So I've been bouncing between HYSAs for the past year trying to chase the best rate. Anyone have a good read on whats the best option right now? I'm seeing Ally at 4.00%, Marcus around 4.10%... is there anything better out there that I'm missing?
Currently have about $15k sitting in a Chase savings earning basically nothing. Need to move it somewhere.
This gets asked every week so I'll give the standard answer:
- Marcus (Goldman Sachs): 4.10% APY, no minimum, FDIC insured. The app is mediocre but the rate is solid.
- Ally: 4.00% APY. Best overall online banking experience IMO. Their app is actually good and customer service is decent.
- Wealthfront: 4.00% APY on their cash account. Technically not a savings account but FDIC insured through partner banks up to $8M.
- Discover: 3.90% APY. Nothing special rate-wise but it's Discover, they're not going anywhere.
Honestly at these levels the difference between 4.00% and 4.10% on $15k is like $15/year. Just pick one with a good app and stop chasing rates.
I've been with Ally for 4 years and never had an issue.
Current rates I'm tracking as of Jan 9:
Marcus: 4.10%
Ally: 4.00%
Wealthfront: 4.00%
Bread Savings (CIT): 4.05%
Discover: 3.90%
SoFi: 3.80% (requires direct deposit for this rate)
Barclays: 3.90%
Amex HYSA: 3.90%
Capital One 360: 3.80%
I update my spreadsheet weekly. Marcus has been top or near-top for 3 months straight now. Bread Savings is sneaky good if you havent looked at them.
Unpopular opinion but you're all overthinking this. The difference between any of these accounts is negligible. If you have $15k in savings you should be thinking about whether that's too much cash sitting on the sidelines, not whether you're getting 3.90% vs 4.10%.
That said if you insist on optimizing, Marcus is fine. Ally is fine. They're all fine.
I'll add my 2 cents -- I switched from Chase to Ally back in March 2025 and it was totally painless. Took about 3 days for the transfer to go through. The Ally app is way better than I expected honestly.
One thing to consider is whether you want buckets/goals features. Ally has these "savings buckets" that let you organize money within one account which I find really useful for like vacation fund, emergency fund, etc. Marcus doesn't have anything like that.
Rate-wise yeah Marcus is slightly higher right now but rates change all the time. 6 months ago Ally was higher. I'd prioritize the banking experience over a 0.10% difference.
ally is great. been there 3 years. no complaints.
marcus is fine too i guess but their website feels clunky. i tried it for like a month and went back to ally.
Thanks everyone. Sounds like the consensus is Ally or Marcus. I think I'll go with Ally since the app sounds better and that matters to me.
@spreadsheet_dan that rate list is super helpful, thanks for maintaining that. Bookmarked.
One more question -- any reason to split between two HYSAs or just put everything in one? The FDIC limit is $250k so thats not a concern for me lol
One thing nobody's mentioned -- if you're moving $15k make sure you check if any of these have sign-up bonuses. I think SoFi was doing a $300 bonus for $5k deposits with direct deposit last time I checked. Might be worth looking into even if their base rate is lower.
Also I'd look at I Bonds for part of that money. You can put up to $10k/year per SSN into I Bonds and the current composite rate is decent. Not as liquid as a HYSA obviously but worth considering for the portion you don't need immediate access to.
But yeah for pure HYSA Ally or Marcus are the standard recs around here.