How To Create An App Like Robinhood

For the last few years, Robinhood has been the darling of brokerage apps. What started as a mobile-only trading app with a waitlist has grown into a publicly traded company that is often mentioned in discussions about trading of any kind.

Most recently, with Reddit-fueled trading in names like GameStop and AMC. If you were caught up in that and saw Robinhood pause trading on some names, you might have been shocked to learn that it was even possible.

I don't want to get into some of the conspiracy theories as to why this happened (I think they're mostly unfounded) but shortly thereafter, a lot of other brokerages did the same at the direction of their clearinghouse, Apex Clearing Corporation.

Did this leave you a bit miffed at Robinhood? Are you looking to move to another brokerage?

Here are the best Robinhood alternatives:

Table of Contents

What We Looked For In Alternatives
Ally Invest
Webull
SoFi Invest
Public
Tornado
Final Thoughts

What We Looked For In Alternatives

This isn't a list of any old brokerages, we looked at brokerages that are true alternatives to Robinhood:

They must offer free trades
No minimums, no account maintenance fees
Preferably a nice little sign-on bonus
Did not restrict the trading of any stocks (before being required to by their clearinghouse)

Ally Invest

Ally Invest offers free trades, no minimums, no account fees, and they pair nicely with Ally Bank – an online bank that offers a full suite of banking products and higher yields than a traditional brick and mortar bank.

Ally Invest also offers a bonus based on the amount you transfer into your account. Here's the schedule for how much bonus cash you get based on your transfer:

Deposit or Transfer Amount	Your Bonus
$10,000 – $24,999	$100
$25,000 – $99,999	$250
$100,000 – $249,999	$300
$250,000 – $499,999	$600
$500,000 – $999,999	$1,200
$1,000,000 – $1,999,999	$2,000
$2,000,000 or more	$3,000

If you are doing a full account transfer (ACAT), they will reimburse up to $150 in transfer fees.

Webull

Webull is similar to Robinhood in that it's a brokerage that offers you free stock for signing up as well as free trades. In fact, you get 2 free stocks worth up to $2,300 when you deposit just $0.01.

Again, no maintenance fees, no ways to ding you, and you are their target market. The only knock is that their app, while completely functional, doesn't look as pretty as Robinhood.

SoFi Invest

SoFi Invest is the brokerage arm of the well-known fintech darling SoFi, whose core offering started with student loan refinancing. In offering banking services, SoFi now has SoFi Invest – a no commission brokerage service with no minimums and no account fees.

Best of all? They will give you $50 if you sign up through a referral link and deposit at least $1,000. There are no trading requirements to get this bonus.

With SoFi Invest, you can also invest in cryptocurrencies, much like Robinhood, so this one is the most similar to Robinhood (though the bonus offer is not as generous as some others.

Public

Public is one of the newer brokerages (at least to me) and their claim to fame is the ability to buy partial shares (as little as $5), something that isn't offered elsewhere. These are partial shares with real-time settlement (if you remember Sharebuilder, they used to batch them). Public also offers a social component where you can see other people's trades (when they make them public).

Public also as a bonus where you can get $10 worht of stock from one of 9 companies (Alphabet (Google), J&J, Facebook, Apple, Visa, Chase, Microsoft, Amazon, or Alibaba).

Obviously, no commission trades, minimums, or account fees.

Tornado

Tornado is a brokerage that marries trading with social media in that you can see follow other people's portfolios (if they make them public) and discuss ideas on their platform. Again, they offer free trades and there are no minimums or account fees.

They also offer a referral bonus in which you get cash based on how uch you deposit.

Final Thoughts

The saga around GameStop and how the markets reacted is unprecedented – I'm not making any judgments as to what was appropriate or not but I suspect there will be investigations and inquiries as to what happened. We will learn a lot more in a few months once everything shakes out.

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Jim Wang is a thirty-something father of four who is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Vanguard's Blog. He has also been fortunate to have appeared in the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, Entrepreneur, and Marketplace Money.

Jim has a B.S. in Computer Science and Economics from Carnegie Mellon University, an M.S. in Information Technology - Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as a Masters in Business Administration from Johns Hopkins University. His approach to personal finance is that of an engineer, breaking down complex subjects into bite-sized easily understood concepts that you can use in your daily life.

One of his favorite tools (here's my treasure chest of tools,, everything I use) is Personal Capital, which enables him to manage his finances in just 15-minutes each month. They also offer financial planning, such as a Retirement Planning Tool that can tell you if you're on track to retire when you want. It's free.

He is also diversifying his investment portfolio by adding a little bit of real estate. But not rental homes, because he doesn't want a second job, it's diversified small investments in a few commercial properties and farms in Illinois, Louisiana, and California through AcreTrader.

Recently, he's invested in a few pieces of art on Masterworks too.

Opinions expressed here are the author's alone, not those of any bank or financial institution. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.

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