Just Buy Guide
Which all-in-one ETF should I just buy?
A neutral guide to eight Canadian all-in-one ETFs across three allocation tiers: 100% equity, 80/20 growth, and 60/40 balanced. Use the profile tool below to map your situation to a category.
Suits long horizons (15+ years) and high drawdown tolerance. Maximum expected long-run return, deepest drawdowns.
Canada's most-bought all-equity ETF. Lowest MER, highest liquidity, quarterly distributions.
Read the guide →Same strategy as XEQT, one key edge: a single annual distribution that simplifies ACB tracking in non-registered accounts.
Read the guide →A factor-tilted all-in-one, not a passive index. Only the right choice if you've already decided you want factor exposure.
Read the guide →Suits medium-to-long horizons (8-20 years). A 20% bond sleeve smooths drawdowns modestly without sacrificing most of the equity return.
Suits shorter horizons (5-15 years) or lower drawdown tolerance. A 40% bond sleeve provides meaningful capital cushion at the cost of lower expected return.
Not sure which tier fits you?
Answer six questions. The tool maps your answers to an allocation category and shows example ETFs in that category. Output is a category, not a recommendation.
When do you plan to start drawing down this money?
Compare side-by-side
Already narrowed down to two or three? These comparisons put them in one table, with the trade-offs called out.
Two functionally similar all-equity ETFs with essentially matched MERs. The decision usually comes down to distribution frequency and account-type fit.
Open the comparison →XEQT vs CAGEPassive cap-weighted vs systematic factor-tilted. Two different bets on what drives long-run equity returns.
Open the comparison →All three in one table, with an interactive cost-vs-premium chart for the factor-vs-passive trade-off.
Open the 3-way →Why does splitting matter at all?
All-in-one ETFs are convenient by design. That convenience has two costs. First, the ETF's MER is higher than the weighted average of its underlying components, because the fund company charges for bundling and automatic rebalancing. Second, all-in-one ETFs hold US equity through Canadian-dollar wrappers, which means they pay US withholding tax on dividends even inside an RRSP, tax that would be eliminated if you held the US ETF directly.
At $500,000, the combined drag can be $500-$1,000 per year depending on the ETF and your account mix. Each leaf page above shows the exact numbers for that ETF at common portfolio sizes. The ETF Split Calculator shows your specific situation.