Which platform will make you more money? The answer, of course, entirely depends on where you invest. Unlike many larger and traditional brokerages, neither Robinhood nor Webull charges you fees for trades outside of their product catalog. Nor do they have joining fees. Robinhood is even offering a promotion where you’ll earn a share of stock just for signing up. Both platforms charge the standard regulatory fee ($22.10 per $1,000,000 of principle) and TAF fee ($.000119 per share, max $5.95), but no brokerage fees or commissions on top of that. Both Robinhood and Webull offer margin investing, where you borrow money from the platform to invest. Robinhood charges $5/mo up to $1,000 or 5% over $1000, while Webull charges 6.99% up to $25,000, and the rest can be found in this chart. Your maximum performance and highest dividends will come from how you like to invest since both platforms offer slightly different options. Robinhood investment options Until recently, one of Robinhood’s chief advantages over Webull was offering both options and crypto trading. As of March 2020, however, Webull has begun offering the former. Webull’s site indicates that it’s adding crypto at some point, but until then, if you’d like to trade crypto and stocks from the same platform, Robinhood is your best bet. Robinhood also offers better margin trading fees for smaller amounts. Their fee for margins up to $1000 is only $5 per month and 5% thereafter, while Webull charges 6.99% for all margins under $25,000. Lastly, Robinhood supports buying and selling fractional shares, so you don’t have to plunk down a whole $800 for a share of TSLA. Webull does not support fractional shares. Webull investment options While Webull doesn’t offer cryptocurrency trading (yet), it offers significantly more tools and analytics than Robinhood to inform your trades of stocks, options, and ETFs. Webull’s tools include, but are not limited to: Cash flow reports. Income statements. Balance sheets. Streaming news. Morningstar reports. If you like to trade often and quickly and don’t like having to switch between your trading platform and Yahoo! Finance every few seconds, Webull is the better option. Plus, if you’re just looking to get your feet wet and practice trading, Webull offers paper trading accounts. Paper trading has all of the functionality of a real trading account but uses fake money. This enables you to sharpen your skills and chase the thrill of watching your accounts bounce up and down without risk to your actual portfolio. Curiously for a platform geared towards new investors, Robinhood does not offer paper trading. Lastly, Webull supports short trading while Robinhood, true to its namesake, does not. Some consider shorts to be immoral, while others consider it a part of the natural order. If you’d like to keep short selling as an option, Webull is the platform for you. Robinhood vs. Webull investment performance summary All things considered, I’d say Robinhood is the better place to learn, and Webull is the better place to make money. Robinhood is clean, simple, and friendly to part-time investors looking to diversify their portfolio with a flat learning curve. However, by offering short selling and better analytics, Webull is a better place to profit. ...
