Robinhood App Review – How It Works

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Robinhood has become widely known as the brokerage that democratized investing through commission-free trading.

They have one of the best mobile trading experiences on the market and the Robinhood app is a truly unmatched interface.

So today, we’re diving into the app specifically – what we like and what we don’t like.

You can find Wall Street Survivor’s comprehensive review of all things Robinhood here.

Let’s jump into our Robinhood app review!

What Is Robinhood?

Robinhood is an app that needs no introduction.

Founded in 2013, Robinhood raised $539 million in venture capital funding.

The discount broker burst onto the scene in 2015.

Currently, the company boasts over 10 million users.

That amount exceeds that of popular discount broker E*Trade.

What makes Robinhood so popular?

The company provides commission-free trading.

Just like Uber was a disruptor of the taxi industry, Robinhood is a disruptor of the brokerage industry.

The service proves to be one-of-a-kind by cutting out nearly all costs associated with investing.

Robinhood is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).

This means that the brokerage is held to the highest standards in the investing world and your stocks and uninvested cash are insured.

Note: your securities are not insured against decreases in price; they’re insured against the brokerage going out of business and failing to return them to you.

Robinhood does not currently support the trading of mutual funds.

If you’re looking for mutual funds, you might want to go with a different platform.

The Robinhood App

You can access Robinhood via desktop or via the Robinhood App.

The mobile app provides access to all the tools you can find on the desktop dashboard, like the watchlist, news, and stock trading functions.

What We Like About the Robinhood App

User Interface

The Robinhood app’s UI is simply incredible.

The app is simple, sleek, and quick.

The animations are attractive and it’s an overall comfortable and enjoyable setting for investors who want their investing platform to look and feel great.

Robinhood customers can link their bank account to the app in seconds and start buying and selling stocks with no trading fees.

News

You have access to recent stock market news as well as the latest editions of Robinhood’s email newsletter, Robinhood Snacks.

These pieces of news come with the daily performance of the associated stock(s).

Crypto

Not every brokerage account offers cryptocurrency trading right now, and most of the ones that do have a minimum purchase requirement.

Robinhood lets you buy cryptos in small amounts, which is good news for investors working with smaller portfolios.

Robinhood also offers a cryptocurrency wallet that lets you send and receive crypto.

Watchlist

Robinhood lets you easily choose stocks and cryptocurrencies you want to keep track of and add them to your Watchlist.

This allows you to keep an eye on indices, benchmarks you’re trying to beat, and stocks you might want to buy into soon.

Popular Lists

When you use the “browse” feature in the Robinhood app, you will be greeted with a subsection called “Popular Lists”.

These lists, which are accompanied by matching images, allow you to quickly narrow down your search to find securities you may be interested in.

Examples of Popular Lists include Daily Movers, Upcoming Earnings, and Growth and Value ETFs.

Cards

On the “Investing” page, or home page, of your Robinhood app you’ll see little notifications that pop up beneath your portfolio summary.

These are “cards” and include information like new features, account updates, market updates, and news updates.

Cash

Users who want to quickly bring in money from their bank accounts to be used instantly for investing or manage their Cash Management account and debit card can go right to the “Cash” page on the app. 

Messages

The “Messages” page mainly contains updates on your current orders and makes it that much easier to stay up-to-date with your investing actions without having to exit out of the app and check your email.

Learn

You can choose between plenty of investing topics and see a short lesson about why that topic matters and how it impacts your portfolio.

Robinhood Gold

You can sign up for Robinhood Gold through the app, or access your existing Robinhood Gold benefits.

Robinhood Gold benefits include bigger instant deposits, access to professional research and market data, and a lower APR on margin trading.

What We Don’t Like About the Robinhood App

Outages

Robinhood has an unfortunate history of outages during times of high stock trading volume.

The first incident of note was a series of outages in March 2020, when investors were unable to trade for several hours at a time.

More recently, the trading app had outages in January of 2021 during a surge that led Robinhood, as well as other online brokers, to stop their users from trading stocks such as GME and AMC.

While these issues do not happen very often, even one outage can lead to big losses for retail investors.

Market Research

The amount of research tools available on the Robinhood app is rather small.

Investors who like to research their stocks heavily before buying in will find that Robinhood lacks the advanced statistics needed to make completely informed decisions.

Charting

Experienced investors will find the charting tools on the Robinhood app to be very simple.

While the look is simple and clean, the only features offered are line graphs and candlesticks with basic financial statistics.

If you are looking for a highly customizable charting and forecasting experience, other apps may suit you better.

Keep in mind that Robinhood also does not currently support mutual funds.

Final Thoughts

There’s no reason to wonder why Robinhood has risen to fame as the brokerage that democratized the world of investing.

And we would agree that the Robinhood app is just as sleek and user-friendly as the website.

If you haven’t had a chance to sign up for an account yet, you can do that here!

The Best U.S. Brokerages as of June 30, 2025

Ranking of Top U.S. Stock Brokerages Based on Fees, Features, and Sign-Up Bonuses

We are experienced users of dozens of stock trading platforms. We stay up to date on these platforms' service offerings, subscription fees, trade commissions, and welcome bonuses. The brokerages listed below are for U.S.-based investors, and are ranked in order of overall value received after taking advantage of their sign-up and/or referral offers.

