When it comes to investing as a beginner, simplicity is key.
At least that belief is what Public and Robinhood were founded on. Both platforms make it easy for new investors to get involved with clean and crisp apps, no account minimums and no commission fees.
Both apps put the power of investing into the hands of normal individuals without finance backgrounds or exorbitant amounts of cash. These apps allow users to get the full experience without risking their life savings.
Apps like these are changing the investing landscape and will continue to push out new advancements to continue their legacy of looking out for the little guy!
Here's our full breakdown of Robinhood vs Public.
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Robinhood Review 2020: Best Investing App? |
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Open A Robinhood Account Here | |
Public Brokerage Review 2020: Best Investing App? |
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Invest With Public |
Public is a social investing app that allows new investors to enter the stock market with no account minimums and no commissions.
This app also offers fractional shares meaning that you can invest in companies using dollar amounts and not number of shares.
Public also makes it easy to collaborate with other investors who share a passion for watching their money grow. Connect and chat with friends and meet new investors while analyzing investment opportunities.
This brokerage aims to make investing easy and social. The investment themes or prebuilt portfolios are a plus too!
Public, like many other new age investing platforms, offers investing to all with no account minimums.
You can invest any amount to start and have the same benefits as those starting out with $10,000. This offering means that the playing field has been leveled for retail investors.
Likewise, hefty commission fees reserved the investing field for the wealthy, or at least those who could afford to pay a fee each time they made a trade. Not anymore.
Fees have essentially been waved on all investment platforms, including Public, meaning you’ll never have to worry about paying the company for all the trades you make.
This feature is, in my opinion, one of the greatest revolutions in modern day investing.
With fractional shares, gone are the days that require investors to have the full amount of a stock before they purchase. Now, with Public, you can invest as little as $5 into a company without the need to purchase the whole stock.
Keep in mind however, that this does not reduce the risk of purchasing a stock as your returns will be the same as they would be with the full stock. However, this does allow you to allocate your portfolio differently.
Purchasing smaller dollar amounts of a lot of companies reduces your risk when compared to only owning a couple stocks. This is part of having a diversified portfolio.
With Public, you can choose from over 5,000 stocks/ETFs in which to invest. These all come with no commissions and you can even sort through categories of stocks instead of searching for individual corporations.
Included with a description of the company is information like trends, comments, and company history. It also includes list of subsidiary companies that the company owns. This allows you to be relatively informed before making an investment decision.
Public also offers investment themes, which are essentially prebuilt portfolios that are free to invest in. This is one area that makes them stand out against Robinhood.
Some of these themes include...
Public stands out from the crowd with its social features. Connect with and follow your favorite investors and friends. See where they have invested and chat about their decisions.
Similar to a standard social media offering, you will see a feed of consistently updating actions taken by other investors.
Investors who are new to the game might be intimidated by this knowing that everyone can see your stock moves, but this is a great chance to get feedback on your strategy from advanced and seasoned investors.
Although there are no commission fees, the saying "there’s no such thing as a free lunch" is still true.
Here are some fees to be aware of with Public:
Robinhood, the classic investment app without account balances or commissions was founded in 2013 and is the pioneer of this new investing era. Robinhood believes investing shouldn’t be a sport for the elite, instead, it should be available and accessible to everyone.
This brokerage is known to have one of the cleanest looking apps. Users love Robinhood’s interface because it contains the right amount of data that the average investor will need. However, advanced investors may find it is a bit limiting over time.
This brokerage aims to be the most attractive and user friendly app out there for commission free trades.
Robinhood was one of the first, but certainly not the last. Like mentioned above with Public, almost all investing platforms now allow users to come and go as they please without worrying about having enough to begin investing.
However, if you are interested in more advanced investing, there is an account minimum of $2,000 to open a margin account.
Robinhood lets investors trade with no commissions.
This includes stock, ETF, option and crypto trades.
Without paying the $5 per month, users need to wait upwards of 3 business days for their funds to finally settle from the bank. Waiting that long often could be the difference between a huge return and a bust.
However, all users get up to $1,000 settled instantly for investing.
With Robinhood Gold, users can access cash instantly, review level II market data, utilize margin investing, and study professional research from Morningstar on 1,700+ stocks.
Having an emergency fund is absolutely necessary if you want to protect your nest egg from unexpected emergencies or inconveniences. However, it is important that you keep this cash in a place that will give you the most bang for your buck.
This is a huge advantage over traditional banking as interest rates for savings accounts have largely been stagnant for several years. Users that store their money with Robinhood also have access to an optional debit card and 75,000 ATMs where you can withdraw your cash for free.
If you sign up for Robinhood, you will get a free stock worth between $2.50 and $200. The free stock is based on a lottery system.
According to Robinhood’s Terms and Conditions... “There is an approximately 98% chance of the stock bonus having a value of $2.50-$10, an approximately 1% chance of the stock bonus having a value of $10-$50, and an approximately 1% chance of the stock bonus having a value of $50-$200, based on the price of shares at the time of purchase.”
Like Public, Robinhood allows investors to purchase a dollar amount of a company instead of complete shares. This is an incredible perk that quite frankly, Robinhood was pretty slow adopting.
With this feature, you will be able to purchase shares of stocks and ETFs in $1 increments.
Robinhood allows you to trade a variety of popular cryptocurrencies 100% commission free.
It is important to recognize that Robinhood Crypto is not a part of Robinhood Financial LLC.
Robinhood Crypto LLC and as such, is held in a different account which is not regulated by FINRA or insured by the FDIC.
You are also unable to transfer your crypto out of your Robinhood account.
Both of these apps are built to help investors who have little to no experience investing, access the key to financial freedom; assets.
They both fall under the category of beginner friendly investing apps.
Public lets investors communicate with others to gain insight. They can also follow their favorite celebrity investors who utilize the platform. Stock slices make high value stocks accessible to smaller investors. Lastly, investment themes take the guesswork out of building a portfolio.
Robinhood is basically the simplest way to trade stocks, ETFs, options and crypto. They don't really have much else going on beyond that.
Unfortunately, neither of these investment platforms let users invest in tax-advantaged accounts, which means that these investments are mostly for a short-term win and not focused on the golden years.
However, neither of these investment platforms have account minimums or commission fees so you could give them both a try.
