Robinhood might be for you if: You want to trade stocks from your phone for $0 per trade. Robinhood makes trading easy and affordable for investors of all types, from beginners to experts. With educational materials for new investors and unusual perks like an IRA match, Robinhood stands out from the pack as a top investing platform. Read our Robinhood review below to learn more.
Open Account for Robinhood
OnRobinhood'sSecure Website.
Ratings Methodology
Our Rating:
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
4.5/5Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale.5 stars equals Best.4 stars equals Excellent.3 stars equals Good.2 stars equals Fair.1 star equals Poor.We want your money to work harder for you. Which is why our ratings are biased toward offers that deliver versatility while cutting out-of-pocket costs.
= Best
= Excellent
= Good
= Fair
= Poor
Bottom Line
Robinhood is a simple, low-cost brokerage with a few rare perks. What it lacks in customer service it provides in a smooth in-app experience. Without membership, you will lack research resources but still be able to trade affordably. With a membership, you can earn 3% and 1% match on IRA and taxable deposits. The app grows fast -- new perks are being released at a rapid pace.
Fees:
$0 for stocks, ETFs, and options; up to $6.99 monthly for Robinhood Gold
Account Minimum:
$0
Open Account for Robinhood
OnRobinhood'sSecure Website.
Alternatives to Consider
We recommend comparing brokerage options to ensure the account you're selecting is the best fit for you. To make your search easier, here's a short list of our best trading platforms of 2024.
Account | Fees | Account Minimum | |
---|---|---|---|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars. 4.5/5Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale.5 stars equals Best.4 stars equals Excellent.3 stars equals Good.2 stars equals Fair.1 star equals Poor.We want your money to work harder for you. Which is why our ratings are biased toward offers that deliver versatility while cutting out-of-pocket costs. | $0 for stocks, $0 for options contracts | $0 | Open Account for SoFi Active Investing |
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars. 4.5/5Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale.5 stars equals Best.4 stars equals Excellent.3 stars equals Good.2 stars equals Fair.1 star equals Poor.We want your money to work harder for you. Which is why our ratings are biased toward offers that deliver versatility while cutting out-of-pocket costs. | $0 for stocks, ETFs, and options; up to $6.99 monthly for Robinhood Gold | $0 | Open Account for Robinhood |
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars. 4.5/5Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale.5 stars equals Best.4 stars equals Excellent.3 stars equals Good.2 stars equals Fair.1 star equals Poor.We want your money to work harder for you. Which is why our ratings are biased toward offers that deliver versatility while cutting out-of-pocket costs. | Commission-free; other fees apply | $0 | Open Account for E*TRADE |
Full Robinhood review
Robinhood is an affordable discount broker at its core. It's easy to pick up and get started, even if you're totally new to investing. A few features set it apart from your vanilla trading app.
For one thing, its premium membership gives a ton of perks that are actually useful (like deposit match). Its commissions are also highly competitive. And let's not forget about its margin rates, which are some of the lowest we've found!
Our brokerage rating methodology
At The Motley Fool Ascent, brokerages are rated on a scale of one to five stars. We primarily focus on fees, available assets, and user experience; however, we also take into account features like research, education, tax-loss harvesting, and customer service. Our highest-rated brokerages generally include low fees, a diverse range of assets and account types, and useful platform features.
See our full methodology here: Ratings Methodology
My investing experience
I started investing just before the 2020 stock market crash, about four years ago. Safety is important to me. I love brokers that keep things simple and well-insured. Since I'm a long-term investor, I prefer brokers that boost my retirement savings. At the very least, it should be easy for me to customize my retirement portfolio with 25-plus stocks.
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- Our team's experience
- Investment offerings
- Commissions and fees
- Research and education
- Interface and app
- Customer service
- Security
- About
Rare perks: IRA match and 24 hour trades
Brokers tend to look the same these days. Robinhood is a notable exception. It gives two rare perks:
- IRA match: Earn 1% match on IRA deposits. Members earn 3% match on IRA deposits and 1% match on taxable deposits. The catch: It takes five years for the match to vest.
- 24-hour trades: Trade a variety of stocks 24 hours, five days a week. That's great when you're crossing time zones or outside the U.S.
