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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 mobile 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 top investment apps are more than investment apps. 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.
Fidelity is one of the largest and one of the most well-rounded brokerages available in the US today. Importantly, Fidelity offers $0 commission for online stock and ETF trades, plus a high-quality mobile app that's good for both beginners and seasoned investors.
$0 commission for online U.S. stock and ETF trades
$0
Get $100 when you open a new account
On Fidelity's Secure Website.
Robinhood's user-friendly mobile app allows trading in stocks, ETF's, options, cryptocurrencies, and fractional shares, all with $0 commissions.
$0 for stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies
$0
On Robinhood's Secure Website.
SoFi is a great lending, investing, saving, and personal finance app all rolled into one, making it a good fit for handling your money needs under one roof.
$0 for stocks, $0 for options contracts
$0
On SoFi Active Investing's Secure Website.
Ally combines investment and personal financial accounts in one easy-to-use app.
$0 stock and ETF trades
$0
TD Ameritrade's mobile platforms -- the standard app and the thinkorswim trading platform -- are among the most feature-packed in the industry.
$0 online commissions for stocks, ETFs, and options ($0.65 per contract)
$0
On TD Ameritrade's Secure Website.
Betterment helped pioneer the robo-advisors business, and remains one of the best options.
$0 per trade, management fee 0.25%
$10
Webull offers a user-friendly stock investing platform with more features than some of its rivals, including cheap margin rates.
$0 per trade
$0
On Webull's Secure Website.
Few stock brokers have a mobile app that closely resembles the robust features and capabilities of their online experiences. Schwab bucks that trend. Importantly, accountholders can manage all of their standard accounts via the app, including IRAs, taxable brokerage, and bank accounts.
$0 stock and ETF trades
$0
A great budgeting, net worth tracking, and financial advisor platform in one. Users can link all their financial accounts, including banks, brokerages, and even an employer's 401(k). It offers excellent retirement planning tools and other analytical features, all for free.
Free to download and use tracking tools, 0.49% to 0.89% advisory fee, based on balance
$0 for the app, $100,000 for advisor services
tastyworks is laser-focused on options investing and its app is well-suited to options traders. Its feature-rich order entry platform helps is versatile enough on mobile for actions you'd otherwise want to take through its other trading platforms.
$0 for stocks, $1 per option contract (opening trades only)
$0
One of the best robo-advisors for low costs and diverse investing needs, with an excellent mobile app to boot.
$0 per trade, management fee 0.25%, expense ratio 0.05%-0.29%
$500
A solid pick for investors that want to put their savings and investments on cruise control. Acorns' approach to automatically rounding up purchases is a simple way to start investing.
$1-$5 monthly
$0
On Acorns' Secure Website.
M1 Finance packs in robust investing and banking needs within a simple-to-use-app. What's more, there's no account management fee.
$0 commissions and no management fee. 0.06%–0.20% fund expense ratio
$100
TIP
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Best for: Stocks, ETFs, options, cryptocurrency, and fractional-share investing
Robinhood is a user-friendly platform that gives you access to a variety of common investment vehicles. Its cash management feature pays interest on cash balances. 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. The company has also taken a hit for its handling of the GameStop (GME) frenzy in January 2021.
Best for: Hands-off investors putting their investing on cruise control with a robo-advisor
Betterment was one of the pioneers in the robo-advisory space, and it's still one of the best options 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 app is one of the highest-rated in the business.
Best for: Investors who want a feature-packed brokerage and an excellent mobile trading app
TD Ameritrade offers two mobile apps, and customers can connect their accounts to one or both of them. TD Ameritrade's standard app is the simpler of the two and the best place to start. It's a user-friendly platform for checking accounts and buying and selling stocks. The other option, thinkorswim, is designed for active traders and has nearly as much functionality as the award-winning desktop platform of the same name.
