?
No reason to believe they’re focused on current investors. I’m sure they want new and young customers for a long-term relationship, not some old people moving $200k in ETFs to their 3rd brokerage in 5 years. Also, don’t assume the company is “happy” at all to pay you a bonus – just because you qualify, that doesn’t guarantee you’re the target audience.
Thanks, posted
I just created an account and did not fund it in hopes of getting targeted. Probably too late tho
Original submitter here.
William Charles aksurvivorfan emailed them about the promotion and they replied saying they randomly selected sofi account holders to give 1 and 3% matches to. Guess I’m just a lucky bastard
Interesting, thanks
I got the 3% offer. Is the Sofi Invest an investment platform, or does it merely act like an interest-bearing savings account? While I’m happy to bring in outside money so that it earns 3% in 90 days, I’m less excited to bring money in that I’d need to to invest in stocks/bonds/mutual funds that may swing wildly in the current economic climate.
What kind of existing account did you have and for about how long? Considering signing up in hopes of getting targeted.
How old are you? Unless you’re near retirement age, investing in a volatile market that is still 15% off of the 52 week highs seems like a good idea and not something to be avoided. Sure, there’s a reasonable chance to lose some of hour principal in the short term but think of it as getting a 15% discount on a long term investment.
Sofi Invest is an investment platform, that may not pay you any interest on your deposits. Sofi Money is an interest-bearing account, but your offer probably doesn’t apply to Sofi Money. However – assuming you don’t want to buy any investments, you may not need to actually purchase stocks or ETFs to qualify for the bonus.
3% bonus on funds deposited for 90 days is a maximum 12% guaranteed annualized return. This falls under the heading of too-good-to-be-true.
Except you’re not going to find another account you can throw money into and get 3% back for the other 3 quarters?? Idk how you think you’re going to get 12% out of it annually.
Michael isn’t saying he is going to get 12% out of it annually. He is saying it’s a 12% annualized return. Which is absolutely amazing, as far as brokerage bonuses go.
Right, but if there’s no real way to actualized it, it’s not a 12% ‘guaranteed’ return. The phrase “annualized return” becomes moot and meaningless. It’s as theoretical as speculative options–worse* even.
Yep, I agree. In fact why stop at “12% annualized return”? If we are talking hypotheticals, this is indeed a guaranteed “120% decadized return”.
LOL, does anyone that reads this blog know ANYTHING about finance?
Probably not many readers only because most people don’t know anything about finance.
To me it looks like a 3% return for 90 days, nothing more, nothing less.
Please google the definition of annualized. It is simply the definition of the word, and he used the properly. Nobody ever claimed that you would be able to make this sort of gain materialize for an entire 12 months…
So materialization of return is irrelevant here, got it. Under this premise, what’s wrong with my original statement of “120% decadized return”?
You’re more than welcome to continue using the term “120% decadized return” if you feel if you’d like. I won’t judge you for using such an absurd term, but others here might say that you are an idiot.
A: 3% return for 1 quarter (90days) = 3% actual return for 1 quarter.
B: 3% return for 1 quarter extrapolated for the entire year = 3%*4-quarters = 12% annualized return never actualized.
C: 3% return for 1 quarter extrapolated for 10 years = 3%*40-quarters = “120% decadized return” never actualized.
In all 3 scenarios the actual return is 3% for 1 quarter. Scenarios B&C are both hypothetical, never actualized. Yet, imagining a hypothetical return for 1 year is smart, but extending the same imaginary return over a decade is idiocracy. “Decadized return” is indeed an absurd non-existant term; I was just trying to make a point that annualized return in this instance is worthless.
It feel like you are trying very hard to be civil so I won’t bother you anymore.
I understand the point you are trying to make, but I just don’t understand why we are still debating over simple terminology… overall, the heart of this promotion is an absolutely incredible deal if you happen to be one of the lucky few that was targeted for the 3% promo (unfortunately, I was not). I would gladly take 3% for keeping my money safe for just 3 months, especially when the stock market seems massively overvalued right now.
Basically it’s useful for comparing to other opportunities. For example, the recent Ally bank bonus that gave a 1% payment for holding your money there for 3 months would result in a 3% annualized rate over that period in addition to the interest rate. Therefore I was confident that I’d be better off taking money out of my rewards checking accounts for that period in order to do that bonus.
Because everyone on planet earth uses APY to compare returns. Not just Finance experts
only 2% higher than the long term expected return from the market.
transferring securities don’t seem to count either meaning you have to cash out and take tax hit.
doesn’t seem to be worth the hassle unless you have 300k cash sitting around (waiting for the market to crash again and trying to catch falling knife at that time?).
Why are you comparing the long term return of the market vs. the immediate return over the next 3 months?
I legit can’t believe these people don’t understand that annualized is a very commonly used term to compare things of diffent lengths by extrapolating over 12 months. It’s seriously frustrating when ignorant people act so sure of their incorrect knowledge. Maybe try being humble and learning instead of being a jackass
$10K max bonus cap sounds too high. My guess is they mean 3% of $10K max bonus cap or $300.
The fine print does state the limits more clearly though that support 10k max bonus.
Guess it’s not useful if I don’t get targeted, but anyone know if the deposits need to be cash or if you can ACAT in securities like for many of the other brokerages’ bonuses?
I think I unsubscribed from those e-mails a while back, any other way to see if we’re targeted?