For years, my solo 401(k) was held at Vanguard. It wasn't flashy and the interface was dated, which longtime Vanguard users will recognize. But it was low-fee and reliable.
When Vanguard shut down its solo 401(k) program, existing plans were automatically transferred to Ascensus.
I gave Ascensus a fair shot, but the experience felt clunky and harder than it needed to be. Not long after the transfer, I started looking for another option.
I first heard about Carry when the company was called Ocho. We had done an educational webinar together in 2023, so I was familiar with the team and the product.
After some more research, I moved my Solo 401(k) to Carry in December 2024.
Below is my review of Carry's flagship product, their Solo 401(k).
While that's the main focus, I'll also touch on the other accounts and services Carry offers and how they can work alongside a Solo 401(k).
Carry works best for higher-earning business owners who qualify and want to make advanced tax moves with a high level of portfolio customization.
Its biggest strength is how easy it makes strategies like Mega Backdoor Roth contributions and access to alternative investments. Compared to most solo 401(k) providers, these transactions are simpler, more guided, and involve far less paperwork.
In my experience, the rollover process was straightforward on Carry's end. How smooth the transfer feels still depends on the provider you're coming from, but Carry's side of the process was streamlined.
The flat annual fee, starting at $299, is not the cheapest option in every case, but it is reasonable. For smaller accounts or investors who only want to buy a low-cost ETF and leave it alone, lower-cost options are usually a better fit.
Pros
- Supports plan designs that make Mega Backdoor Roth contributions workable in a Solo 401(k).
- Allows a higher degree of plan and investment customization than off-the-shelf
Solo 401(k)s.
- Simplifies administrative steps around contributions, rollovers, and plan setup.
- Assets are held with regulated third-party custodians, not on Carry's balance sheet.
Cons
- Can be expensive than zero-fee solo 401(k)s at large custodians
- Does not replace a third-party administrator; the plan owner remains responsible for compliance.
- No phone support, with assistance handled through chat and email.
- Roboadvisor does not support recurring investments.
About Carry
Carry was founded in 2022 by Ankur Nagpal, a repeat founder best known for founding Teachable, which he later sold.
After that exit, Nagpal spent several years managing his own wealth and working through tax planning challenges common among business owners and high earners.
The idea behind Carry came from that experience.
Many tax strategies available to self-employed investors already exist in the tax code, but they are often difficult to execute in practice.
Carry was built to make those strategies easier to implement, track, and maintain without relying on manual paperwork or fragmented providers.
Carry is structured as a financial technology platform, not a bank. Client assets are not held on Carry's balance sheet.
Depending on the account type, assets are custodied with regulated third parties such as broker-dealers, banks, or trust companies.
The company launched under the name Ocho before rebranding to Carry.
While a young firm, its focus is narrow: helping business owners use retirement accounts and tax-advantaged structures more effectively, rather than offering a broad consumer investing platform.
What Carry Offers
Carry is best understood as a tax-focused platform built around retirement accounts, not a traditional brokerage.
Its main purpose is to help people with self-employment income use tax-advantaged accounts more effectively, usually starting with a Solo 401(k) and then building from there.
This is not a platform most people would use just to open an IRA from scratch and invest $500 a month into a target-date fund.
Many of Carry's features are designed to work in combination, especially for business owners who want to coordinate retirement accounts, taxable investing, alternative investing and tax planning in one place.
At a high level, here's what Carry currently offers.
Carry Account Types
- Solo 401(k). Carry's primary product. Designed for self-employed individuals who want flexibility and support for advanced strategies.
- IRAs (Traditional and Roth). Standard IRA accounts that can be used alongside a Solo 401(k), primarily for backdoor or rollover strategies.
- Taxable brokerage accounts. Used for investing beyond retirement account limits, typically as part of a broader tax-aware strategy rather than casual trading.
Carry Investment Options
- Equities. Self-directed investing in stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds, with trades executed and assets held by DriveWealth LLC. You place the trades through Carry, but DriveWealth is the underlying brokerage that executes the orders, custodies the securities, and provides SIPC protection.
Smart Yield. A cash-management feature that invests idle cash in tax-aware money market funds and automatically allocates to the option with the highest expected after-tax yield based on your location and tax bracket. - Roboadvisor A risk-based portfolio option that invests across a diversified mix of funds based on your risk tolerance.
- Crypto (inside self-directed IRAs only) Direct ownership of cryptocurrencies inside a self-directed IRA, with assets held in custody by third-party providers and all trading occurring within the retirement account.
- Alternative investments (self-directed). Use a Solo 401(k) or IRA to directly invest in assets like real estate, private companies, and private funds, with you sourcing the investment and your retirement account holding the asset for tax-advantaged treatment.
Most users will not need or benefit from every feature. The platform makes the most sense when the Solo 401(k) is the starting point and other accounts or services are layered on to support broader tax efficiency.
