8 Best Stock Trading Apps for 2026

Best stock trading apps

Lowest average margin rates: Robinhood

Best for traders who use leverage

Fees 

$0on trades of stocks, ETFs and their options. Other fees may apply.

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1 Free Stockafter linking your bank account (stock value range $5.00-$200)

Fees 

$0on trades of stocks, ETFs and their options. Other fees may apply.

Promotion 

1 Free Stockafter linking your bank account (stock value range $5.00-$200)

Robinhood has arguably done more than any other broker to make trading via phone app popular, and it continues to be a leader and an innovator among mobile brokers.

If you’re the kind of trader who likes to use leverage (that is, borrowed money) to enhance your potential returns, and you can tolerate the risks that come with it, there’s another reason to love Robinhood: it offers the lowest average margin rates of any broker we review. Both the high end and the low end of its rates (which vary based on balance) are almost as low as you can go. There are a couple of brokers whose lowest rates are lower, but these often require very high balances, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or even higher.

Here’s how all of Robinhood’s current margin rates shake out (rates are based on your total margin balance)[2]:

Other trading features that stand out about Robinhood: Robinhood is also a standout for another kind of high-risk move that day traders often like: cryptocurrency trading. Robinhood has the widest crypto selection of any stockbroker we review, and it’s one of the few stockbrokers that offers features like staking and send/receive capabilities in its crypto offering.

Where Robinhood falls short for traders: Unlike some of its competitors, Robinhood does not have any kind of basket-trading feature. You can only buy or sell one investment per order. Also, if you like to trade bonds, you may find Robinhood lacking: They’re only available in the form of bond ETFs.

Read our full Robinhood review for more impressions of the app from our testers.

Widest investment selection: Interactive Brokers

Best Online Broker for Advanced Traders

Interactive Brokers IBKR Lite

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Noneno promotion available at this time

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This article is oriented towards advanced traders. Interactive Brokers is oriented towards really advanced traders. Want to buy South African stocks? Malaysian agricultural futures contracts? Options on French bonds? Interactive Brokers has you covered.

It has, by far, the widest investment selection of any broker we review, thanks to its variety of asset classes (including stocks, bonds, options, ETFs, mutual funds, futures, currencies, crypto, event contracts and physical precious metals) as well as direct access to dozens of international exchanges.

Other trading features that stand out about Interactive Brokers: IBKR also has the widest research and data offerings of any broker we review, with more than 140 services available from more than 40 providers. However, not all of those are free; some require a paid subscription.

Where Interactive Brokers falls short for traders: IBKR is one of only a few brokers on this list that still charges a per-contract fee for option trades. IBKR Pro users also pay commissions of a fraction of a cent on stocks in exchange for faster and more efficient order execution, although free accounts don’t.

See our full Interactive Brokers review for more information on what the platform can do.

Cheapest option trades: Public

Rebates for options trading

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Earn a 1% uncapped matchwhen you transfer your investment portfolio to Public.

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Earn a 1% uncapped matchwhen you transfer your investment portfolio to Public.

Several brokers reviewed by NerdWallet now offer free option trading, sans commissions or contract fees — but Public is the only one that puts a negative cost on options trading; in other words, it pays you to trade options.

Public, like most of the other brokers on this page, makes money by selling customer order data to high-frequency trading firms, which use it to inform their own trading decisions — a business model known as payment for order flow (PFOF). Unlike the other brokers on this page, however, Public shares a portion of the PFOF revenue from option trades with its customers, in the form of a rebate of between $0.06 and $0.18 per contract traded, depending on your trading volume.

Other trading features that stand out about Public: If you’re the type of trader who likes to keep some cash on the sidelines to buy dips, Public stands out for its uninvested cash management options. It offers a high-yield cash account with a 3.3% APY at the time of last update, as well as a Treasury account that automatically invests your money in T-bills, offering potentially-higher yields and exemption from state taxes.

Where Public falls short for traders: Public offers fractional shares on most assets — 75% of stocks, all Treasuries, and about 100 other bonds, to be precise — but the fact that its fractional share offering isn’t universal puts it at a disadvantage relative to its competitors. Also, it has a $5 minimum for fractional shares, which is on the high end among brokers that offer this feature.

Check out our full Public review to learn more.

5 other stock trading apps we really like

Here’s more about the other brokers that scored highly on a mix of trading- and mobile-app-related metrics in NerdWallet’s review process: