Spaceship: Zero-Fee Trading, Portfolio Automation & Fractional Shares for Australian Investors

Spaceship has emerged as one of Australia's most innovative investment platforms, making it remarkably easy for everyday Australians to start building wealth without the traditional barriers of high fees and minimum investment requirements. Whether you're a complete beginner taking your first steps into investing or an experienced trader looking for a streamlined platform, Spaceship offers something genuinely different in the Australian fintech landscape.

What Makes Spaceship Stand Out?

The platform's appeal lies in its refreshing simplicity. Unlike traditional brokerages that overwhelm you with complex interfaces and hidden fees, Spaceship strips away the noise and focuses on what matters: growing your money efficiently. The mobile-first design feels less like banking software from 2010 and more like an app you'd actually want to open regularly.

Their superannuation product, Spaceship Super, has consistently ranked among the top performers in Australia, which isn't just marketing fluff—independent ratings from Canstar and others have recognized its competitive returns. But what really gets people excited is the Spaceship Voyager investment portfolios, where you can start investing with literally any amount of money.

Zero-Fee Trading That Actually Means Zero Fees

One of the biggest frustrations with traditional investing platforms is the fee structure that nickels-and-dimes you at every turn. Spaceship takes a different approach. For balances under $100, there are genuinely no fees whatsoever—not monthly maintenance fees, not trading fees, nothing. Once your balance exceeds $100, you'll pay a modest monthly fee based on your chosen portfolio, but there are no hidden transaction costs eating into your returns.

This matters more than you might think. When other platforms charge $9.50 per trade, making small regular investments becomes prohibitively expensive. With Spaceship, you can invest $50 every week without worrying that fees will consume your returns. The compounding effect over time is substantial.

👉 Start investing with zero fees today

Portfolio Options: Finding Your Investment Style

Spaceship offers three core investment portfolios, each designed for different risk appetites and investment philosophies:

Universe Portfolio: This is the growth-focused option, heavily weighted toward technology and innovation companies. Think Tesla, Amazon, Apple, and emerging tech leaders. It's designed for investors with a longer time horizon who can stomach some volatility in exchange for potentially higher returns. The portfolio includes both Australian and international companies, giving you genuine global diversification.

Origin Portfolio: Taking a more balanced approach, Origin blends Australian and international shares with some defensive assets. It's less volatile than Universe while still offering solid growth potential. This portfolio suits investors who want growth but prefer a smoother ride.

Earth Portfolio: The ethical investment option focuses on companies making positive environmental and social impacts. You're not sacrificing returns for values here—Earth has delivered competitive performance while excluding fossil fuels, tobacco, and other controversial industries.

What's particularly clever about Spaceship's approach is that these portfolios are actively managed by professional investment managers. You're not just buying an index fund; you're getting active stock selection without paying the typical 1-2% management fees that active funds usually charge.

Fractional Shares: Investing Without the Math

Here's something that genuinely changes the game for small investors: fractional shares. Traditionally, if you wanted to own a piece of Apple or Google, you'd need hundreds or thousands of dollars to buy even a single share. Spaceship lets you invest any amount and automatically calculates the fractional ownership.

This means you can build a diversified portfolio even if you're only investing $20 per week. The platform handles all the complexity behind the scenes—you just see your portfolio value growing as your investments appreciate. It's investing democratized in the truest sense.

The Spaceship Super Advantage

While the Voyager investment platform gets most of the attention, Spaceship Super deserves serious consideration if you're thinking about your retirement planning. The performance has been genuinely impressive—consistently ranking in the top tier of superannuation funds for returns over recent years.

The fee structure is transparent and competitive: 0.02% per year on the first $100,000 for the Universe or Origin options, plus the underlying portfolio fee. There's no percentage-based administration fee eating into your retirement savings over decades. When you run the numbers over a 30-year working career, the fee savings compared to traditional super funds can amount to tens of thousands of dollars.

The platform makes it ridiculously easy to consolidate multiple super accounts (most Australians have several they've forgotten about), track your balance in real-time, and even set up additional contributions beyond your employer's mandatory payments.

👉 Compare superannuation options and start growing your retirement

Mobile Experience That Actually Works

Too many investment platforms still feel like they were designed for desktop computers and then awkwardly squeezed onto mobile screens. Spaceship did the opposite—they built mobile-first, and it shows. The app is genuinely pleasant to use, with clean design, intuitive navigation, and no unnecessary complexity.

You can deposit money, check your balance, adjust your portfolio allocation, and access educational content all from your phone in under a minute. The notifications are actually useful rather than annoying, keeping you informed about deposits, market movements, and portfolio updates without overwhelming you.

For younger investors who've grown up with smartphone-native experiences, this matters enormously. Investing doesn't feel like a chore requiring you to sit at a desktop computer—it's as easy as checking social media.