We tried it: Our team's experience
Here at The Motley Fool Ascent, we pride ourselves as real users of most of the products across our site. Writers Cole Tretheway and Brittney Myers use Robinhood -- here are their experiences:
Brittney's review
Of all the investing platforms I've used, few are as easy to navigate as Robinhood, and that goes for desktop and mobile app platforms alike. It's simple to make trades and manage my accounts whenever or wherever the need arises. Robinhood is my go-to place for my recreational investing hobby.
Cole's review
My favorite feature is access to all your notifications in one place. These include buy/sell requests and completions, shareholder updates, and Robinhood app updates. Less fun, it also includes things like margin call warnings. Robinhood feels video-gamey in a good way.
Investment offerings
Robinhood lets you invest in the basics through standard accounts. You can purchase fractional shares of stocks and ETFs for as little as $1 on the platform.
Investments
- Cryptocurrencies
- ETFs
- Fractional shares
- Stocks
Brokerage accounts
- IRA
- Roth IRA
- Traditional brokerage
Robinhood also gives you access to a debit card linked to your spending account.
Optional membership: Robinhood Gold
Robinhood's premium membership hits the mark. There's a clear path to earning back your membership fees (and then some). The perks:
- Higher interest on uninvested cash
- Higher instant deposit limits
- 1% match on taxable deposits
- 3% match on new IRA contributions
- Morningstar research access
- Level II market data
- $1,000 of zero-interest margin
- Robinhood Gold Card access
Read our Robinhood Gold Review
Commissions and fees
Robinhood is one of the lowest-cost brokers around. What it lacks in account types, it makes up for in $0 commissions. It's one of the few brokers that charges $0 per-contract options fees.
Reason | Cost |
---|---|
Stock and ETF trades | $0 |
Options trades | $0 |
Gold membership (optional) | $5 monthly |
Outgoing transfer (ACATS) | $100 |
Outgoing transfer (Wire) | $25 |
Data source: Robinhood
Margin rates
Robinhood gives you hyper-competitive margin rates. The more you borrow, the lower your rate gets. Robinhood Gold members borrow the first $1,000 of margin at a 0% interest rate.
Amount borrowed | Margin rate |
---|---|
Up to $50,000 | 6.75% |
$50,000 up to $100,000 | 6.55% |
$100,000 up to $1 million | 6.25% |
$1 million up to $10 million | 6.00% |
$10 million up to $50 million | 5.95% |
$50+ million | 5.70% |
Data source: Robinhood
Robinhood Promotions
Robinhood sometimes offers promotions that could save you money. Click below to go to our dedicated page covering current Robinhood promotions:
Robinhood Promotions
Research and education
Robinhood gives excellent educational resources to beginners. On Robinhood Learn, users can find many how-to articles and investing term definitions. There's even lots of content on advanced topics, like options trading.
However, if you're looking for in-depth stock research, you can do better than Robinhood. Robinhood tailors its research and educational content to beginners. Only Robinhood Gold members get access to Morningstar research reports, and only on select stocks.
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Interface
Customers who value simplicity love Robinhood's trading platform. Robinhood features both a desktop web portal and a mobile app. Impressively, both are simple in design and easy to use.
Desktop
The desktop interface is great for reading news articles and reviewing Morningstar research. It can also be nice to scroll through your stocks on a big screen, so you can see the ratio of green (good) to red (bad) on a given day.
Be aware that two-factor authentication (2FA) may slow down your desktop login. Although 2FA is great for security, it makes it a little more of a hassle to use Robinhood on desktop. The app is more convenient for most things.
During Robinhood's "Gold Standard" event, CEO Vlad Tenev said that the Robinhood app would change its layout a lot. This is expected to roll out in 2024.
App
Using the Robinhood app is quick and easy. Upon opening the app, you can see your account balance and investments. You can monitor any account in one tap. Tabs along the bottom include "Investing," "Crypto," "IRA," "Spending," and "Profile."
Robinhood has gotten in trouble for "gamifying" its app before. However, it seems to have dialed down these elements.
The Robinhood widget lets you see how your stocks are trending without opening the app. I recommend it, since you might be tempted to frequently open your account otherwise.
