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The best online brokerages for beginners offer low fees, easy trading, educational resources, research access, financial tools, and more. Robo-advisors, like Betterment and Acorns, are popular online brokers for beginners who implement low-cost, passive investing strategies.
Best Online Brokerages for Beginners in 2024
- SoFi Invest: Best overall online broker for beginners
- Charles Schwab: Best overall online for beginners runner-up
- Fidelity Investments: Best for all levels of investors
- Vanguard: Best for retirement-focused investors
- Betterment Investing: Best robo-advisors
- Ally Invest: Best for banking-brokerage combo
- Acorns Invest: Best for round-up investing
Top Online Brokerages for Beginners
Many top beginner-friendly platforms offer brokerage accounts with no minimum deposit and access to educational resources (such as webinars, blogs, videos, training courses, and quizzes). The best online brokerage accounts have easy-to-navigate interfaces, limited investment options, and little to no trading fees.
Here are the top picks for the best online brokerage for beginners, as picked by Business Insider's editors in 2024.
Best Overall Online Brokerage for Beginners
$0 ($1 to start investing); $5 fractional shares; $2,000 for margin trading
0% for active trading and automated investing
- No account minimum
- No account or trading fees, and low fees to own funds
- Access to Certified Financial Planners at no additional charge
- IPOs available
- SoFi 1% IRA match
- No tax-loss harvesting, an advanced investing technique where you sell a stock or mutual fund at a loss for a tax benefit
- No option for stop-loss orders when actively investing. SoFi's active investing account only uses market orders
- Currently only available to US residents
SoFi Invest is a great platform for US investors who are looking for an intuitive online trading experience, an open active or automated investing account.
SoFi Invest- Promotion: Get up to $1,000 in stock when you fund a new account.
- App store rating: 4.8 iOS/3.8 Android
- Consider it if: You want an easy-to-use platform paired with rock-bottom pricing.
SoFi is the best online broker for beginners seeking a straightforward investing experience. The investment platform has a slimmer lineup of accounts than some bigger competitors, but it covers the most common needs for managing your investments. It also offers a great bank account, lending products, and other financial tools to help you understand your investments.
SoFi Invest offers active investing accounts and managed robo-adviser accounts with no recurring fees and a $1 minimum to get started. Those include both taxable investment accounts and IRA or Roth IRA retirement accounts.
The only big downside of these accounts is that you can only trade stocks and ETFs. There are no mutual funds available through SoFi. Stock and ETF trades are commission-free. SoFi offers automated investing for $0. SoFi also offers beginner investing educational resources, free financial planning sessions, career coaching, and other perks for SoFi members.
Best Overall Online Brokerages for Beginners Runner-up
$0 ($5,000 for Schwab Intelligent Portfolios; $25,000 Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium)
0% ($0 Schwab Intelligent Portfolios; $30/month Schwab Intelligent Portfolios Premium)
- No minimums; commission-free trading on stocks, ETFs, and options
- Thousands of no-load mutual funds and 50+ Schwab-managed funds; fractional shares (Stock slices) available
- Automated and advisor-managed accounts available
- Multiple trading platforms; stock screeners and other trading tools
- $5,000 minimum for automated Schwab Intelligent Portfolios is on the higher end
- Schwab's no-load funds have a $100 minimum; some competitors offer lower minimums
Insider considers Charles Schwab to be the best online brokerage overall, as well as one of the best online brokerages for beginners. It's great for all types of investors — including active traders, passive investors, and retirement-focused individuals — in search of low costs and access to a variety of trading tools and platforms.
Charles Schwab Brokerage- App store rating: 4.8 iOS/3.8 Android
- Consider it if: You want a wide range of account types, with easy-to-use apps and web interfaces
- Awards: Investor's Business Daily recognized Charles Schwab as one of its Most Trusted Financial Companies for 2021.
Charles Schwab is a great online brokerage account for beginners because it offers something for investors with virtually any investment need. Not only does this investment app allow you to manage all of your banking and investments with one login, but its investment tools are also designed to grow with you as you learn more and level up your investing style.
For investors who want to manage everything themselves, you can choose self-directed traditional brokerage and retirement accounts where you pick all your investments with no commissions for stock or ETF trades. These accounts have no fees and no minimum balance requirements.
Charles Schwab also offers a robo-adviser, Charles Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, that can manage your investments for free.
Best Online Brokerage for All Levels of Investors
$0 ($25,000 Fidelity Personalized Planning & Advice)
0% ($0 or 0.35% for robo-advisor)
- No account minimum or account fees
- No commissions for stock, ETF, and options trades; fractional shares available
- Thousands of no-transaction-fee mutual funds and fee-free mutual funds
- Several research tools and trading platforms available
- Fidelity Go accounts cost more for investors with higher account balances
- Representative-assisted trades are slightly more expensive than other brokerages
Fidelity is one of the best online brokerages for beginners and retirement savings. It has great features for all types of investors and traders.
