Best Investment Apps for December 2023

You don't need a full-service stock broker or financial advisor to help manage your investments. In fact, you don't even need a computer. Excellent investment apps make it easy to buy and sell stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and other investments right from your phone -- from anywhere. There are apps for beginners and experienced investors, for active trading and hands-off automation. Some even offer robust features like stock analysis and research.

The best investing apps are more than apps to buy stocks. While some apps in this list are dedicated to that purpose, some go beyond investing and bring together your full financial picture in one place where you can set up banking and loans through the same app. Whatever your financial needs, there's an app for you. Here's our list of the best investment apps.

Three featured picks from our best investment apps

There are a lot of options to compare, even on this page. It can be overwhelming! If you're looking for a place to start, here are three investment apps our experts recommend and why they like them:

• Robinhood: Standout mobile brokerage app
• SoFi Active Investing: All-in-one banking and investing app
• Fidelity: Extensive investing research tools

How to choose the best investment app

There are are a few things we like to look for when choosing an investing app:

• Diverse investment options
• Low or no fees
• Affordable account minimum
• Educational resources
• User-friendly platform

SoFi Active Investing

Best for:

Investors managing your money needs within one app

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

SoFi, short for Social Finance, sets out to be an all-in-one financial community. The company is best known for its lending business, which includes:

• Mortgages
• Personal loans
• Credit cards

It also offers a high-yield savings account and an investment option called SoFi Active Invest. You can use the platform for active trading or automated investing. Unlike many financial tech companies, SoFi lets you invest in traditional and Roth IRAs as well as traditional securities. The best part? All of these features are available through a single, highly-rated app.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.8/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.0/5 stars

Robinhood

Best for:

Stocks, ETFs, options, cryptocurrency, and fractional-share investing

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Robinhood is a user-friendly platform that gives you access to a variety of common investment vehicles. It pays interest on cash balances and also offers no-commission options and cryptocurrency trading. A Robinhood Gold premium membership for $5 a month gives you access to Morningstar stock research reports and $1,000 of interest-free margin.

On the downside, the app offers few educational tools, no advanced trading tools, no mutual funds, and no IRAs.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.2/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.0/5 stars

Fidelity

Best for:

Investors who want a great mobile experience with all the features Fidelity has to offer

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Fidelity's investing platform is user friendly and highly customizable. Through the online investment app, users can set up a customized news feed, view stock research, and even deposit checks and pay bills. Plus, it's one of only a few money investment apps to facilitate trading on international markets.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.8/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.2/5 stars

Ally Invest

Best for:

Keeping your finances all in one place

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Ally Invest's mobile app combines a few vital financial services in one easy-to-use app. You can buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and mutual funds through this money investment app. You can also access a number of features, including:

• Ally's Managed Portfolios robo-advisory service
• A high-yield savings account
• Checking accounts
• CDs
• Mortgages
• Auto loans
• Personal loans

In short, Ally is a great financial app that also has impressive investing functionality. It's one of the best stock investing apps for people who want to keep their banking and investing in one user-friendly place.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.7/5 stars
• Android rating: 3.8/5 stars

Betterment

Best for:

Hands-off investors putting their investing on cruise control with a robo-advisor

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Betterment was one of the pioneers in the robo-advisory space, and it's still one of the best stock investing apps in the business. Betterment will craft an age- and risk-appropriate portfolio to help you meet your long-term goals. It charges a low management fee and has no minimum balance. It offers tax-loss harvesting, which is rare for low-balance brokers. You can also use a cash management account to earn interest on your idle cash. Betterment is a fantastic choice for beginner and intermediate investors, and its user-friendly money investment app is one of the highest-rated in the business.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.7/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.5/5 stars

Webull

Best for:

Mobile app trading platform

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Webull is a mobile-based trading platform with considerably more functionality than most of its rivals. There are no account minimums, and customers can trade stocks and options commission free. For investors who use margin, Webull has some of the lowest rates in the industry. New investors can take advantage of Webull's virtual trading "play money" feature as they learn. This makes it one of the best apps to invest in stocks for hands-on beginners.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.7/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.4/5 stars

Charles Schwab (Schwab Mobile)

Best for:

Investing app for IRAs

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Charles Schwab offers one of the best stock investment apps for IRA investing as well as for all your routine investing and banking needs. You can manage a diverse array of account needs on the go. Compare that to many other stock brokers, which offer apps with slimmed-down feature sets that require you to manage your account online to take advantage of all features. Importantly for IRA account holders, you can make annual deposits and withdraw funds for your required minimum distributions (RMD) or other needs, along with paying taxes on those withdrawals.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.8/5 stars
• Android rating: 3.7/5 stars

Tastytrade

Best for:

Experienced investors interested in mobile options trading 

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Tastytrade is one of the brokers that made options trading accessible to retail investors. While it offers other types of investments, including cryptocurrencies, options are still its forte. The Tastytrade app puts all the most popular options trading strategies at your fingertips, including strangles, straddles, and iron condors. It also lets you view a trading activity feed and follow the moves of traders you like.