Real Customer Experiences

The Australian investment community on Reddit, ProductReview, and other platforms generally speaks positively about Spaceship, though like any platform, experiences vary. The most common praise centers on the zero-fee structure for small balances, the intuitive app interface, and the genuine performance of the investment portfolios.

Some users have noted that customer service response times can be slower during peak periods, and the platform lacks some advanced features that professional traders might want (like individual stock selection or options trading). But these aren't really criticisms of what Spaceship aims to be—it's designed for straightforward, long-term investing rather than active trading.

The transparency around fees and portfolio holdings gets consistent appreciation. You can see exactly what companies your money is invested in and how fees are calculated, which builds trust compared to traditional managed funds with opaque structures.

Educational Resources for Growing Your Financial Literacy

One underrated aspect of Spaceship is their commitment to investor education. The platform includes articles, videos, and guides explaining investment concepts in genuinely accessible language—no finance jargon that requires a business degree to understand.

Topics range from the basics like "What are shares?" to more sophisticated concepts like dollar-cost averaging and portfolio diversification. The content is Australian-focused, which matters because investing advice from US sources doesn't always translate to our tax and regulatory environment.

This educational approach aligns with Spaceship's broader philosophy: investing shouldn't be mysterious or intimidating. The more you understand about how investing works, the better financial decisions you'll make over your lifetime.

Tax Time Simplification

Australian tax obligations around investing can get messy quickly, especially if you're trading frequently across multiple platforms. Spaceship simplifies this considerably by providing comprehensive tax statements and reports that integrate with the ATO's pre-fill system.

Your dividends, distributions, and capital gains are all clearly documented, and the platform provides the necessary information for your tax return in formats that accountants actually appreciate. For the Voyager portfolios, because you're not constantly buying and selling individual shares, the capital gains tax situation remains relatively straightforward.

Getting Started Takes Minutes

The account opening process has been streamlined to the point where you can go from complete stranger to invested investor in roughly five minutes. The identity verification happens digitally through government ID systems, deposit options include instant transfers from most Australian banks, and you can start with literally any amount you're comfortable with.

There's no pressure to commit to large monthly contributions or lock your money away for years. You maintain complete control—add money when you can, withdraw when you need to (keeping in mind the investment time horizon recommendations), and adjust your strategy as your circumstances change.

👉 Open your account in minutes and start your investment journey

Security and Regulation

Spaceship operates under proper Australian financial licenses (AFSL 417 372), and your investments are held in your name through custodian arrangements with established financial institutions. This means your holdings are legally separate from Spaceship's own corporate assets—if something were to happen to the company, your investments are protected.

The platform uses bank-level encryption and security protocols, and you can enable additional protections like biometric login and two-factor authentication. While no system is perfectly impervious to security threats, Spaceship takes the standard precautions you'd expect from a legitimate financial services provider.

Who Should Consider Spaceship?

The platform really shines for several specific groups of investors:

Complete beginners who find traditional brokerages overwhelming and want a simple entry point into investing. The low barriers to entry and educational resources make it ideal for taking those first steps.

Young professionals looking to start building wealth without large upfront capital. The ability to invest small amounts regularly without fee erosion is genuinely valuable for this demographic.

Passive investors who want exposure to professionally managed portfolios without paying typical managed fund fees. If you don't want to spend time researching individual stocks, Spaceship does that work for you.

Values-driven investors interested in the Earth Portfolio's ethical investment approach without sacrificing returns.

Who might want to look elsewhere? Active traders who want to buy and sell individual stocks frequently will find the platform limiting. Spaceship is designed for buy-and-hold investing in their curated portfolios, not day trading or complex options strategies.

The Bigger Picture: Democratizing Australian Investing

What Spaceship represents matters beyond just another app in the crowded fintech space. For decades, meaningful investing in Australia required either substantial capital or acceptance of fee structures that made small-scale investing economically irrational. This created a wealth gap where those with less money paid proportionally more to invest and build wealth.

By eliminating minimum investments, removing transaction fees, and making the entire process genuinely accessible through mobile technology, Spaceship has lowered barriers that kept millions of Australians out of wealth-building opportunities. The ripple effects over decades—as more people start investing earlier with better fee structures—could be genuinely significant for financial inequality.

The platform isn't perfect, and it won't suit everyone's needs. But for what it aims to do—make investing accessible, affordable, and straightforward for ordinary Australians—Spaceship delivers impressively well. The combination of zero fees for small balances, fractional shares enabling true diversification regardless of investment size, and professionally managed portfolios creates a compelling value proposition that traditional platforms struggle to match.

Whether you're investing your first $50 or consolidating a more substantial portfolio, the platform's design philosophy of simplicity without sacrificing quality makes it worth serious consideration as part of your wealth-building strategy. The Australian investment landscape is genuinely better for having options like Spaceship available.

👉 Explore portfolio options and start investing today