Vanguard is one of the best brokerages for passive investors who want to buy low-cost index fund ETFs. It also offers thousands of no-transaction-fee mutual funds, and excellent zero-commission options for buying stocks online, with no account minimums for brokerage accounts. Vanguard tries to keep its costs and expense ratios low so investors (like you) can keep more of your returns. Interactive Brokers offers two primary plans—IBKR Lite and IBKR Pro—and both have no account minimums and zero maintenance fees.
- And Robinhood recently launched their IRA account, allowing you to invest in a retirement account within the app.
- Advanced traders will find a powerful lineup of algorithmic trading features in Interactive Brokers’ pre-built algos, a laundry list of API languages, available algorithmic paper trading accounts, and so much more.
- To find the best online brokerage for beginners, Investopedia independently collected numerous key data points from 18 leading online brokerage firms.
- Algorithmic trading, also known as algorithms, is included with Pro accounts.
- In recent years, many online brokers have invested significant time and money into making the user experience as seamless as possible.
- Some brokers offer highly customizable downloadable platforms with in-depth analysis tools, or access to additional research and data for an extra cost.
Navigating the investment waters: Risk assessment and portfolio diversification
Charles Schwab is one of the largest online brokerage firms and is a great choice for beginning investors or traders. The company has no account minimums and offers a wide range of account types, including brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, and custodial accounts. Users get access to many financial instruments, such as stocks, options, bonds, ETFs, and futures.
Tools, education and research
This conflict of interest affects our ability to provide you with unbiased, objective information about the services of Atomic Invest. This could mean that the services of another investment adviser with whom we are not engaged could be more appropriate for you than Atomic Invest. Advisory services through Atomic Invest are designed to assist clients in achieving a favorable outcome in their investment portfolio.
You don’t need to worry about picking individual stocks or understanding complex financial terms—the app does that for you. Robinhood also provides educational resources through its “Snacks” news feed, which offers bite-sized financial updates and investing tips in everyday language, helping beginners stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. It’s a comprehensive financial service provider, giving you access to a variety of account types, including the Schwab Bank Investor Checking™ account, CDs, and credit cards. For personalized help managing your accounts, Schwab also has over 300 branches across the country. While the interface isn’t as clean or modern as that of other brokers, it gets the job done.
Fidelity is one of the largest and most-trusted brokers in the U.S., with over $3 trillion in assets and over 7,000 stocks and ETFs to choose from (including zero-fee index funds). He has worked for financial advisors, institutional investors, and a publicly-traded fintech company. M1 Finance stands out for its unique investment approach — it helps investors visualize their portfolios as a pie, with “slices” made up of different securities. The mix of automation and manual investing will appeal to beginner investors who want to grow their skills and long-term investors who want help maintaining their portfolio allocation.
NerdWallet’s Best Brokers for Beginner Investors: Top Picks for 2025
Most other fees can be sidestepped by simply choosing a broker that doesn’t charge them, or by opting out of services that cost extra. Common fees to watch out for include annual fees, inactivity fees, trading platform subscriptions and extra charges for research or data. Hands-on testing of the account funding process, provider websites and stock trading platforms. Opening your first brokerage account with a trusted bank or investment platform is the first step.
- However, the platform faced criticism in 2020 due to system outages during periods of market volatility and in 2021 for freezing trades on GameStop during the stock’s highly publicized rally.
- To help you get started, we’ve reviewed over 45 brokers to find the best beginner options, with many folks on our team actual users of these platforms themselves.
- These are ways you can grow your money beyond collecting interest in a savings account.
- They offer transparency and freedom when considering costs and investment options.
For example, robo-advisors are likelier to include low-maintenance investment features like automatic rebalancing, tax-loss harvesting, and dividend reinvesting. Brokerage accounts are insured by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Like FDIC insurance for bank accounts, SIPC will refund you up to $500,000 per account if the brokerage fails or goes bankrupt.
Best Robo-Advisor Onboarding: Fidelity Go
Before investing, consider your investment objectives and the fees and expenses charged. Custodial and clearing services used by Atomic Brokerage can be found on its BrokerCheck report. J.P. Morgan earns high marks from our reviewers for its customer service, a key factor for beginner investors.
You expect the commission-free trading of stocks and ETFs (and Public offers that) but when you open a brokerage account you usually don’t expect everything Public has to offer. There’s features like themes that help categorize stocks in a more user-friendly manner, fractional trading so you can invest in pieces and a whole social aspect to Public with a community of traders. All these factors are worth considering before choosing an online broker. Do you want a great mobile app to check your portfolio wherever you are? For more support on how to choose a broker, you can check out our guide to choosing a stock broker. Once you’ve made a decision on a broker, you can refer to our guide to opening a brokerage account.
To help you get started, we’ve reviewed over 45 brokers to find the best beginner options, with many folks on our team actual users of these platforms themselves. If you’re looking for an investing platform built with beginners in mind, Robinhood could be a solid option. Its interface is beginner-friendly and you can select from preset layouts or customize them to fit your needs.
Other Options: Top robo-advisors
Since 2009, we’ve helped over 20 million visitors research, compare, and choose an online broker. Our writers have collectively placed thousands of trades over their careers. With close to a decade of writing and editing experience, Maisha specializes in service journalism and has produced work in the lifestyle, financial services, real estate, and culture spaces.
How much money do I need to start investing?
Companies administer these plans according to internal rules, and some are only best online brokers for beginners open to company employees. You need to contact companies to find out whether they offer a direct stock purchase plan and what the terms and conditions are. These plans initially helped investors avoid brokerage fees, but the rise of online discount brokers with zero fees has removed this barrier, making the direct stock purchase plan somewhat of a relic. For beginners and experienced investors alike, educational resources are a way to continue improving their knowledge and strategies.
They offer an intuitive platform, transparent pricing and access to advice and resources to help you learn about the world of investing. The most effective platforms for beginners prioritize simple interfaces, clear instructions and accessible features like fractional shares. This allows users to invest with small amounts while learning how markets work in real time.