I know I need to address what happened with Robinhood and GameStop last week. I do not agree with the way Robinhood handled things. On the flip side, I understand why Robinhood, Webull, TD Ameritrade, and other brokerages froze the ability to buy GameStop and other stocks involved in the subreddit Wallstreetbets strategy. If you don’t know what I am talking about, click here to read my post explaining what happened. With that out of the way, this blog post is focused on comparing Robinhood, Webull, and M1 Finance as investing platforms.

With the 2020 Pandemic, more people started to look into their finances and plan for the long term. Within the past year alone, hundreds of articles and videos were posted on the topics of Robinhood, Webull, M1 Finance, and investing in the stock market. These new players have been attracting Millennials and Gen Z to their platforms, causing major brokerages like Fidelity and Vanguard to revamp their own fees, services, and apps. As someone who uses all three of these apps to invest, I thought it would be beneficial for my readers to get an unbiased opinion and comparison of these popular investing brokerages.

Best for Beginners

Robinhood revolutionized the game with $0 commissions and free trading. Robinhood’s app was simple and easy to use, aesthetically pleasant, and fun. When you transfer money to your Robinhood Brokerage account, that money (up to $1000) is available for trading immediately, even though the money has not transferred to Robinhood yet. Robinhood even offers a Cash Management Account with a debit card, allowing you to direct deposit, pay bills, send checks, and easily invest in your brokerage account. With their Cash Management Account, there are no transfer fees, no account minimums, no overdraft or foreign transaction fees, and you can use more than 75,000 ATM’s for free.

Furthermore, Robinhood offers Robinhood Gold, a premium account at $5 per month, offering Level II Data Analysis, a margin account, and higher $5000 instant transfers.

At the moment, Robinhood is rated 1/5 stars on the app store. This is because of what is currently happening with Wallstreetbets and brokerages freezing buys of stocks. Prior to this event, it was rated 4/5 stars. Be warned that Robinhood does have frequent outages and is currently under investigation. I will withhold assumptions until we hear more on what happened. Read more about that here. As an alternative for beginner investors, check out CashApp where you get $5 free when you send or receive money through the app. Cash App has a more limited # of stocks you can choose from, but they still have the most popular and well-known companies on their platform.

Best for Day Traders

Webull, a Chinese-owned brokerage, was one of the fastest growing brokerages in 2020, offering 4 free stocks when you sign up through a referral link and deposit your first $100. https://financethrottle.com/Webull

Webull is often compared to Robinhood as a direct competitor. Webull is currently rated #3 in the app store while Robinhood is #1 for downloads. At this time, Webull is rated 3/5 stars in the app store. While Robinhood is easy to use, Webull has the most complicated user experience. It takes a while to get used to, but offers the most data and analysis. Another thing to note is that Webull offers FREE Individual Retirement Accounts while Robinhood does not offer any IRA’s. Furthermore, when you sign up with Webull using my referral link you get a temporary free subscription to Webull’s Level II data analysis. I believe Webull is best for day traders and swing traders as they really like to do their research before investing in a stock or ETF.

Best for Dividend Investing and Long Term Growth

M1 Finance does things a little differently from Robinhood and Webull. The M1 Finance concept revolves around your Portfolio Pie and Long Term Investing. You can create many portfolios and contribute automatically to all or some portfolios. You can even choose from one of several pre-made Portfolios available on M1 Finance. For example, I created a Dividend Investing Portfolio consisting of stocks and ETF’s offering the best dividend yields. If I so choose, I could setup my recurring deposits to automatically invest 5% in Coca-Cola, 50% in VYM Vanguard’s High Dividend Yield ETF, 20% in Exxon Mobil, and 25% in another ETF. I also have a Green Portfolio pie consisting of clean energy companies and a Growth Portfolio Pie consisting of companies that I think will grow 5 to 10 times their current worth within the next 5-10 years.

M1 Finance has three main products. That is the M1 Spend, M1 Borrow, and M1 Invest. The M1 Spend is a 1% APY and 1% cash-back checking account with a debit card, but it requires you to upgrade to M1 Plus for $125 per year. When I signed up with M1 Finance, they gave me a free 1 year subscription to M1 Plus. This is a temporary offer that may or may not be available if you sign up today. M1 Borrow gives you a low APY line of credit giving you more investing options and M1 Invest is where you create and customize your portfolios in your brokerage account or Roth IRA.

With the ability to create and customize Portfolio Pies and setup automatic recurring investments, M1 Finance is easily the best for long term investors and dividend yield investors. They are currently rated 4.5/5 stars in the app store. Support the blog and sign up for M1 Finance through my referral link to receive $30 when you deposit $100 within the first 30 days. This is a Limited Time Offer. https://financethrottle.com/M1Finance

Quick View Comparison

Conclusion

All of these brokerages have something to offer for everyone. It doesn’t hurt to have all three like I do. Personally, I prefer M1 Finance because I am a hands-off long term investor and I don’t have the time to day trade or swing trade. I enjoy the ability to create custom Portfolio Pies and their free Roth IRA was enough to convince me to open up my second Roth IRA account so I could compare its performance to my Betterment Roth IRA. I still use Webull for data analysis and Robinhood for quick price lookups, but I invest most of my money through M1 Finance.

If you’d like to research other options, check out Qapital, Stash, and Acorns with my blog post Top 3 Micro-Investing Apps.

While M1 Finance is my favorite, here is a list of popular competing brokers. Those that are highlighted are rated 4 stars or better in the app store.

• Fidelity Investments
• Firstrade Securities
• Charles Schwab
• Vanguard
• Betterment
• Wealthfront
• Sofi Inc.
• CashApp
• E*Trade
• TD Ameritrade
• Ally Invest
• Tradestation
• TradeUp

Affiliate Link Notice: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you if you decide to purchase or sign up for a product through my referrals. While you can sign up through any other means, it would help support the blog if you sign up through my links. Thanks.