Composer made automated strategies accessible: describe one in natural language, backtest it, deploy it, all for about $24 a month. The difference with Wealthnow is structural. Composer executes inside its own brokerage; Wealthnow routes the trades you approve to brokerage accounts you already hold at supported brokers, rather than a separate custodial one.
What is Composer?
Composer (composer.trade) is a no-code automated trading platform: you describe a strategy in natural language or assemble it visually, backtest it, and deploy it. Execution happens inside Composer's own brokerage (Composer Securities), with a Trading Pass around $24/month billed annually that includes unlimited automated trading with zero commissions and zero management fees. The company reports its strategies power over $215 million in automated trades per day. For self-contained rule-based strategies, it is a polished product.
What is Wealthnow?
Wealthnow is the AI for investing. It connects 12,000+ brokerages, banks and financial institutions, including Robinhood, Schwab, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, Coinbase, and Kraken. At supported brokers it routes the trades you approve through your own account; the others connect read-only. Never custodial. Live trades are proposed and approved one by one, the AI researches with cited data, and every order passes risk gates before reaching your broker.
Wealthnow vs Composer: the comparison
| Composer | Wealthnow | |
|---|---|---|
| Where trades execute | Composer's own brokerage (custodial) | Your existing brokerages where supported (non-custodial), one approved trade at a time |
| Must move your money | Yes, into Composer Securities | No, funds stay where they are |
| Sees your other accounts | No | Yes, whole-portfolio view |
| Conversational AI grounded in your positions | Limited | Core product, with citations |
| Risk gates | Strategy rules | Your approval on every trade, plus a covered-sell check, an operator halt switch and duplicate-order protection on every order |
| Price | ~$24/mo (annual) | Free to start |
The custody question, plainly
Composer's model requires transferring funds into Composer Securities; your automated capital lives there. That is a legitimate model, but your automation is only as broad as the money you moved, and you now have one more account to track. Wealthnow inverts this. The AI comes to where your money already is: your Schwab stays Schwab, your Robinhood stays Robinhood, and the research and proposals span the accounts you connect (all of them on Pro and Max; one on Free), with the trades you approve routed at supported brokers. If you are consolidating your financial life rather than adding another account to it, that inversion is the whole point. It is also the structural base of the AI family office Wealthnow is building.
When Composer is the right choice
If you want to hand-build rule-based strategies with a polished visual editor and are happy running them on dedicated capital in a separate account, Composer's builder and backtester are excellent, and its flat $24/month is good value for that job.
When Wealthnow is the right choice
If you want AI on the accounts you already have, with every trade proposed to you and placed, at supported brokers, only after you approve it, choose Wealthnow. You get research that cites its sources and a portfolio-level brain across 12,000+ brokerages and banks. Custody never moves a dollar. That is the category: the AI for investing that works with your broker.
Frequently asked
Do I have to move my money to use Wealthnow?
No. Wealthnow connects to the brokerage accounts you already have with a revocable permission (read, and trade where the broker supports it), and you can disconnect whenever you choose (once any open orders are cancelled) without touching the funds at your broker. Composer requires funding an account at its own brokerage for strategies to run.
Which is cheaper, Wealthnow or Composer?
Composer's Trading Pass is about $24/month billed annually. Wealthnow is free to start, with its paid plans on its pricing page. They price different scopes: one custodial account of automation versus AI across your whole portfolio.
