As it has been more than ten years since the inception of the first crypto, finding a robust, secure, and user-friendly platform to perform your daily investment operations can be overwhelming.
Additionally, you are left to wonder if you’re the only one who hasn’t found his ‘tribe’ and if there is more to these powerful tools. As such, crypto traders and investment enthusiasts need advanced tools, desire better customization, seek efficient ways to diversify portfolios and look for hidden features to gain a competitive edge.
In today’s article, we discuss anything you need to know about Webull vs Robinhood so that you can start on the right track. We will explore their best features, hidden tools, and strategies suitable for beginners and experienced traders.
Regardless of your trading experience, staying informed about the latest changes, the most used features, and pricing could make a significant impact on your trading strategies and set you apart from being a mediocre investor.
So, without further ado, let’s jump right in and uncover the best features that could transform your trading strategy for the best!
Webull vs Robinhood: At a Glance Comparison
Minimum Investment
Webull
- Basic accounts – $0;
- Margin accounts – $2,000;
Robinhood
- Basic accounts – $0;
- Margin accounts – $2,000;
Account Fees
Webull
- No account fees;
Robinhood
- Basic account – none;
- Robinhood Gold – $5 per monthly subscription;
Asset Classes
Webull
- Stocks;
- Options;
- Exchange-traded funds (ETFs);
- Over-the-counter (OTC);
- Paper trade;
- Margin;
- Cash Management;
- Webull Smart Advisor;
- Recurring Investing;
- Retirement Accounts (IRAs);
- Fractional Shares;
Robinhood
- Options;
- Exchange-traded funds (ETFs);
- Margin;
- Cryptocurrency;
- Individual taxable brokerage account;
- Traditional IRA;
- Roth IRA;
Platform Features at a Glance
Webull
- Commission-free trades;
- Margin trading;
- Fractional share investing;
- Multiple investment account types;
- Full extended-hours trading;
- Analysis and charting tools;
- Paper trading;
Robinhood
- Commission-free trades;
- Margin trading with Robinhood Gold subscription;
- Fractional share investing;
- Automatic dividend reinvestment option;
- Limited extended-hours trading;
- Recurring investments;
- Robinhood Cash Card;
Webull vs Robinhood | Platforms Overview
What is Webull?
Founded by Wang Anquan in 2017, Webull is an all-in-one investment platform that offers advanced research tools and services for all investors.
Moreover, Webull’s target audience is intermediate to advanced active traders, as they offer a standard account type to trade and ensure taxable brokerage accounts and Roth, traditional, and rollover IRAs.
As such, this platform is unsuitable for new starters who need more financial and crypto education before jumping into the water or advanced traders who require additional advanced trading tools, custodial accounts, or specialized retirement accounts for self-employed individuals.
Webull Financial LLC:
- Founded: 2017;
- Headquarters: Greater New York Area, East Coast, Northeastern U.S.;
- Key People: Anquan Wang – Founder, Wataru Kojima – President & Rep. Director – Webull Securities, and Anthony Denier – CEO;
- Parent Company: Fumi Technology
- Industry: Analytics, FinTech, Market Research, Trading Platform Revenue
- Users: In July 2021, there were 2,691,040 active monthly users;
Webull | How does it work?
Webull ecosystem operates based on an account subscription, offering its users access to educational resources and crypto tools to grasp their trading strategy better.
Signing up is easy, with no costs and no minimum investment requirements. Moreover, within the Webull ecosystem, you can choose the right type of platform to help you in your daily trading and investment activities.
As such, you can choose between the web trading platform, the desktop one, or the mobile application to trade stocks, options, ETFs, or cryptocurrency.
Additionally, you can sign up for a margin account, yet you will need a $2,000 minimum account balance.
What is Robinhood?
Robinhood is an online brokerage platform allowing users to trade stocks, options, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and cryptocurrency easily and securely. Moreover, Robinhood plays an essential role within the industry as it is known for offering commission-free trading.
Founded in 2013, this crypto and financial platform aims to deliver with ease the necessary tools and financial education resources to the doorsteps of each crypto enthusiast and investor.
Over the years, Robinhood became a popular choice due to its ease of use, user-friendly UI/UX design, and low entry barrier.
Robinhood Financial, LLC
- Founded: 2013;
- Headquarter: San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, West Coast;
- Key People: Baiju Bhatt – CCO and Co-Founder;
- Parent Company: Robinhood Markets Inc.;
- Industry: Cryptocurrency, FinTech, Stock Exchange, Trading Platform Revenue
- Users: 11.0 million active monthly users in July 2023;
Robinhood | How does it work?
