Opening a brokerage account can be one of the easiest and most effective ways to start building wealth.
Whether it’s investing in stocks, ETFs, or other assets, a brokerage account can help you access financial markets and the potential long-term growth they can offer.
But with so many options available, choosing the right brokerage account can be challenging. Some platforms are designed for active traders who want real-time tools and data, while others cater to beginners with simple interfaces and automated features.
This guide breaks down the best brokerage accounts of 2025, categorized by different investing styles:
Let's dive in!
To begin, we will explore some brokerage platforms within the Casual, New Age Investing category. These platforms are typically easy-to-use with modern features, but are not limited to beginner investors.
The first investing app on our list is Robinhood.
Robinhood is most well known for beginning the practice of commission free stock trading, which was revolutionary at the time because other platforms used to charge $7-10 per trade. This has led to Robinhood now having over 25 million funded users. Robinhood is generally viewed as the most “beginner friendly” investing app, but this should not be viewed as a limitation.
But what other features does the platform offer?
For starters, Robinhood has also pioneered the 24-hour market feature, which means users can buy and sell many stocks, options, and ETFs virtually around the clock. The 24 Hour Market operates from 8 PM ET Sunday to 8 PM ET Friday, meaning you can trade whenever you want between these timeframes.
This is a big difference from the normal stock market hours from Monday to Friday 9:30 AM to 4 PM Eastern Time. But note that extended hours trading is not recommended for everyone, and the market is typically more volatile with less participants at these times.
Robinhood has also branched out into crypto, and now supports over 20 different tokens that can be traded on the platform. They don't charge a direct fee for buying or selling crypto either.
You’re able to send and receive tokens like Bitcoin freely too, which makes Robinhood a popular crypto investing app.
For those who are more interested in active trading as opposed to long term investing, this can be done through the free-to-use Robinhood Legend service. Robinhood Legend allows users to customize layouts, view multiple graphs at once, and even analyze assets with detailed metrics.
Robinhood offers a lot more ways to invest, including an unheard of IRA Match on Retirement accounts. Robinhood has continued to revolutionize the industry for the past decade, as they still release new and innovative financial products.
Public is another investing app that offers zero commission stock, ETF, and options trading just like Robinhood. However, there are some noteworthy differences in offerings that Public has.
The key feature that Public offers is their new Alpha AI research tool powered by GPT-4. This tool provides real-time insights and analysis on stocks, ETFs, crypto, and other assets. It is free to use with a Public account, and aims to simplify the investment research process by offering accessible AI-driven insights.
For Options traders, Public offers a unique Options Order Flow Rebate Program, allowing traders to earn between $0.06 and $0.18 per stock or ETF options contract traded.
The rebate amount depends on your current and prior month's trading volume.
Another core difference with Public is that they also do not engage in Payment for Order Flow (PFOF) for stock and ETF trades. This means that Public does not receive compensation from market makers in exchange for routing client trade orders to them.
This is a common practice that Robinhood and many others trading platforms do. Public opts for a more transparent model where you can tip them if you want, without the potential conflicts associated with traditional brokerage compensation models.
Public offers a High-Yield Cash Account that allows you to earn a competitive rate of interest on your uninvested cash. They also offer bond investing accounts, which most other investing apps do not offer.
So while other platforms may allow you to invest into bonds indirectly through EFTs, Public gives you the option to make direct investments into bonds. These bond accounts allow you to purchase a diversified portfolio of corporate bonds, offering a fixed yield of up to 7% as of May 2025 (subject to change).
The final platform we have within the category of Casual New-Age Investing is M1 Finance.
This fintech platform offers a variety of investment account types to suit different financial goals. Users can open Individual and Joint Brokerage Accounts, Traditional, Roth, and SEP IRAs, Trust Accounts, Custodial Accounts, and Crypto Accounts.
The platform utilizes a unique "Pie” based portfolio system, which allows investors to visualize and manage their portfolios in a way that isn’t possible through other investing apps. They also offer professionally built portfolios at no extra cost.
M1 Finance is well-suited for long-term, self-directed investors seeking a blend of automation and control, but there are some monthly fees that may apply.