TD Ameritrade's packed feature set rivals the best stock brokers in the market. Customers can open almost any type of account and access a vast library of educational resources and stock research. For passive investors, TD Ameritrade has one of the best robo-advisor platforms. It also has nearly 2,000 no-transaction-fee mutual funds. Plus, the thinkorswim platform has an excellent practice "paper money" function.
Standard TD Ameritrade mobile app
thinkorswim mobile app
Best for: Managing your money needs within one app
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:
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 cryptocurrencies and traditional securities. The best part? All of these features are available through a single, highly-rated app.
Best for: Mobile app trading platform
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 mobile investing apps for hands-on beginners.
Best for: Investors who want a great mobile experience with all the features Fidelity has to offer
Fidelity's investing platform is user friendly and highly customizable. Through the 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 brokerage apps to facilitate trading on international markets.
Best for: Investing app for IRAs
Charles Schwab offers a solid app 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.
Best for: Budgeting app for investors
Personal Capital doesn't offer a brokerage account or a robo-advisor. Instead, it's a budgeting, net worth tracking, and financial advisory platform to support your investing strategy. You can link all your financial accounts, including banks, brokerages, and even an employer's 401(k). The app gives a single-screen view of your entire financial life. It offers excellent retirement planning tools and other analytical features, all for free. The company makes its money by selling the services of its human financial advisors. But the free side of the business (including the app) is fantastic on its own.
Best for: Experienced investors interested in mobile options trading
tastyworks 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 tastyworks app puts all the most popular options tradingstrategies 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 tastyworks, and it doesn't have as many features as all-purpose investing apps. For those reasons, it's not designed for new investors. If your focus is options trading, tastyworks is hard to beat.
Best for: Keeping your finances all in one place
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 investment app. You can also access a number of features, including:
In short, Ally is a great financial app that also has impressive investing functionality. It's one of the best personal investment apps for people who want to keep their banking and investing in one user-friendly place.
Best for: Automated investing
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.
Best for: Beginning investors to put savings and investments on cruise control
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. The 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.
Best for: Self-directed investing, stocks, ETFs, fractional-share trading, banking, line of credit
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. 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.
In the list above, we've included an array of 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 app tailored to your situation, check out our list of best online stock brokers for beginners.
Mutual fund options can be tough to find when you're browsing online stock brokers and 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.
Many online stock brokers and 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.
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 investment apps have over investment advisors and financial planners is cost. They 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.
Here are some great reasons why you should consider using an investment app (or several).
And here are three major downsides to watch out for when choosing an investment app.
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:
We're here to help. Read our expert reviews and compare top brokerage accounts to find the best trading platform for your needs.
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?
Here are six things to look for when you're choosing an investing app:
Broker/Advisor | Best For | Commissions | Next Steps | |
---|---|---|---|---|
![]()
Rating image, 5.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 5.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Full-featured broker |
Commission:
$0 commission for online U.S. stock and ETF trades |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
$0 commissions |
Commission:
$0 for stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Managing your money needs with one app |
Commission:
$0 for stocks, $0 for options contracts |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Combined investment and banking needs |
Commission:
$0 stock and ETF trades |
|
![]()
Rating image, 5.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 5.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Mobile app trading platform |
Commission:
$0 online commissions for stocks, ETFs, and options ($0.65 per contract) |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Robo-advisor investing app |
Commission:
$0 per trade, management fee 0.25% |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Mobile app trading platform |
Commission:
$0 per trade |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Investing app for IRAs |
Commission:
$0 stock and ETF trades |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Tracking all your finances in one app |
Commission:
Free to download and use tracking tools, 0.49% to 0.89% advisory fee, based on balance |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.0 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Options investing app |
Commission:
$0 for stocks, $1 per option contract (opening trades only) |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Robo-advisor app |
Commission:
$0 per trade, management fee 0.25%, expense ratio 0.05%-0.29% |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Beginning investors |
Commission:
$1-$5 monthly |
|
![]()
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.
|
Best For:
Investing and banking in one |
Commission:
$0 commissions and no management fee. 0.06%–0.20% fund expense ratio |
Our Brokerages Experts
We're firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.
