How much do you need to start investing?

I was out for drinks with a friend last year. She knows I’m into personal finance, and at some point the conversation drifted that way. “Oh, that reminds me,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you. How much do you actually need to start investing?”

She was 31. Good job. Decent salary. And she had never invested a dollar in her life. Not because she couldn’t afford to, but because she thought she needed a certain amount of money before it was even worth trying. “I always figured I’d start when I had like five or ten grand saved up,” she told me. “But that number never comes.”

She’s not alone. I hear this constantly. People who have the money to start but think they don’t have enough money to start. The number in their head, some round figure that feels “real,” becomes the barrier. And every month they wait is a month their money sits doing nothing.

The truth is, the minimum to start investing in Canada is far lower than almost anyone thinks.

The myth of the minimum

The idea that you need a large lump sum to start investing comes from a time when it was actually true. Decades ago, buying a single stock cost $30 or more in trading commissions. Mutual funds had minimum purchases of $500 or $1,000. If you only had $200, the fees alone would eat a huge chunk of it. Starting small genuinely didn’t make sense.

That world is gone.

Today, most Canadian online brokerages charge zero commissions on ETF purchases. Some charge nothing on stock purchases either. Account minimums have dropped to $0 at several platforms. The barriers that used to exist have mostly disappeared, but the old advice stuck around.

The result: people who could start investing today sit on the sidelines because they think they need more money first.

What Canadian brokerages actually require

Let’s look at what the major platforms require to open an account and start buying investments. These numbers can change, so always check the brokerage’s website for current details.

Brokerage	Minimum to Open	ETF Commissions	Stock Commissions	Fractional Shares
Wealthsimple	$0	$0	$0	Yes
Questrade	$0 (previously $1,000, now waived)	$0 to buy	$4.95 to $9.95	No
TD Direct Investing	$0	$0 (TD ETFs and select list)	$9.99	No
RBC Direct Investing	$0	$9.99 (waived for some)	$9.99	No
BMO InvestorLine	$0	$9.95 (waived for select ETFs)	$9.95	No
NBDB (National Bank)	$0	$0	$0	No

A few things stand out. First, the minimum to open an account is $0 across the board. Second, several platforms let you buy ETFs for free. Third, Wealthsimple is the only major Canadian brokerage offering fractional shares at the time of writing.

That last point matters more than most people realize.

Why fractional shares change the math

A share of a popular all-in-one ETF like XEQT trades around $25 to $30. That’s already affordable. But some individual stocks trade much higher. A single share of Shopify or Royal Bank can cost over $100. If you only have $50 to invest this month, you can’t buy a full share of those.

Fractional shares solve this. Instead of buying one whole share, you can buy a dollar amount. Put in $25, and you own $25 worth of that stock, whether that’s 0.3 shares or 0.7 shares. Your money goes to work immediately instead of sitting as uninvested cash.

Wealthsimple supports fractional shares on most Canadian and U.S. stocks and ETFs. If you’re investing small amounts regularly, this feature alone might be worth choosing one platform over another.

At brokerages that don’t offer fractional shares, you’ll need enough cash to buy at least one full share of whatever you’re purchasing. For most ETFs, that’s somewhere between $20 and $100. Not a huge barrier, but worth knowing.

The real minimum isn’t a dollar amount

Here’s something people don’t talk about enough: not everyone is in a position to invest right now, and that’s completely valid.

If you’re carrying high-interest debt, struggling to cover rent, or don’t have an emergency fund yet, putting money into the stock market probably isn’t the move. Investing is for money you won’t need for years. If you might need it next month, it doesn’t belong in a brokerage account.

But if you do have some money you can set aside, even a small amount, the barrier to getting started is much lower than most people assume. You don’t need to wait until you have $1,000 or $5,000 or some other round number that feels “enough.” There is no magic threshold. The right amount to start with is whatever you can genuinely afford to leave alone for a while.

Small amounts still grow

People sometimes wonder whether investing $50 or $100 a month even makes a difference. It does, and the math is straightforward.

If you invest $100 per month and earn an average return of 7% per year (a reasonable long-term assumption for a diversified portfolio), here’s roughly what you’d have:

Years	Total Contributed	Approximate Value	Growth
5	$6,000	$7,150	$1,150
10	$12,000	$17,300	$5,300
20	$24,000	$52,000	$28,000
30	$36,000	$121,000	$85,000

After 30 years, $100 a month turns into over $120,000. More than two-thirds of that is pure growth, not money you put in. That’s compound interest doing the heavy lifting. And the key is that compound interest needs time more than it needs large deposits. Starting with $100 today is worth more than starting with $1,000 five years from now.

This isn’t a promise. Markets go up and down. Some years you’ll see losses. But over long periods, diversified portfolios have historically trended upward, and the earlier you start, the more time that trend has to work in your favour.

The cost of waiting

I started investing at 22. That’s early by most standards. But I still think about the four years between 18 and 22 when I wasn’t investing at all. I was earning money. I had it sitting in a chequing account doing nothing. Those were strong market years too.

The psychological barrier was the problem, not the financial one. I had money. I just didn’t think I had “enough” money, and I didn’t know how to start. If someone had told me I could open an account for free and buy a single ETF for $25, I would have started years earlier.

That’s the real cost of the “$1,000 minimum” myth. It’s not that people can’t afford to invest. It’s that they think they can’t, so they wait. And every month they wait is a month their money isn’t growing.

How to actually start

If you’re convinced you need a complicated plan before you invest your first dollar, you don’t. Here’s a simple path:

1. Pick a brokerage. If you’re starting with small amounts and want the most flexibility, Wealthsimple or Questrade are solid options. If you already bank with one of the big five, their brokerage arm works too. I wrote a full comparison here.

2. Open a TFSA. For most people starting out, a TFSA is the best first account because your gains grow tax-free. You can read more about choosing between a TFSA and RRSP if you’re unsure.

3. Transfer some money in. Whatever feels comfortable. $50, $100, $500. There’s no wrong answer as long as it’s money you won’t need anytime soon.

4. Buy something. A single all-in-one ETF like XEQT or VGRO gives you instant diversification across thousands of companies worldwide. One purchase and you’re invested. I wrote about how these ETFs work and why they’re popular.

5. Set up automatic contributions. Even $50 every payday adds up over time. Automating it means you don’t have to think about it or convince yourself each time.

That’s it. You’re an investor. Not because you crossed some dollar threshold, but because you actually started.