Fidelity Brokerage- Promotion: None at this time
- App store rating: 4.8 iOS/4.4 Android
- Awards: Morningstar named the Fidelity HSA as the best HSA provider in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
- Consider it if: You're focused on long-term investing and retirement.
Fidelity is a powerful low-fee brokerage account for novice investors if your main goal is investing for retirement. It's a brokerage account with no minimum deposit requirement and no fees. It offers a suite of investor tools and resources focused on helping customers reach their retirement goals.
In addition to free stock and ETF trades, Fidelity Investments customers can access more than 10,000 mutual funds without transaction fees. Among those are four funds from Fidelity that charge no expense ratio (that means no fund fees).
Fidelity Go is Fidelity's robo-advisor offering; it's a solid product, though fees are slightly higher on some balances than competitors such as Betterment. Fidelity Go now has one-on-one unlimited coaching calls.
Best Retirement-focused Online Brokerage for Beginners
$0 ($3,000 for Vanguard Digital Advisor; $50,000 for Vanguard Personal Advisor)
0% (0.20% to 0.30% for professionally managed portfolios)
- Commission-free stocks, ETFs, and options
- Brokerage, automated, and advisor-managed accounts available
- Thousands of low-cost mutual funds
- Multiple resources with expert analysis and market insights
- Several retirement accounts and services for retirement plan participants
- Higher options contract fee than other discount brokerages (Vanguard charges $1 per options contract)
- No separate trading platforms for advanced traders; no fractional shares
- No cryptocurrencies
Vanguard is a reasonable low-cost option for all types of investors. Whether you're an active trader, passive investor, or retirement-focused individual, you should be able to find what you're looking for.
Vanguard- Promotion: None at this time.
- App store rating: 4.7 iOS/ 1.8 Android
- Consider it if: You're a long-term focused investor looking for access to a variety of account types and investment choices.
- Awards: Morningstar gave Vanguard a 'High' assessment in its 2022 Robo-advisor Landscape report, listing it as the #1 platform out of 16 robo-advisors
Vanguard has long been a one-stop shop for all things investing. The online brokerage's investment selection includes self-directed accounts, automated investing accounts (robo-advisors), IRAs, education savings plans, and much more.
Beginners might also appreciate the online brokerage's vast suite of educational resources. Vanguard offers a library of insights and guides on various investing topics, as well as market analysis and expert research.
Vanguard offers competitive products for long-term focused investors, but some of its products that best suit active traders (e.g., options) fall short of its competitors. For instance, options contracts will cost you $1 each. This is higher than the options contracts fees for many brokerages. In addition, Vanguard doesn't offer any additional trading platforms for advanced traders.
Vanguard Digital Advisor review
Best Robo-advising Online Brokerage for Beginners
$0 to open, $10 to start investing ($100,000 for premium plan)
$4 per month (or 0.25%/year) for digital plan; 0.40%/ year for premium plan; 1%/year for crypto portfolios
- No minimum for standard investing account
- Goal-based planning, tax-loss harvesting, charitable giving, and socially responsible investing available
- Access to certified financial planners
- Mobile app with external account syncing options
- You'll have to pay to consult a human advisor, unless you have the premium plan
- $4 monthly fee (or 0.25% annual fee)
Betterment is best for hands-off investors who want to take advantage of professionally built, personalized ETF and cryptocurrency portfolios. The platform offers CFP access, so it could suit those in search of additional guidance from human advisors.
Betterment- Promotion: None at this time.
- App store rating: 4.7 iOS/4.5 Android
- Consider it if: You want access to robo-advice with multiple service levels.
Betterment is the largest independent online financial advisor. If you are looking for an investment experience where you explain your investment goals, hand over your money, and someone else takes care of everything, Betterment is a great broker for beginners.
The term "robo-adviser" is intimidating to some people, but rest assured, an actual robot isn't sitting there picking stocks for you. Instead, you answer some basic questions about yourself and your investment goals when signing up. Based on your answers, Betterment Investing will provide investing advice and recommendations based on your goal details.
Betterment is also a good brokerage option for small business employers looking to offer their employees 401(k) plans. Betterment offers unique benefits like the new student loan match program through Betterment at Work. However, you'll have to pay extra to take advantage of human advisor guidance if you can't meet the $100,000 minimum attached to Betterment's premium account.
