11 Best Investment Apps of 2024

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Best Investment Apps of 2024

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How Much Money Do You Need to Start Investing Through an App?

In most cases, you do not need any money at all to open an investment account through an app—many of our top picks will let you open an account with $0. While you won’t be able to buy any investments, opening an account with $0 can give you a feel for how an investment app works, show you what securities are available and provide access to educational content to help you learn about investing.

You’ll need to add money to your investment account if you want to purchase securities. How much money you will need depends on the app you’re using and what investments you want to make. If you’re purchasing stocks and ETFs, you’ll need at least enough to purchase one share of the security, though some brokerages offer fractional shares that you can get into for as little as one cent. Mutual funds often have much higher minimums. Vanguard mutual funds have minimums starting at $1,000, but Fidelity offers similar mutual funds with no minimums.

What Are the Advantages of Investing Through an App?

Investing with a full-service brokerage or through a website isn’t for everyone, and investing through an app may be more approachable for you. If you don’t have a computer or are intimidated by complicated websites, apps offer an easier path to get started. Even for experienced investors, an app may be more convenient or provide real-time news and information better than a brokerage’s website. Here are the advantages of investing through an app:

• Convenience. For many investors, the convenience of investing through a mobile app may outweigh the advantage of investing using a web portal on a computer. Many investment mobile apps give you the ability to trade and find basic information about securities and hide much of the complexity offered by full-service brokerage websites.
• Low barriers to entry. For a newer investor, investing through an app has lower barriers to entry than investing through a full-service brokerage. Most apps make the onboarding experience intuitive.
• Notifications. If you like to keep tabs on the price fluctuations of your investments or want to stay up-to-date on the news of the companies you’re invested in, an app may be better for you. Many investment apps can send you a phone notification if there’s news relevant to your investments.
• You don’t have a computer. If you don’t have a computer, your alternatives are either investing with an app or investing with a brokerage that will take your investment orders over the phone. This can be time-consuming and expensive—most brokerage firms charge a per-transaction fee for trades made over the phone.

How to Choose the Best Investing App for You

There is no one universal best investing app. You should choose the investment app that’s right for you based on how you want to invest, where you keep your existing investments and what you want to invest in. Here are some questions to consider:

• Do you have an active or passive investing style?
• What are the fees?
• Is the brokerage behind the app a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC)?
• Where are your existing investments?
• Does the app offer the investments you want?

Active or Passive Investing

Do you want to pick individual stocks and make frequent trades, or do you prefer to take a hands-off approach to your investing? If you want an active approach, an app like Robinhood that makes trading fast and intuitive might be better for you. If you want to passively invest in mutual funds, a traditional broker’s app might be a better choice. Apps like Acorns and Betterment might be best if you simply want to put money into your portfolio and watch it grow. These apps guide you into one of a few preplanned portfolios and don’t allow you to pick individual investments.

Fees

Most investment apps will promote that they have “no fees*.” But what’s behind that asterisk matters and can impact your total cost of investing. An app may allow you trade stocks with no commission but may charge other fees that are buried in its fee structure or the bid/ask spread of a stock. An app may offer no commission on its headline investment options but charge a fee to trade another type of investment that you want to buy. Management fees that charge you a percentage of your portfolio can also depress your earnings over time. Consider what types of investments you want to make and study an app’s fee structure before moving your entire portfolio into an investment app.

SIPC Membership and FDIC Fund Sweeps

While some investment apps are run by well-established brokerage houses, many are offered by Silicon Valley fintech startups. These smaller firms might offer innovative financial products, but not every one of these startups succeeds. Before moving your nest egg to an unknown investment app, be sure that the broker behind the app is a member of SIPC, and that cash funds are swept into an FDIC-insured account. Doing a bit of due diligence on your investment app can also help ensure your investments are safe if the company backing your app fails, and that you’re not sending money to a fraudulent app.

Where Are Your Existing Investments?

If you’ve got some existing investment accounts, either through your primary bank or through your workplace 401(k), take a look at the app offering from the place that already holds your investments. Fidelity and Vanguard both manage many large company 401(k) plans, and both have an app that you can use for your personal investments. Other smaller retirement plan servicers will likely offer individual brokerage accounts through a mobile app. Keeping your investments in one place can reduce financial complexity.

Investments You Want

Not every investment app offers every type of investment. Apps like Acorns and Betterment don’t let you pick stocks at all. Many popular fintech apps don’t offer mutual funds—and those that do often let you trade only a select list of mutual funds with no transaction fees. Before moving your funds into an investment app, be sure that the investments you want are available.

Investment Apps vs. Traditional Brokers

Although the largest traditional brokers all offer mobile apps, their mobile apps usually aren’t as intuitive as the apps from fintech firms. Here’s how some of the most popular investment apps stack up against the web-based portals of some of the largest traditional brokers.

Robinhood App vs. Fidelity Brokerage

Robinhood is perhaps the best-known mobile investment app, and Fidelity is one of the largest traditional brokers. Robinhood is the clear choice if you want a platform that allows you to day trade easily on your phone—trading through Fidelity’s app isn’t nearly as smooth as it is through Robinhood. If you want a full-service brokerage that lets you purchase a wider array of investments that includes mutual funds and fixed-income securities, you’ll want to choose Fidelity.

Wealthfront App vs. Vanguard Brokerage

If you want to keep your investment portfolio in low-fee index funds and focus on tax efficiency, Wealthfront will put your money in tax-efficient bond funds and index funds. Note, though, Jack Bogle, the founder of Vanguard, popularized the index fund well before smartphones and apps existed. Vanguard may be a better choice if you want a wide array of low-cost investment options—the brokerage gives you access to target-date and index mutual funds among other options. But Wealthfront gives you most of the advantages of index investing without the complexity of managing it yourself.

Fidelity App vs. Merrill Edge

If you want access to a full range of investments in an app, one of the apps from a traditional brokerage firm is probably your best bet. Fidelity’s app is well-designed and offers a simplified trading interface that can hide complexity. But if you want data and analysis, it’s there in the app. Merrill Edge, while it has an app, has not invested in its app as heavily as Fidelity and it shows—you’ll want to do more of your trading on Merrill’s website. If mobile app experience matters to you, choose Fidelity over Merrill.