Start your investment journey with templates

Setting up an investment plan with neon is quick and easy: A few taps in the app, and you’re ready to automatically invest on a regular basis – with zero paperwork and full flexibility. But what should you invest in? And which ETF(s) fit your goals – or your gut feeling? If you’re not sure where to begin, you’re not alone. And that’s exactly why we’ve created our ready-made templates – to help you with that difficult first step of your investing journey.

A quick summary for those who don’t know: With the neon investment plan, we make investing accessible and easy. You select up to six shares or ETFs, and set the amount you want to invest each month. Then you can sit back and relax, because we take care of the rest – we invest automatically for you once a month. Read more about it in our blog.

Introducing: our Templates

Our templates are ready-made portfolios designed to help you start investing – even if you have no prior experience. They are tailored to different risk profiles and can be easily adapted to your preferences. 

They’re built using globally diversified, low-cost ETFs – most of them can be even bought with 0% purchase fees. The templates are universal, not tailored to anyone’s specific needs – which means that they’re not to be taken as investment advice. Instead, take them as a helper for your first step, which is often the hardest. 

And the best part? You keep full flexibility: you can adjust your template anytime by adding or removing assets, or even selling parts of your portfolio. There’s no lock-in – you can even transfer your assets to another broker if you want (even though we would cry a bit inside, we still think your freedom of choice is more important than our tears). In short: Total flexibility and control over what happens to your investments.

What’s in the mix

Each template offers a different mix of stocks, bonds, and real estate – to create diversified portfolios that reflect different risk levels. Stocks offer high return potential – at a higher risk. Bonds tend to act as a stabiliser – when markets fluctuate, bonds often balance the volatility. Real estate adds another layer of diversification – it’s less correlated with stocks and typically offers high returns. We explain the included ETFs in detail further below.

Make it your own: Swiss and Sustainable focus

We know that values and personal preferences matter. That’s why every template can be tailored in two ways:

Swiss focus

If you prefer to invest closer to home, you can choose the Swiss Focus option. This increases the share of Swiss stocks in your portfolio from 10% to 60%, giving you more exposure to local companies and the Swiss franc. (Note: the included real estate ETF is already only invested in Swiss properties and the bond ETF in CHF-issued bonds.) For many, this feels more familiar and trustworthy, and it also reduces exposure to foreign currencies.

Sustainable focus

If sustainable investing is important to you, there’s also the option to switch to a sustainable version of any template. This replaces standard ETFs with ESG alternatives that meet strict environmental, social, and governance criteria. In these versions, the stock ETFs (both international and Swiss) are sustainable, while the bond ETF is already ESG by default. Currently, there’s no sustainable real estate ETF available, so that part of the portfolio remains unchanged. 

You can have it all – combine both

And if you want both – a sustainable and Swiss-anchored portfolio – you can easily combine the two options.

Want to dig deeper into the ESG approach behind our sustainable ETFs? Have a look at our blog post about Swisscanto, the provider of the sustainable ETFs.

Transparent, Low Fees

We believe investing should be accessible and affordable – that’s why there are no custody fees with us. We charge a low 0.5% trading fee for ETFs, but many ETFs, such as those from Swisscanto, come with 0% purchase fees. In those cases, the fee is automatically refunded within two working days. 

The only additional costs are the Swiss stamp duty (between 0.075% and 0.15%), and the ETF’s product cost – the so-called Total Expense Ratio (TER). While the stamp duty is charged per transaction, the TER is not a trading fee; it’s an ongoing annual cost from the ETF issuer that is automatically reflected in the ETF’s net asset value and performance.

Setting Up Your Template

Once you’ve chosen a template, getting started is simple:

1. Choose your monthly investment amount: You can get started with as little as 50 CHF. Because even small monthly amounts can add up significantly over time.

2. Pick your execution date: You can choose from three different days of the month for your investment to be executed.

3. Lean back: Because your part is done – your money will be invested automatically once a month.

You can adjust your investment plan templates anytime. You can add or remove assets from a selection of over 400 shares, ETFs and Crypto ETPs, you can find an overview here. You can add up to 6 assets for your investment plan.

Explore and compare in the app

In the app, you’ll find everything you need to make an informed choice:

• Historic performance charts for each template

• Forecast tools to simulate how your investment might grow over time

• The ability to play with different monthly investments, starting amount, and time horizons

These visual tools help you understand how your investments behave over time – whether you’re planning five years ahead or looking at past performance.

For the detail-oriented

When selecting the ETFs for our templates, we focused on three key criteria: high assets under management, to reduce the risk of closure; low total expense ratios (TER) to keep investing costs as low as possible; and product characteristics that fit the overall portfolio structure and risk profiles we wanted to offer — from cautious to ambitious.

Here’s a list of the included assets:

Start today — your future you will thank you

Our templates are built for people who are new to investing or simply want a smarter, more convenient way to manage their money. With our ready-made portfolios, flexible options, and a simple setup, there’s no need to spend hours researching – we’ve done the heavy lifting for you.

Ready to invest in your future? Explore our templates in the app and see what your money can do.