Autopilot Investment App vs Composer: How do they compare?

What are the main differences between Autopilot Investment App and Composer?

As much as 78% of all trades (according to the SEC) are executed by stock trading algorithms. Two of the most popular platforms to deploy stock trading bots include the Autopilot app and Composer. There's often some confusion between the two platforms so I'll start with a high level overview.

Autopilot is an iOS based app that let’s you copy trade investors like Nancy Pelosi, Michael Burry, and Warren Buffett. Users connect their existing brokerage account (such as Robinhood, TD Ameritrade, and Webull), and the trading bots will make the investment decisions to buy or sell stocks/ETFs based on the person/ investing style. However, one major limitation of Autopilot is that you cannot tweak the strategy made by the trading bot. Therefore, you lack some flexibility.

Composer on the other hand let’s you invest in pre-built strategies in minutes like "Copy Warren Buffett", "Copy Ray Dalio" or "Copy David Swensen" from the Discover page. The advantage of Composer is that you can see the logic that is being implemented, you can edit it using a no-code editor to personalize the strategy, and you can backtest with professional grade data to see how the strategy would have performed in different economic climates. Composer also lets you build trading algorithms from scratch - No coding is required to build a stock trading bot and there’s a simple visual editor and AI assistant to help you get started. Composer is built on top of the Alpaca Markets brokerage. This means that they create a separate brokerage account to prevent your manual trading disrupting your automated trading.

I've separated the key differences in this short article below:

User Interface & Platform Access

Both platforms have a very different value proposition.

Composer is a desktop focussed app that lets you use the large screen size to build strategies in a visual editor and backtest with professional grade data and graphs directly in-app. The visual editor provides an easy way to understand the logic behind your strategy and enables both beginners and advanced users build their own stock trading algorithms.

Composer also has a Discover page if you’re looking for pre-build stock trading bots. You can trade like popular strategies and even amend these strategies as you wish.

Note: Composer also lets you login via mobile if you wish you check in on your investments.

On the other hand, Autopilot is an iOS based app that you can find on the App Store. This enables you to copy trade directly from your iPhone. The interface is user friendly if you’re looking for an ‘on-the-go’ experience. Some of the top pilots you can copy include: “Pelosi Tracker”, “Inverse Cramer”, “Buffett Tracker”, “Burry Tracker”, and the new “GPT Portfolio”. However one limitation of Autopilot is that it does not offer a desktop experience. At the time of writing, Autopilot do not offer an Android app however it looks like it is on their roadmap. Autopilot also doesn't let you control the investments that the tracker makes, which means less flexibility.

Pricing

Pricing is one of the most important factors to consider when setting up a stock trading bot. 

If you just want to copy trade, then Autopilot may be a more suitable option at $30 per quarter. This price includes: automated copy trading, access to in real life events in New York and Los Angeles, and in-depth analysis into the Pilot trades. However, you are limited to copying the prebuilt Pilot trackers. The $30 per quarter does not take into account any fees you may incur through your brokerage.

Composer Pro charges a fixed fee of $24 per month (paid annually) or $30 per month (paid monthly) to create an unlimited number of automated trading bots. This also provides you with access to professional grade data to backtest with, an AI assistant to help you build your own strategies, real-time portfolio metrics, and weekly performance updates to keep a track of your investments. The big difference between the two platforms is that Composer offers much greater flexibility to customize trading bots based on your needs.

Brokerages & Deposit Security

Composer Securities LLC is a registered broker-dealer with the SEC, a member of FINRA / SIPC, and automatically creates an Alpaca brokerage account for you. This means you have exactly the same level of security with $500k in SIPC insurance.

Autopilot on the other hand connects to your existing brokerage account. This means you need to check with the brokerage to understand your deposit security.

Asset Choice & Transaction Types

As Autopilot connects to your existing brokerage, it supports assets provided by that brokerage. At the time of writing, Autopilot has a focus on US stocks and ETFs. Note: You buy into “tracker” funds that buy/sell the stocks and ETFs that match the investment strategy. For example, the “Buffett Tracker” buys and sells in accordance to Warren Buffett’s style.

Likewise, Composer offers access to a full range of US stocks and ETFs. The difference with Autopilot here is that you have the ability to choose and amend the strategy based on personal investment strategy. Don’t like a specific stock/ETF in your strategy? You can change it in Composer. The structure of the platform allows you to rebalance your strategies at daily, weekly, quarterly, yearly or threshold-based intervals.

Both platforms offer the choice to test the platform risk-free. While Autopilot offers $25k virtual portfolios, Composer offers the ability to ‘watch’ strategies with a simulated $1000 that you can track over time and measure out-of-sample performance. In both cases, you can get an indicative performance of your bot without depositing funds.

AI functionality

Both platforms offer AI functionality in different ways.

Composer has recently introduced ChatGPT4 AI copilot to supercharge the investing process. Using ChatGPT you can create strategies from scratch by ask questions and telling the AI assistant what you want For example: Can you create a retirement strategy with a focus on long term bonds and gold? What are the risks of this strategy? What should I add to diversify this strategy? What type of strategy would be a good complement to this one? You can check out more details here.

Autopilot has recently introduced a GPT portfolio which uses ChatGPT “to run advanced sentiment analysis on recent news articles in order to determine what stocks to pick."

Customer Support

Composer offers email, live chat, and zoom calls with the product team. This means you have direct access to help influence how the product is improved going forward.

Autopilot also offers email support, call, and text support. Autopilot are highly active on Twitter and I’m sure members of the team would help resolve issues through this channel too.

Final Remarks

Autopilot and Composer have two very different value propositions. If you’re looking for an iOS app that let’s you copytrade then Autopilot may be a better fit. If you’re looking for a more holistic platform that let’s you build trading algorithms from scratch (without coding) as well as find pre-built strategies to invest in, Composer may be the better fit due to the flexibility.

Moreover, building strategies in Composer is a fun activity, and spending time doing so is a great way to get accustomed to how the no-code editor works.

As you do so, we invite you to explore the site and sign up for a free Composer account to get a first-hand impression of what our platform can do for you.

We'd be happy to have you on our side, and provide you with the best automated stock trading platform there is!