Betterment disclaimers
†Betterment Cash Reserve ("Cash Reserve") is offered by Betterment LLC. Clients of Betterment LLC participate in Cash Reserve through their brokerage account held at Betterment Securities. Neither Betterment LLC nor any of its affiliates is a bank. Through Cash Reserve, clients' funds are deposited into one or more banks ("Program Banks") where the funds earn a variable interest rate and are eligible for FDIC insurance. Cash Reserve provides Betterment clients with the opportunity to earn interest on cash intended to purchase securities through Betterment LLC and Betterment Securities. Cash Reserve should not be viewed as a long-term investment option.
Funds held in your brokerage accounts are not FDIC‐insured but are protected by SIPC. Funds in transit to or from Program Banks are generally not FDIC‐insured but are protected by SIPC, except when those funds are held in a sweep account following a deposit or prior to a withdrawal, at which time funds are eligible for FDIC insurance but are not protected by SIPC. See Betterment Client Agreements for further details. Funds deposited into Cash Reserve are eligible for up to $1,000,000.00 (or $2,000,000.00 for joint accounts) of FDIC insurance once the funds reach one or more Program Banks (up to $250,000 for each insurable capacity—e.g., individual or joint—at up to four Program Banks). Even if there are more than four Program Banks, clients will not necessarily have deposits allocated in a manner that will provide FDIC insurance above $1,000,000.00 (or $2,000,000.00 for joint accounts). The FDIC calculates the insurance limits based on all accounts held in the same insurable capacity at a bank, not just cash in Cash Reserve. If clients elect to exclude one or more Program Banks from receiving deposits the amount of FDIC insurance available through Cash Reserve may be lower. Clients are responsible for monitoring their total assets at each Program Bank, including existing deposits held at Program Banks outside of Cash Reserve, to ensure FDIC insurance limits are not exceeded, which could result in some funds being uninsured. For more information on FDIC insurance please visit www.FDIC.gov. Deposits held in Program Banks are not protected by SIPC. For more information see the full terms and conditions and Betterment LLC's Form ADV Part II.
**The annual percentage yield ("APY") on the deposit balances in Betterment Cash Reserve ("Cash Reserve") is 4.00% and represents the weighted average of the APY on deposit balances at the banks participating in Cash Reserve (the "Program Banks") and is current as of Feb. 6, 2023. This APY is variable and subject to change daily. Deposit balances are not allocated equally among the participating Program Banks. A minimum deposit of $10 is required, but there is no minimum balance required to be maintained. The APY available to a customer may be lower if that customer designates a bank or banks as ineligible to receive deposits. APY applies only to Cash Reserve and does not apply to checking accounts held through Betterment Checking. Cash Reserve and Betterment Checking are separate offerings and are not linked accounts.
For Cash Reserve (“CR”), Betterment LLC only receives compensation from our program banks; Betterment LLC and Betterment Securities do not charge fees on your CR balance.
Robinhood disclosure
This advertisement contains information and materials provided by Robinhood Financial LLC and its affiliates (“Robinhood”) and Publisher, a third party not affiliated with Robinhood. All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. Securities offered through Robinhood Financial LLC and Robinhood Securities LLC, which are members of FINRA and SIPC. Publisher is not a member of FINRA or SIPC.
Robinhood crypto disclosure
This advertisement contains information and materials provided by Robinhood Financial LLC, Robinhood Securities LLC and its affiliates (“Robinhood”) and Publisher, a third party not affiliated with Robinhood. All investments involve risk and the past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. Securities offered through Robinhood Financial LLC, a member of FINRA and SIPC and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc. Cryptocurrency trading offered through Robinhood Crypto LLC. Robinhood Crypto and Publisher are not a members of FINRA or SIPC and cryptocurrencies are not stocks and your cryptocurrency investments are not protected by either FDIC or SIPC insurance.
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