Best Banking-brokerage Combo Online Brokerage for Beginners
$0 ($100 for Robo Portfolios; $100,000 for Ally Invest Personal Advice)
0% (up to 0.85% for Ally Invest Personal Advice; bonds, mutual funds, and certain stocks have fees)
- No account minimums or commissions for trading
- Automated portfolios free of advisory or management fees; Ally Invest Personal Advice available
- Options contracts only cost $0.50 per contract
- Bank accounts, mortgage refinancing, car loans, and personal loans available through Ally Bank
- Thousands of mutual funds but no no-transaction-fee mutual funds
- No cryptocurrencies
Ally Invest is best for active traders looking for $0 minimum deposits, commission-free investing, easy-to-use trading tools, and 24/7 market access. The brokerage is also great for passive investors in search of automated advice.
Ally Invest- App store rating: 4.7 iOS/ 3.9 Android
- Consider it if: You want easy-to-use apps paired with excellent investing, checking, and savings accounts.
Most of the brokerages for beginners above offer an integrated bank account, but if you are looking for the best bank account and brokerage combo, Ally Invest may be the best option for your needs. Ally Bank is a broker for beginners that offers some of the highest-rated checking and savings options and a low-fee investment platform that works well for beginners.
Ally Invest's Robo Portfolios rely on ETFs, and Ally manages and monitors each portfolio daily. The robo-advisor offers four investment portfolio options: Core, Income, tax-optimized, and Socially Responsible.
It doesn't have the flashiest or fullest-featured trading platform, but it gets the job done and makes it easy for beginners to manage their banking and investments with one login. Also, Ally doesn't offer cryptocurrencies directly, but you can get exposure to crypto through Ally Invest Funds, which include crypto assets.
Best Round-Up Investing Online Brokerage for Beginners
$5
Monthly plans start at $3 for Personal, $5 for Personal Plus, and $9 for Premium
- Low fees
- Helpful automatic saving and investing tools
- Portfolio suggestions built to match your risk level
- "Acorns Earns" invests a percentage of your purchases from certain companies
- Flat monthly fee is on the high side, especially for smaller accounts
- The option to choose individual investments requires a Premium plan
Acorns is one of the best investment apps for beginners and hand-off investors who want to start investing but are overwhelmed by the choices with other investing apps. This simple and easy-to-use platform offers a low investment minimum, portfolio diversification, and beginner-friendly charting tools. Acorns is more expensive than other zero-fee apps out there, but the ease of use may make it worthwhile for certain users.
Acorns- Get started in under 5 minutes
- $5/month gets you a full financial wellness system with connected investment, retirement, and saving accounts.
- Invest in a diversified, expert-built portfolio
- No expertise required
- Invest your spare change with Round-Ups (more than $900M invested in 2021 just from RoundUps!)
- Set easy, automatic Recurring Investments
- See your account performance right in the app, and play with our interactive Potential screen
- All you need to start investing is $5
- 18M downloads
Acorns is an online broker ideal for passive investors and beginners seeking a mobile-friendly, easy-to-use platform. While Acorns doesn't offer as many bells and whistles as competitors, you can automatically invest extra change (aka round-ups or "earn money") by linking your card to your Acorn account.
Acorns mainly offer ETFs, comprising diverse stocks, bonds, and real estate assets. After completing a questionnaire about your time horizon, risk tolerance, and goals, you can invest in a Core or ESG portfolio. Acorns then create a personalized investment portfolio based on your preferences.
You can now also invest in bitcoin-linked ETFs. But Acorns doesn't offer direct crypto trading. Acorns is more expensive than similar platforms, as it charges $3 a month for a personal account, $5 for Personal Plus, and $9 for Premium. It also doesn't offer mutual funds.
Introduction to Brokerage Accounts for Beginners
Easy-to-use trading platforms for beginners are crucial for those starting their investment journey to access tools and resources designed to simplify the investing process. Getting started can feel overwhelming, but with the best investment apps for beginner investors, novice traders can more easily grasp the basics of online investing.
When looking for a beginner-friendly brokerage account, look for brokerages offering comprehensive educational resources, easy-to-use interfaces, simplified trading strategies, strong customer support, and low fees. Robo-advisors are a great place to start.
Criteria for Choosing a Brokerage Account as a Beginner
Online brokerages providing multiple asset classes, secure storage, stock market access, and an intuitive interface are the best kinds of brokers for beginners. The online brokerage should also offer various account types and low minimums and fees.
The best brokerages for beginners offer a handful of investing and goal-building tools, such as tax loss harvesting features, automatic rebalancing tools, portfolio management, and other similar financial planning tools. Educational resources, like webinars and blogs, are also extremely beneficial for new investors.
Financially, compare different minimums and fees when assessing which online brokerage is best for you. Low minimums and fees are more suitable for beginners just getting acquainted with investment products and services. More advanced online brokerages will require higher fees and minimums to access advanced trading and charting tools.