Similarly to Webull, you can create an account on Robinhood free of charge and with no minimum initial investment. What is surprising is that it allows its users to buy and sell stocks and ETFs without hidden fees.
As a result, Robinhood places itself as a feasible option for anyone who wants to trade and forget about the high transaction fees, regardless of its trading experience.
Furthermore, you can upgrade your account to Robinhood Gold if you are an experienced trader and need more advanced trading tools. For only $5 per month, you unlock the margin trading and other research reports to help you with your crypto investment strategy.
As we’ve discovered the main aspects of these two platforms, it is time to move further into the second part of the article. We will go more in-depth and analyze the usability, the key features and differentiators, fees, order types, supported currencies, education, and security.
Webull vs Robinhood | Platform Usability
Despite addressing different target audiences, these two trading platforms offer a great deal of usability for both mobile and desktop.
For example, Webull offers its web trading platform, desktop, and mobile app for all intermediate-level and advanced investors. Moreover, the desktop application gives access to templates for stock, ETF, and crypto trading simply by using the desktop application.
To enhance its usability and customization and to have seamless mechanics for switching between apps, the company recently launched Webull 8.0. As such, the users can enjoy additional features like customizable charting tools, trading options, and financial reporting so that an investor can do all his financial activities on the go.
On the other hand, Robinhood brings more intuitive architectural information to its menu and search functions, but it lacks customization. Instead, it’s simple but fast and allows users to access watch lists, charts, analyst ratings, and others.
As for the mobile experience, the Robinhood wallet app follows the same pattern as the web-based platform – a simple-to-use and fast app to buy and sell stocks, ETFs, and cryptos. However, this mobile application needs more customization or access to chartings.
On the usability topic, and considering the native applications, there is no good or bad platform/app, as it all depends on your trading experience, requirements, and strategy. Whether you like to revise the latest changes within the industry by looking at crypto reports and charts, or you’re busy and wish for a simple yet efficient platform, Webull and Robinhood could be the way to go.
For a novice trader, it’s more helpful to have an intuitive experience compared to a more seasoned investor who knows what to ask in a platform, and adding the customization layer helps him achieve his financial goals faster and with ease.
The Main Features of Webull & Robinhood
Why Use Webull?
- Zero commissions to stocks, ETFs, options, or cryptocurrencies;
- Advanced charting tools to better grasp the crypto landscape;
- In-depth quotes on various cryptocurrencies and tokens to provide comprehensive data beyond just the current market price;
- Extended hours for customer support, available on phone or live chat;
- Access to all trading platforms, such as web, desktop, and mobile;
- Different brokerage account types;
- Webull Hub: news and educational resources for users to be on point with their crypto knowledge;
- Charting tools, trading options, and financial reporting customization;
Why Choose Robinhood?
- No commission for stock, ETF, options, and cryptocurrency trading;
- Access to Instant Deposits when the transfer status is in good standing;
- After the 2021 data breach, Robinhood got on point with its security, ensuring a trusted platform;
- Trade with unsettled funds from stock and option sales;
- Access to margin investing to borrow money and leverage your holdings to purchase securities;
- Pattern day trading regulations defined by FINRA;
- Extended hours to trade the stocks you value;
- Mobile Trading on Robinhood wallet app;
- Cash Management;
- Market data and news to better understand the crypto market;
Webull & Robinhood | Offerings
The range of offerings of both Webull and Robinhood are similar, meaning that they offer stock, ETF, cryptocurrencies, and trading. The main difference in this instance is that Webull provides access to 7,000 U.S. traded stocks and ETFs, compared to Robinhood, with only 5,000 U.S. stocks and ETFs.
Moreover, both platforms allow short sales, four maximum options legs, fractional share trading, and fractional dividend reinvestments. However, the difference between these two is the need for more assets to trade on desktop software from Robinhood’s side.
Webull Supported Currencies:
- Bitcoin (BTC);
- Dogecoin (DOGE);
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH);
- Ethereum (ETH);
- Litecoin (LTC);
- Zcash (ZEC);
- Stellar (XLM);
- Shiba Inu (SHIB);
- Chiliz ($CHZ);
- Synthetix Network (SNX)
- Gala (GALA);
- others;
Robinhood Supported Cryptocurrencies:
- Aave (AAVE);
- Avalanche (AVAX)*;
- Bitcoin (BTC);
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH);
- Chainlink (LINK);
- Compound (COMP)*;
- Dogecoin (DOGE);
- Ethereum (ETH);
- Ethereum Classic (ETC);
- Litecoin (LTC);
- Shiba Inu (SHIB)*;
- Stellar Lumens (XLM)*;
- Tezos (XTZ)*;
- Uniswap (UNI)*;
- USD Coin (USDC)*;
Please note that currencies marked with * are unavailable in New York or Texas.
