Pay no brokerage fees for stock trades with these best investment apps
You don’t need a broker or financial advisor to invest in stocks. A smartphone and one of these five best investment apps are all you require to get started and manage your trades. Open a new account and start trading in minutes!
Table of contents
5 Best Investment Apps
- Robinhood: Commission-free trades
- Acorns: Spare change investing model
- Betterment: Popular robo-advising tool
- SoFi – Best for beginners
- TD Ameritrade – Best for experienced investors
Best Investment Apps: Our Top Picks
Robinhood – Free Trades
Robinhood makes our best investment apps list due to its ease of use and free trades on options, cryptocurrency and stocks. Research the market from the included investment feed, pull up a stock’s page to learn more about it, then enter an order to buy or sell your choices.
Robinhood doesn’t offer bonds, mutual funds or retirement accounts – in other words, it’s very focused. Customer support is available by email or social media messaging.
Your first $1,000 deposit is instantly credited to your account so you can start trading right away.
Acorns – Automatically Invest Your Spare Change
Acorns believes in making investment easy. After you link your debit or credit card to your Acorns account, the spare change accumulated from rounding up all your purchases to the next dollar amount will automatically transfer to your portfolio. Above all his investing philosophy works well if you are a frequent shopper or find it difficult to save money on your own. However, you do also have the option to deposit additional funds into your account at any time.
Educational offerings include Grow Magazine, which gives personal financial advice to millennials on student loans, side gigs and managing credit card debt.
There is a $1 monthly fee to use the app and the opportunity to pay more for additional features such as an Acorns debit card, a retirement account, or a custodial account for your children. In addition, Acorns gives all new users a $10 bonus.
Betterment – Popular Robo-Adviser
Over the past few years, robo-advising apps have gained in popularity. When you sign up for a Betterment account, you enter your financial information and risk tolerance level, and a computer uses algorithms to choose the best investment that meets your needs. This gives you the advantages of a managed portfolio without the high fees of a financial adviser.
Your Betterment account does not require a minimum balance. You are charged a 0.25% management fee, which is pretty standard.
SoFi – Best for Beginners
SoFi is one of the best investment apps for beginners due to their free advice to help you become a smarter investor. Create a watchlist of stocks you are interested in and check it anytime on the app. This company also holds events for its members throughout the year.
Stock trading is free, and there is no fee for the management of your account. You do not need to maintain a minimum balance and can even open your account with a $1 investment.
SoFi offers trades in cryptocurrency, and their Stock Bits program gives you the opportunity to buy a fractional share in a large company.
TD Ameritrade – Best for knowledgeable investors
If you already know your way around the stock market and want to use an app to manage your trades, TD Ameritrade is your best choice. Whenever you need additional investment guidance, you will find an abundance of educational tools to help you out, including quizzes, videos, blog posts and live seminars on various topics.
TD Ameritrade has no inactivity or annual fees or account minimums. There are plenty of trading options available at TD Ameritrade. Choose from 4,200 no-fee mutual funds, stocks, bonds, futures and options. Unlike other trading apps, in addition to free stock trades, you also do not pay commissions on ETF and options trades either.
Summary
All of these best-investing apps make trading fast, easy and significantly lower in cost than hiring a broker to do it for you. Which one is right for you depends on the type of investor you are and the format that feels the most comfortable for you to use.
Quick Questions
Yes. They are easy to use, charge no fees for stock trades, require no minimum investment to begin and offer quick access to financial advice.
A person new to trading stocks will find the Robinhood and Betterment apps the easiest to use. A beginner looking for automated investing should try out Acorns.
Robo-advisor apps use advanced software and computer algorithms to create investment portfolios for their customers. Because all the tasks are automated, they offer lower fees than traditional portfolio managers.
These investment apps certainly represent the lowest bar to entry for new investors. However, there are other options – check out our guide to the Best Robo Advisors here.