Carry Tax and Business Services
- Tax filing. Personal and business tax filing handled by third-party tax professionals integrated into the Carry platform. Pricing starts at $1,299, with the final cost based on the complexity of your return.
- Tax planning. Ongoing, strategy-focused guidance designed to coordinate income, retirement contributions, and account structure. Pricing varies based on scope and is quoted separately from filing.
- Bookkeeping. Monthly business bookkeeping intended to keep records tax-ready and support retirement and tax planning for self-employed users. Pricing starts at $199 per month, based on business spend and complexity.
What Does Carry Cost?
Carry charges a flat membership fee. There's no percentage taken out of your account based on how much you have invested from Carry.
You pay a fixed monthly or annual cost to use the platform.
For the sake of comparison, assume 0% ETF expense ratios. That lets you isolate what Carry itself costs.
On that basis:
- At $100,000 invested, a $299 annual fee works out to about 0.30%.
- At $50,000 invested, the same $299 fee is closer to 0.60%.
In reality, if you use Carry's robo-advisor or Smart Yield, you'll still pay the expense ratios on the underlying ETFs. Those are usually very low.
Often Vanguard ETFs with expense ratios well under 0.10%. Carry isn't layering an additional management fee on top of them.
The membership fee is paid outside the account (for example, via credit card), not deducted from your investments. For business owners, that often makes it a deductible business expense.
My Experience Using Carry's Solo 401(k)
I run an LLC taxed as an S corp and make employer Solo 401(k) contributions of up to 25% of my W-2 salary.
Carry's interface makes it easy to calculate that amount and adjust it if my salary changes, which removes a lot of manual tracking.
Once set up, contributions are pulled automatically from my business bank account on a monthly schedule.
Where things are slightly less “set it and forget it” is investing.
Contributions land as cash, and I still need to log in and allocate them to my chosen portfolio.
I use Carry's robo-advisor and selected the highest risk profile. The portfolio itself is straightforward and broadly diversified, similar to what you'd get at a large custodian.
Here's what the portfolio is at a risk tolerance of 1:
Here's their most aggressive portfolio, which I'm investing in:
I log in about once a month.
Most of the time, it's to invest incoming contributions or check balances. Outside of that, the account mostly runs in the background.
I've tested Smart Yield briefly when I needed to park cash, and it worked as advertised. It's not something I use regularly, but it's a useful option to have inside the same ecosystem, especially for higher earners in higher-tax states.
Support has been solid.
Early on, responses were more hands-on. More recently, the process starts with an AI response and escalates to human support when needed.
I don't currently use the Mega Backdoor Roth feature, though it's one of the reasons I chose Carry. I plan to test it out shortly here.
Carry vs. Fidelity
When I look at the Solo 401(k) landscape right now, Carry and Fidelity feel like the two clear top options.
Fidelity is the clean, no nonsense choice.
If you want a Solo 401(k) that is free to maintain, easy to open, and works well for buying low cost ETFs or mutual funds, it is hard to beat.
For business owners who just want to save aggressively and keep costs as low as possible, Fidelity is a great starting point.
Where Fidelity falls short is flexibility.
Once you move beyond basic contribution, things get more manual.
Advanced strategies like Mega Backdoor Roth contributions, Roth conversions, or more complex inbesting options involve extra paperwork, more hands on management, or simply not available.
Carry is built for a different type of user.
It assumes your Solo 401(k) is part of a bigger picture. The platform puts more structure around contribution calculations, plan design, Roth strategies, and alternative investments.
The goal is to reduce friction and make complex tax moves easier to execute correctly.
The tradeoff is cost.
Carry charges a flat membership fee, so it makes the most sense once you have a growing balance or plan to actively use the flexibility it offers.
If your balance is small, Fidelity will usually be the better fit.
Carry solves a different problem than Fidelity. It is not a better brokerage. It is a better base layer for advanced tax moves that business owners already qualify for but rarely execute well.
Carry Solo 401(k): Verdict
If you are contributing a few hundred dollars a month, while slowly building a balance, Carry does not make sense.
At that level, you are paying for optionality you will not use.
A zero-cost provider like Fidelity is the right choice. You get the core tax benefits of a Solo 401(k) with no ongoing friction and no annual fee drag.
Carry starts to earn its keep when three things change at the same time.
First, your income rises enough that tax strategy actually matters. At this point, you have room to choose between employer and employee contributions (or both), pre-tax and Roth dollars, timing decisions, and conversion strategies.
This is where Carry is meaningfully different. It reduces friction around complex moves that are either cumbersome or effectively unsupported at large custodians.
The clean way to think about the choice is this.
- Fidelity is optimized for low cost and simplicity.
- Carry is optimized for flexibility and coordination.
Visit Carry.com
