Franklin Templeton Investments Review
Instead of purchasing Franklin Templeton funds through an outside brokerage firm, eligible investors can open an account directly with the financial company for certain fund and account services. Here are the main details about the company’s direct-fund option:
Account Types
A direct account with Franklin Templeton can be opened online, by mail, or with help from a financial professional. We emphasize “financial professional” here because Franklin Templeton does not run a traditional in-house branch-advisor network like a full-service brokerage company.
A self-directed fund account at Franklin Templeton may have a financial professional connected to it. The account owner is responsible for choosing his own advisor. Franklin Templeton also offers ways to begin directly through its own account-opening process.
The online application
is the simplest option for obvious reasons. Opening an account by regular mail requires sending in
a paper application.
Franklin Templeton supports many account types. These include estate accounts, 529 college savings plans, Individual Retirement Accounts, trusts, custodial accounts, 403(b) plans, and joint accounts.
Several IRA choices are available, including Roth, Traditional, Rollover, Beneficiary, SEP, and SIMPLE. Franklin Templeton also provides Roth conversion and rollover services that can transfer an old employer retirement plan into an IRA.
Investment Choices
A standard direct Franklin Templeton shareholder account is not the same as a full brokerage account. It is mainly designed for Franklin Templeton mutual funds and related account programs rather than for trading individual stocks, options, or outside fund families. Franklin Templeton ETFs and closed-end funds trade on exchanges and generally need to be purchased through a brokerage account. Some Franklin Templeton 529 portfolios may use underlying investments that are not Franklin Templeton mutual funds, but account owners buy the 529 portfolio rather than the underlying securities directly.
During our research, we found a very large set of investment categories on the Franklin Templeton website, although these products are not all purchased in the same account format:
- mutual funds
- ETFs
- closed-end funds
- separately managed accounts
- 529 portfolios
- money market mutual funds
The Franklin Templeton website provides lists of these products. Login credentials are not required to view many of these lists, so guests as well as clients can review the offerings. The investment lists can be filtered by several criteria, including expense ratio, Morningstar rating, and share class. Front-end and back-end loads are displayed for each fund, and a fact sheet can usually be downloaded in pdf format as well.
Selecting an entry opens the asset’s profile page. On that page, more detailed information is available, including reports and performance data.
Fund Examples
During our research, we found the ClearBridge Dividend Strategy Fund. Trading under ticker symbol SOPAX, this mutual fund has 4 stars out of 5 from Morningstar. It is a large-value fund focused on income, dividend growth, and long-term capital appreciation.
According to Franklin Templeton’s profile for this fund, it has a net expense ratio of 1.00%. The fund also carries a front-end load because it is a Class A fund.
We also found FLAU, the Franklin FTSE Australia ETF. As the name indicates, this fund invests in Australian securities. More specifically, it tracks the FTSE Australia RIC Capped Index, also described by Franklin Templeton as the FTSE Australia Capped Index. The ETF holds both large-cap and mid-cap stocks.
Investors who prefer small-cap stocks may want to review the Franklin Small Cap Growth SMA. This separately managed account invests at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of companies with market capitalizations generally below $1.5 billion, or the highest market capitalization in the Russell 2000® Index, whichever is greater, at the time of purchase. Its benchmark is the Russell 2000 Growth Index.
Digital Tools
After an account is opened, the Franklin Templeton website can be used to manage it. Shareholders can view multiple accounts, track investment performance, transfer money, and place trades.
Franklin Templeton also offers a mobile app for Apple and Android phones with
many of the same tools and resources. The current app lets shareholders buy, sell, track, and manage their Franklin Templeton investments, so the company is clearly continuing to maintain the platform.
Education
Franklin Templeton publishes a large library of educational material. This includes articles on basic investing topics, such as:
- What is a Mutual Fund?
- Creating a Financial Plan
- Budgeting 101: It's Easier Than You Think
The site also has more detailed commentary on market news. These resources appear in formats such as podcasts and webinars. In some cases, a login is needed to participate in or access an on-demand resource.
The Franklin Templeton Institute covers a broad range of economic topics. Its articles and podcasts are available online.
More advanced material covers topics ranging from retirement to charitable giving. The company’s website also has tools or links to tools for required minimum distributions (RMDs), Social Security information, getting married, and entering the workforce.
Franklin Templeton Fees
Although Franklin Templeton offers a large amount of educational content, it does not make one simple master fee sheet easy to find for every account type. That is a drawback.
We do know that IRAs have a $10 annual maintenance fee for accounts with balances of $50,000 and over, and this increases to $15 for accounts with balances below $50,000. A Franklin Templeton 403(b) plan includes a $30 recordkeeping fee.
Each fund has its own fee schedule, which usually includes a management fee and may also include a load. It is always wise to read the prospectus for a specific fund before investing. The prospectus will show the fees connected with investing in that fund.
Franklin Templeton Minimums
For investment minimums, many mutual funds require $1,000 to get started, although some share classes available only to qualified investors may have much higher minimums. A separately managed account may require $100,000 or more in some cases.
As with fees, this information will appear in the prospectus and possibly in other fund documents. These documents can be downloaded from the Franklin Templeton website.
Find a Financial Advisor
If you are looking for professional wealth management services in your area, you can easily
find a vetted financial advisor through WiserAdvisor
or read our comprehensive WiserAdvisor review to learn how the platform works.
Customer Service
Franklin Templeton has phone associates available to help clients during weekday business hours. The company is not open on the weekend, so these hours apply only Monday through Friday.
Although Franklin Templeton has offices in several locations, they do not operate like a branch network for walk-in retail customer support.
Franklin Templeton Alternatives
Several online discount brokerage firms offer mutual funds and exchange-traded funds from Franklin
Templeton. These investment firms publish up-front pricing, and many of them offer no-fee IRAs.
Charles Schwab is one example. With Schwab’s fund and ETF screening tools, investors can look for Franklin Templeton products along with products from many other fund families. ETFs and many mutual funds trade commission-free at Schwab.
When other fund families are included, Charles Schwab offers
a much larger overall fund selection, far beyond the more limited lineup available to direct-account customers at Franklin Templeton.
Along with the larger fund selection, Charles Schwab customers can use a wider range of financial services that are not available at Franklin Templeton, including stock and option trading, in-house investment advice, and a broad lineup of bank products.
Franklin Templeton Review Judgment
Franklin Templeton has a solid selection of securities that may be enough for some investors. Still, it is fairly easy to find many, although not all, of these products through a brokerage account elsewhere that offers much more.
Updated on 5/25/2026.
Chad Morris is a financial writer with more than 20 years experience
as both an English teacher and an avid trader. When he isn’t writing
expert content for Brokerage-Review.com, Chad can usually be found
managing his portfolio or building a new home computer.
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