Customer service
Customer service reviews are mixed. Robinhood rates decently on the App Store (4.2) and Google Play (4.1). User complaints mostly address the layout, which some find confusing. On Trustpilot, Robinhood scores a 1.2. This is pretty typical for big financial services, though it could be much better. It scores slightly worse than Webull (1.4) and much worse than SoFi (4.6), two of its biggest competitors. Complaints address poor customer service and difficulty reaching out.
You can contact Robinhood customer service one of two ways:
- Phone Monday - Friday between 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET.
- 24/7 online chat
You request a phone call in advance through the app. Or, you can send a chat and wait for a representative to get back to you. This could take a while depending on wait times.
Security
Robinhood takes standard measures to secure your accounts. Your investments are insured by SIPC insurance for up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for cash). If you opt into Robinhood's brokerage sweeps program, your cash moves to partner banks. There, it's FDIC insured up to $2.5 million.
Robinhood scrambles passwords, encrypts personal information, and requires 2FA upon login. These are all standard and important security measures that keep your money safe.
About
Robinhood was founded in April 2013 by Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt. They aimed to democratize investing.
Robinhood's popular trading app launched in March 2015, and was one of the first firms to offer stock trading without commissions. More than 800,000 people were on the waitlist for the app when it launched.
In 2018, Robinhood made its appeal wider by adding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin through Robinhood Crypto. This move made Robinhood one of the first to offer an easy way to buy virtual coins without fees.
In 2021, Robinhood went public in one of the year's most anticipated IPOs. It now trades under the ticker HOOD. As of 2023, more than 10 million people use Robinhood as their primary brokerage.
Robinhood in the news
Robinhood has been the subject of controversy numerous times. While these issues are important for Robinhood to navigate and important for investors, we do believe Robinhood is a solid broker to consider, which is reflected in our overall rating.
Here are some of the serious issues that have arisen:
- In December 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Robinhood with misleading consumers in statements made between 2015 and 2018 and executing trades at inferior prices.
- In December 2020, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts accused the brokerage of gamifying trading, and steering inexperienced traders towards high-risk investments.
- On Jan. 8, 2021, Robinhood froze trading of GameStop and several other stocks that were the subject of intense trading interest, angering many of its customers.
- On June 30, 2021, Robinhood was fined $57 million and ordered to pay around $12.6 million to consumers who had experienced losses due to system outages during a period of market volatility in March 2020.
To be fair, Robinhood has done an excellent job of learning from these incidents. For example, it has done a good job of building its educational library and adding features for long-term investors, such as the availability of IRA investing.
Learn more about Robinhood
Keep reading about Robinhood on these pages:
- Ally Invest vs. Robinhood
- Betterment vs. Robinhood
- Cash App Investing vs. Robinhood
- Charles Schwab vs. Robinhood
- Fidelity vs. Robinhood
- Firstrade vs. Robinhood
- FOREX.com vs. Robinhood
- J.P. Morgan Investing vs. Robinhood
- M1 Finance vs. Robinhood
- Merrill Edge vs. Robinhood
- Public vs. Robinhood
- Robinhood vs. Acorns
- Robinhood vs. E*TRADE
- Robinhood vs. Interactive Brokers
- SoFi Invest vs. Robinhood
- Stash vs. Robinhood
- Stockpile vs. Robinhood
- Tastytrade vs. Robinhood
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- Wealthfront vs. Robinhood
- Webull vs. Robinhood
Review sources
- https://robinhood.com/us/en/invest/
- https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/margin-rates/
- https://cdn.robinhood.com/assets/robinhood/legal/RHF%20Fee%20Schedule.pdf
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/robinhood-investing-for-all/id938003185
- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.robinhood.android&hl=en_US&pli=1
- https://www.trustpilot.com/review/robinhood.com
- https://www.trustpilot.com/review/webull.com
- https://www.trustpilot.com/review/sofi.com
- https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/how-to-contact-support/
- https://robinhood.com/us/en/support/articles/how-youre-protected/
FAQs
Robinhood is a user-friendly broker with minimal fees, but it isn't right for everyone. For one thing, it doesn't offer mutual fund investing, nor does it give standard members access to any stock research reports. Also, it doesn't offer any account types beyond standard brokerage accounts and traditional and Roth IRAs.
Robinhood facilitates cryptocurrency trading on its platform, and there are currently 15 different digital assets available, including Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Stellar Lumens. Plus, Robinhood is one of the few places to buy and sell cryptocurrencies without commissions.