There is a learning curve to Tastytrade, and it doesn't have as many features as all-purpose money investment apps. For those reasons, it's not designed for new investors. If your focus is options trading, Tastytrade is hard to beat.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.8/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.6/5 stars

Wealthfront

Best for:

Automated investing

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Wealthfront is a robo-advisor with one of the highest-rated investment apps. It provides automated investment portfolios with low management fees. It has some excellent features, like Path, which analyzes the impact of investment decisions on your long-term financial health. Customers can also contribute to a high-yield savings account with debit card access. Wealthfront is a rare robo-advisor that offers a 529 college savings account, and it offers a low interest portfolio line of credit to customers with $25,000 or more in their accounts.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.8/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.5/5 stars

Acorns

Best for:

Beginning investors to put savings and investments on cruise control

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

Acorns automates investing by rounding up each purchase you make with a connected credit or debit card and investing that spare change in one of five investment portfolios. Their stock investment app is simple to use, as evidenced by its high user ratings. What's more, Acorns has straightforward and transparent pricing and offers a checking account with a debit card.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.7/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.6/5 stars

M1 Finance

Best for:

Self-directed investing, stocks, ETFs, fractional-share trading, banking, line of credit

Why it made the list of best investing apps:

M1 Finance is built for self-directed investors. You start by customizing your portfolio with stocks (including fractional shares) and ETFs, or choosing an expert-designed portfolio. You can answer questions about your financial goals and use M1's tools to make investment choices. M1 shows you the balance of your portfolio with its "Pie" interface, which helps you easily see the performance of each stock or ETF. A minimum initial investment of $100 is required to get started ($500 for IRAs). After that, you can fund your account with as little as $10 at a time. M1 also offers a banking account called M1 Spend, an FDIC-insured checking account with no monthly fee and no minimum balance.

App store ratings:

• iOS rating: 4.7/5 stars
• Android rating: 4.5/5 stars

Best investment apps for beginners

In the list above, we've included an array of good investing apps, some for beginners and some for experienced investors, some for hands-on investing and some for set-it-and-forget-it investors.

If you're brand new to investing and want to use an online investment app tailored to your situation, check out our list of best investment apps for beginners.

Best mutual fund brokers

Mutual fund options can be tough to find when you're browsing online stock brokers and online investment apps. Many of these apps focus on more hands-off securities like ETFs and don't give you the option to invest in mutual funds.

If you know you want mutual funds to be part of your portfolio, find the best stock broker for you on our list of best stock brokers for mutual funds.

Best cryptocurrency investment apps

Many online stock brokers and online investment apps have gotten with the program and added cryptocurrency options to their platforms. But these are usually limited to a fraction of the available currencies and won't likely satisfy you if you're an experienced crypto investor (or want to dive in deeper).

Our list of the best cryptocurrency apps and exchanges includes some of the most popular apps dedicated solely to crypto trading, so you can choose from among hundreds of currencies instead of a handful.

Are stock investment apps worth it?

Is it worth your time and money to get started with an investment app when you could probably sign up for your employer's retirement plan and talk to a local financial planner about where to put your money? For a lot of people, the answer is yes, but whether it makes sense for you depends on your unique circumstances and financial goals.

The advantage most investing apps have over investment advisors and financial planners is cost. A good investing app will tend to come with far lower fees than working with a human advisor, and some are even mostly free to use.

The other advantage investment apps have is automation. For low or no fees, you can set your money on autopilot and let it grow without your time or effort.

If you prefer hands-on investing, you might want to go with a more traditional broker. And if you like personalized service or want to support businesses in your community, a local advisor might be a good choice for you instead of a robo-advisor.

Pros and cons of investing apps

Here are some great reasons why you should consider using an app to invest in stocks (or several).

Pros

• Plan for retirement without learning complicated investment strategies.
• Put your money on autopilot for hands-off investing.
• Track and manage investments on the go.
• Get a snapshot of your finances in a single app.
• Integration with banking and loans.
• Built-in educational resources.

And here are three major downsides to watch out for when choosing an investment app.

Cons

• Lack of access to or connection with a human advisor.
• Fees could be a high percentage of assets for micro investors.
• Hit-or-miss customer support.

What investments are offered with online investment apps?

No investment app offers all of these (at least, we haven't found one yet) like some of the best stock brokers do. But here are some of the types of investments you can buy and sell with investment apps:

• Individual stocks
• Bonds
• Mutual funds
• Exchange-traded funds (ETFs)
• Futures
• Cryptocurrencies
• Automated portfolios
• Foreign currencies
• Precious metals
• Fine art

How much should you invest?

How much money do you need to start investing? That depends on your long-term goals. You can find a broker or investment app that caters to any amount you want to invest. So, instead ask, "What do you want your investments to do for you?"

A general rule of investing is to start ASAP. Your money grows more the longer you leave it in an investment account, so it doesn't help you to wait until you've saved thousands of dollars to make your first investment.

If you just have a few dollars to spare each week or month, you can start with a micro investing app like Acorns. If you have a few hundred, you can start with a beginner-friendly app with more features, like Wealthfront or Betterment.

Before you decide how much you want to invest, set some financial priorities. Make sure you pay off debt first, build an emergency fund of liquid savings, and create a budget to cover your everyday expenses.

Learn more: How much money do you need to start investing?