Order Types
At this moment, Webull ensures a great deal of flexibility as it supports multiple order types, such as one-cancel-the-other (OCO), one-triggers-an-OCO (OTOCO), and one-triggers-the-other (OTO), compared to Robinhoods’ stop limit order, and trailing stop.
Webull Fees
As we all know by now, financial firms offer commission-free ETFs and stocks, yet Robinhood likes to take it up a notch by providing commission-free options and cryptocurrency trading.
Webull Annual Margin Rate
- $0-25,000.00 – 9.74%;
- $25,000.01-100,000.00 – 9.24%;
- $100,000.01-250,000.00 – 8.74%;
- $250,000.01-500,000.00 – 8.24%;
- $500,000.01-1,000,000.00 – 7.24%;
- $1,000,000.01-3,000,000.00 – 6.74%;
- ＞$3,000,000.00 – 5.74%;
Webull Fees Charged by Regulatory Agencies & Exchanges
Stock/ETF charged by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) Regulatory has a transactional fee of $0.000008*Total $ Trade Amount (Min $0.01) for sell only, compared to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which charges $0.000145 * Total Trade Volume Min $0.01 per – Max $7.27 per sale only.
Regarding Options, SEC has a $0.000008*Total $ Trade Amount (Min $0.01), and FINRA takes a trading fee of $0.00244 * No. of Contracts (Min $0.01) for sale only.
For Options Exchanges – $0.01925 * No. of Contracts for buys and sells, while Options Clearing Corp (OCC): $0.02 * No. of Contracts (Max $55 per trade) for purchase and sale.
Potential Fees for trading OTC securities
Low-priced securities: $0.0002 per share (maximum 5% charge of principal value).
F-stocks (foreign settlement) buy from $5.00 per trade and sell from $0.05 per trade.
Illiquidity Charge: Additional fees and interest may be charged for trading activity that triggers an NSCC illiquidity charge. As such, the minimum overnight interest rate is 15%, with a fee of $250.
For more details regarding index option fees, deposit, stock transfer fees, and withdrawal fees, please see the entire relevant fees.
Robinhood Fees
Stocks, Options & ETFs
- U.S. Listed & OTC Securities (including ETFs) and Options are commission-free trading refers to $0
Transfers & Money Movement Fees
- Debit Balances: $0;
- Returned Check (non-IRA), ACH or Wire & Recall/Stop Payments: $0;
- Returned Check – IRA Rollovers: $25;
- ACATS, Outgoing: $100;
- Incoming Wire Transfer: $0;
- Outgoing Wire Transfer: $25;
- Domestic Overnight Check Delivery: $20;
- Debit Card Funding – Deposits In: $0;
- Debit Card Funding – Withdrawals to External (non-RH) Debit Card: up to 1.75% (min. fee up to $2);
- Instant Bank Transfers – Deposits In: $0;
- Instant Bank Transfers – Withdrawals from your Robinhood Account: up to 1.75% (min. fee up to $2);
For more details on the regulatory trading and service fees, check their website.
Webull and Robinhood: Educational Resources
Both platforms offer educational resources to help their investors, yet Robinhood Learning Hub is more advanced, offering foundational articles for Investing 101.
Moreover, Robinhood comes with many helpful guides such as getting started, risk management, the long and short of trading, and many, many others. On top of this, there is the Snacks category, which comprises daily newsletters, podcasts, and other educational video content.
Also, Webull also offers the educational side through short courses, video content, and articles on topics like stocks, ETFs, trading, options, and cryptocurrency.
Yet, in the educational chapter, Robinhood is by far the most comprehensive learning hub, and as such, it could be a valuable resource for beginners and intermediate investors.
Webull and Robinhood | Digital Safety and Asset Security
As we all know, digital safety and asset security play a vital role in the industry. As such, both platforms offer two-factor authentication and biometric login on top of other security measures when logging on from an unrecognized device.
Moreover, Robinhood offers basic SIPC insurance up to $500,000, including $250,000 cash protection, while Webull SIPC insurance covers account holders up to $37.5 million, including $900,000 in cash.
As such, both platforms offer reliability, security, and safety for their users and investors.
Final Thoughts
Now that we’ve reached the end of this extensive comparison article, we can all say that both platforms stand out as notable prospects, having their unique strengths. As such, it all comes down to personal preferences, trading strategies, and individual needs.
Whether an investor needs more customization or a simple and fast platform for trading on the go, Webull and Robinhood are outstanding choices.
Moreover, by staying informed and sharp and choosing the platform that best aligns with investors’ financial goals and trading style, ensure trading without stress!