Understanding Fees and Commissions
Many of the best online brokerage accounts for beginners require only low minimums (or no minimums at all). Low to no trading fees for beginner-designed investment apps are also common. Common perks include commission-free trades and no AUM fees.
If you can swing it, you shouldn't be paying recurring fees or minimum charges with most of the best brokerage accounts. You may see some fees for phone or broker-assisted trades, as well as commissions for some mutual funds and other investments.
Watch for hidden fees, especially on trades in assets such as index funds, options contracts, futures, and digital currencies.
Getting Started with Your First Brokerage Account
To open your first online brokerage account, consider the type of account, investment options, and features you're looking for. Once you know what you want, compare different brokerage accounts that fit the bill and find the one that best fits your needs. You can then begin the application process, fund your new account, and invest.
Managing a brokerage account online using a website or mobile app is easiest. Online brokerages allow you to transfer funds, enter trade orders, monitor your positions, research current and future investments, and handle any other transactions you must make in a brokerage account.
In the US, brokerage accounts are insured by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). If your brokerage goes out of business, you are guaranteed to get your money and other assets back up to SIPC limits.
Brokerage firms are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), among other government agencies and industry groups.
Best Online Brokerages for Beginners FAQs
The best brokers for beginners are low-cost platforms that offer low minimums, multiple investment options, human advisor access, education resources, and easy trading features. But the best broker for you depends on your personal preferences and investment goals.
You can open a brokerage account without money, as many robo-advisors and other beginner-friendly investment apps have no minimum requirements. Compare different minimums and fees when deciding which online brokerage is best for you. Remember that investments will require funds to purchase.
When looking for a beginner-friendly brokerage account, look for brokerages offering comprehensive educational resources, easy-to-use interfaces, simplified trading strategies, strong customer support, and low fees. Robo-advisors are a great place to start.
Yes. There are many online brokerages sage for beginners. Beginner-friendly online brokerages use simplified trading strategies and easy-to-use interfaces while offering a vast selection of educational content. Online investment platforms are generally equipped with regulated security measures and SIPC insurance.
Why You Should Trust Us: Our Expert Panel For The Best Online Brokerages for Beginners
We interviewed the following investing experts to see what they had to say about online brokerages for beginners.
- Sandra Cho, RIA, wealth manager, and CEO of Pointwealth Capital Management
- Tessa Campbell, Investment and retirement reporter at Personal Finance Insider
What are the advantages/disadvantages of investing through an online brokerage for beginners?
Sandra Cho:
"The advantage of an online broker is that fees are generally much less than a full-service broker, and the disadvantage is that the service is much less than a full-service broker."
Tessa Campbell:
"Online brokerages designed for beginners come with multiple advantages for new investors with simple-to-use platforms, simplified trading strategies, educational resources, minimal fees, and easy portfolio diversification. Some of the most popular online brokers for beginners are robo-advisors, which are automated investment platforms that use computer algorithms to trade and manage your investment portfolio.
"The disadvantage of beginner-friendly online brokerages is that you won't get access to advanced trading strategies and market data. You also won't get the same level of account flexibility as you would with a more hands-on trading platform designed for experienced investors."
Who should consider opening a beginner-friendly online brokerage?
Sandra Cho:
"Online brokers tend to attract two main types of investors in my experience, day traders and people who are extremely fee-conscious."
Tessa Campbell:
"Online brokerages for beginners are best for, well, beginners with limited trading experience. These platforms offer accessible, easy-to-use investing interfaces. A beginner-friendly broker may be a good option if you're looking to avoid all the complicated bells and whistles found with other advanced investing platforms. Moreover, these brokers tend to have lower fees and minimums, which makes them appealing to fee-conscious individuals."
Is there any advice you'd offer someone who's considering opening a beginner-friendly brokerage account?
Sandra Cho:
"Stay simple. Keep to long trades and stay away from options like riskier naked shorts where you can literally lose your shorts."
Tessa Campbell:
"Make sure to thoroughly compare different online brokers for beginners to ensure that the platform you choose best fits you. Not all online investment platforms offer the same features and investable securities. So if there's a certain feature you're looking for, such as automatic rebalancing or ESG funds, make sure that you pick the best broker for that feature."
Methodology: How We Choose the Best Online Brokers for Beginners
We applied Business Insider's rating methodology for investment platforms to consider the best online brokerages for beginners. We considered a dozen brokerages and zeroed in on options that offered competitive pricing and features most important to beginner investors and traders.
To make it onto this list, brokerages must offer commission-free stock, ETF trades, and no recurring account fees (excluding robo-advisors). Other important focus areas include available investments, types of accounts, and high-quality investment platforms. Strong investment research and education resources were another plus but carried less weight in the decision process.