If your assets are less than $10,000, you will be charged a monthly $3 platform fee. This may be a deterrent for small accounts, but it shouldn’t be a worry if you have been investing for a while.
Keep in mind that you can transfer your brokerage account too.
M1 Finance also offers a High-Yield Cash Account that allows you to earn a competitive APY on your uninvested cash.
This account is FDIC-insured up to $4.75 million.
One final important detail to mention is the Trading Windows associated with M1.
Instead of placing trades throughout the day, M1 Finance offers 2 trading windows per day; a morning and afternoon one. All trades will be placed at these times, so if you’re looking to trade in and out of stocks and other assets at a moment's notice, M1 is not for you.
It’s time to switch gears now and focus on the next category - Active Trading. These brokerage platforms are more advanced, with features geared towards those who place a lot of trades and rely on robust data.
Webull is at the top of our list for the best Active Trading brokerage account. It's designed for active traders who want powerful research tools in an easy-to-use platform which works well on both the app and desktop platform.
Webull offers advanced charting tools, real-time market data, a customizable interface, a seamless multi-platform experience, advanced order types, and coolest of all is their paper trading simulation feature.
The paper trading simulator allows you to practice trading without spending any money, but it’s still tied into the real time market data. This can be a good way to get comfortable with the app or trading strategy before risking any real money.
Webull also has a separate app called Webull Pay, which is focused specifically around cryptocurrency trading.
Moomoo is another popular investing app within the Active Trading category. It was founded in 2018 under the parent company FUTU Holdings, which is a multi billion dollar Fintech Company that trades on the NASDAQ.
Moomoo serves a user base of over 25 million investors across the United States, Singapore, Australia, Japan, Canada, and Malaysia. In addition, they are also available in the Hong Kong market through their sister brand Futubull.
With Moomoo, you can trade U.S. and international stocks, ETFs, and options with no trading commissions. You can even trade in international markets such as Australia, Hong Kong and more, which is not an available option on most other investing apps.
Moomoo offers advanced trading tools, real-time market data, and paper trading, and more. It actually has even more research tools than Webull, making it a more advanced investing app. But the important thing is, the app still remains “user friendly” despite being packed with so much information.
To finish off our category of the best Active Trading Brokers, we have Interactive Brokers or IBKR for short.
Interactive Brokers is a global electronic brokerage firm that provides traders, investors, and institutions with access to over 150 markets worldwide.
Known for its low-cost, high-speed trading platform, it offers a wide range of financial instruments including stocks, options, futures, forex, bonds, and funds—all from a single unified account. So in terms of asset selection and access to global markets, IBKR is really second to none.
What sets IBKR apart is its powerful technology, advanced trading tools, and transparent pricing, making it especially popular among active traders and professionals.
Whether you're an individual investor or managing institutional capital, Interactive Brokers gives you the tools and global reach to trade smarter and more efficiently.
Moving on, we have the final category of “Traditional” brokerage platforms. (To be clear, IBKR could fit in this category too, as they’ve been around since 1982.) These options might not have the fanciest features, but they’ve been doing it the longest and are among the biggest companies.
Fidelity tops this list, offering a wide range of services, including brokerage, mutual funds, retirement planning, and wealth management. With 13 different types of available investment account types, it can be overwhelming to understand.
Here are a few of the most common accounts types:
Fidelity offers fee-free trading for stocks, options and ETFs. They also support other assets such as fixed income funds, direct bond investments, and CDs, which most newer brokerage accounts do not.
Fidelity also has great customer service to assist you in your investing journey if you need them.
Charles Schwab or “Schwab” for short, is a well-known and trusted investment platform that was founded in 1971, which definitely makes it an “old school” company. They offer a wide range of investment account types, and their services are great for both beginners and experienced investors.
Beginners will like the easy to use app and desktop platform, easy to reach customer service, and the ability to go to a physical branch location if assistance is needed. Experienced traders can access the thinkorswim trading platform, which is specifically designed for advanced trading strategies.
However, their user interface may seem a bit dated, as they are an older company after all.
They also offer a variety of banking services, including a checking account with no fees, and strong research and educational resources. So if you want to use a time-tested broker with a ton of features, this may be a strong contender.