Rank	Brokerage	Fees	Features	Sign-Up Bonus	Read Our Review
1.	Robinhood	$0	✅ U.S. stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptos ✅ Now 23 million users ✅ Cash mgt account and credit card	Free stock up to $200 with new account, plus up to $1,500 more in free stock from referrals	Robinhood Review
2.	Moomoo	$0	✅ Free Level 2 Nasdaq quotes ✅ Access to U.S. and Hong Kong markets ✅ Educational tools	60 free stocks with $5k deposit; or 25 free stocks with $2k deposit	Moomoo Review
3.	Interactive Brokers	$0	✅ Access 150+ global stock exchanges ✅ IBKR Lite & Pro tiers for all ✅ SmartRouting™ and deep analytics	Refer a Friend and Get $200	Interactive Brokers Review
4.	Robinhood Gold	$5	✅ 4% APY on cash ✅ 3% IRA match ✅ Level II data ✅ No interest on first $1,000 of margin	Save with Annual Fee	Robinhood Gold Review
5.	M1 Finance	$3 monthly 10k in assets	✅ Automated investing “Pies” ✅ Banking & low-interest loans ✅ No trading fees with scheduled trades	$75-$500 Tiered Sign-up bonus	M1 Finance Review
6.	Webull	$0	✅ Extended-hours trading ✅ Great charts and screeners ✅ Commission-free options trading	$10 and a 30-day complimentary subscription to Webull premium; $200-$30,0000 Tiered Sign up bonus	Webull Review
7.	Public	$0	✅ Fractional shares ✅ No payment for order flow model ✅ “Alpha” tool with earnings calls	$100-$10,000 Tiered Cash Account Transfer Bonus	Public Review
8.	Composer	$32 a month	✅ Invest in automated strategies ✅ Build custom strategies easily ✅ IRAs	$49 per successful referral with no limit on the number of referrals	Composer Review
9.	Stash	Growth $3; + $9 Month	✅ Stock-Back® debit card rewards in fractional shares ✅ Auto-invest and budgeting tools ✅ Curated theme portfolios	$5 when you invest $5	Stash Review
10.	Acorns	Bronze $3; Silver $6; Gold $12 a month	✅ Automated investing portfolios ✅ ESG curated portfolios ✅ Acorns Early Invest for Kids' Accounts	Get a $20 bonus when you start saving & investing	Acorns Review
11.	Etoro	$0	✅ CopyTrading™ to follow top traders ✅ Trade U.S. stocks, ETFs, and crypto ✅ Trades with themed portfolios	$10 Crypto Sign-Up Bonus	Etoro Review
12.	Cash App	$0	✅ U.S. stocks and bitcoin; $1 minimum ✅ Peer-to-peer payments ✅ Beginner-friendly financial ecosystem	Up to $200 in free overdraft coverage and earn 4% on cash	Cash App Review
Fees, features, sign-up bonuses, and referral bonuses are accurate as of May 31, 2025. All information listed above is subject to change.

The Best Stock Newsletters as of June 29, 2025

Ranking of Top Stock Newsletters Based on Last 3 Years of Stock Picks

We are paid subscribers to dozens of stock newsletters. We actively track every recommendation from all of these services, calculate performance, and share the results of the top performing stock newsletters whose subscriptions fees are under $500. The main metric to look for is "Excess Return" which is their return above that of the S&P500. So, based on last 3 years ending June 29, 2025:

Rank	Stock Newsletter	Stock Picks	Average Return	Excess Return	Percent Profitable	Max % Return
1.	Alpha Picks	76	63%	40%	73%	969%
	Summary: 2 picks/month based on Seeking Alpha's Quant Rating; Retail Price is $499/yr. See details in our Alpha Picks Review.			July, 2025 Promotion: Save $50
2.	Moby.co	308	43.3%	12.3%	74%	1764%
	Summary: 60-150 stock picks per year, segmented by industry; Retail Price is $199/yr. Read our Moby Review.			July, 2025 Promotion:Next pick free!
3.	Stock Advisor	72	41.2%	6.9%	78%	258%
	Summary: 2 picks/month and 2 Best Buy Stocks lists focusing on high growth potential stocks over 5 years; Retail Price is $199/yr. Read our Motley Fool Review.			July, 2025 Promotion: Get $100 Off
4.	Value Investor	39	17.5%	6.1%	38%	410%
	Summary: 10-25 stock picks per year based on Zacks' Quant Rating; Retail Price is $495/yr. Read our Zacks Review.			July, 2025 PROMOTION:$1, then $495/yr
5.	Rule Breakers	66	40.0%	4.7%	61%	311%
	Summary: 2 picks/month focusing on disruptive technology and business models; Lifetime average return of 355% vs S&P500's 149% since 2005; Now part of Motley Fool Epic. Read our Motley Fool Epic Review.			Current Promotion: Save $200
6.	TipRanks SmartInvestor	121	10.6%	3.7%	55%	340%
	Summary: About 1 pick/week focusing on short term trades; Lifetime average return of 355% vs S&P500's 149% since 2015. Retail Price is $379/yr. Read our TipRanks Review.			Current Promotion: Save $180
7.	Action Alerts Plus	394	20.0%	3.4%	57%	220%
	Summary: 100-150 trades per year, lots of buying and selling and short term trades. Read our Jim Cramer Review.			Current Promotion: None
8.	Stock Advisor Canada	36	32.3%	0.5%	69%	378%
	Summary: 1 pick/month from the Toronto stock exchange; Retail Price is CD$199/yr. Read our Motley Fool Canada Stock Advisor Review.			July, 2025 Promotion: Save $100
Top Ranking Stock Newsletters based on their last 3 years of stock picks' performance through May 31, 2025 as compared to S&P500. S&P500's return is based on average return of S&P500 from date each stock pick is released. NOTE: To get these results you must buy equal dollar amounts of each pick on the date the stock pick is released. Investor Business Daily Top 50 based on performance of FFTY ETF.