Origin wants to manage your money.
Formation helps you manage it yourself.
Origin is the closest thing to Formation — AI planning, automated investing, in-app tax filing, estate documents, even a CFP on call. But Origin's path is to manage your money and be the advisor. Formation's is the opposite: an independent intelligence layer, driven by its proprietary AI (AURA), that never takes custody, shows its work on every number, and puts a professional-grade picture in your own hands — so you can run your own money, and still hand your CPA an organized, cited picture at tax time.
No charge today · Cancel in two clicks · Founding price $199/yr, locked for as long as you stay
What Origin does well
Genuinely impressive range for one app — AI chat, automated index investing with no AUM fee, in-app tax filing, estate documents, and access to a CFP. Origin says its AI is SEC-registered and tested hard against the CFP exam. If you want one app to advise you and manage your money, Origin is among the most ambitious out there — and we'll say so.
Feature by feature
Origin
AI advisor
Formation
one plan · $199/yr founding
Origin features and prices per useorigin.com / public sources as of June 2026. Financial planning (CFP from ~$119/session) and estate documents (~$119 will / $359 trust) are add-ons; investing custody via DriveWealth may carry fees.
Independent signals
We'll give Origin its due.
Ratings run high across this category, so we don't lean on them. Origin's real distinction is its breadth — and where that breadth stops.
Origin's ambition is real — it folds budgeting, investing, tax filing, and a CFP into one app, with an SEC-registered AI advisor. But its published materials don't surface a legal-entity model or a cross-custodian wash-sale engine, and its path is to be your advisor and hold your money. Formation's is the opposite: read every custodian, cite every number, and put that picture in your own hands — so you can run your own money, with the CPA and advisor you keep looped in when it counts.
4.6 ★ Apple App Store · 3.4K ratings (App Store) · $12.99/mo or $99/yr (useorigin.com) · All-in-one budget · invest · tax · CFP (Origin)
The Origin question
An AI that advises, or an AI that shows its work?
Origin's AI gives you an answer; Formation's cites every number behind it — sourced, computed, estimated, or stale — so you can check it yourself. Origin manages your money on its own platform; Formation reads your real accounts across every custodian and hands you a trade list you run yourself. One app wants to be the advisor. The other puts a cited, entity-aware picture in your own hands — so a self-directed household with a trust, a K-1 pile, and a CPA at tax time can run its own money with confidence.
Common questions
Is Formation a good Origin alternative?
Formation is built for households whose finances have outgrown a single-login tool: money spread across many custodians, more than one legal entity (trusts, LLCs, S-Corps), equity compensation, K-1s, and multi-state tax — unified in one view, organized by the entity that owns each account, with every number traced back to its source. The feature-by-feature table above lays out where Formation differs from Origin so you can judge the fit for your own situation.
How much does Formation cost compared to Origin?
Formation is one plan with full access — $29.99/month or $349/year list, and founding members lock $17.99/month or $199/year for as long as they stay subscribed. Every subscription starts with a 7-day free trial; there is no free tier and no percentage-of-assets (AUM) fee. The pricing row in the comparison table above shows how that lines up against Origin.
Can Formation handle trusts, LLCs, equity compensation, and K-1s?
Yes. Formation models every account by the legal entity that owns it (personal, joint, trust, LLC, S-Corp), tracks RSUs, ISOs, NSOs, and ESPP with alternative-minimum-tax awareness, ingests Schedule K-1s from PDF, and runs cross-custodian, wash-sale-aware tax-loss harvesting across all your brokers at once. AURA, Formation's education-only AI, explains and analyzes these numbers but never gives personalized advice, places trades, or moves money.
The intelligence layer — not another advisor.
See your whole household, every custodian and entity, cited to the source — and keep the professionals you already trust.
No charge today · Cancel in two clicks · Founding price $199/yr, locked for as long as you stay
Full pricing detailsCompare Formation to other tools