4 Best Investment Apps for Beginners of 2024 (Ranked)

Our Take

Beginner investors should focus on the most simple to understand investment apps that offer a wide range of investing options with low trading & maintenance fees.

These apps are good choices if you finished school and started your first job but don’t have a lot of money to invest. You can get started with a small savings of $500 or $1,000.

Robinhood and Acorns are our top 2 choice for beginner investors while eToro and Public also made the list.

Best Investing Apps for Beginners

  1. Acorns
  2. Robinhood
  3. eToro
  4. Public

Best for Automated Roboadvisor Investing: Acorns

[lasso ref=”acorns” id=”42609″ link_id=”6385″]

Pros & Cons

Pros
  • Automated ETF investing portfolio management
  • Grow your account with round-ups and major retailer rewards
  • Supports taxable brokerage, IRA retirement accounts, and UTMA custodial accounts
Cons
  • $3 to $5 monthly maintenance fees
  • Cannot invest in individuals stocks or crypto

Why Acorns Made The List

Acorns is the perfect investing app for beginners who want to automate their investments using a diversified mix of exchange traded funds (ETFS). It’s perfect for individuals or families who know they should start investing but don’t have the time or patience to manage everything themselves.

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For just $3 to $5 per month, you can setup an investment portfolio with preselected mix of bonds or stocks depending on your risk tolerance. Acorns makes it easy to boost your portfolio with round-ups or recurring deposits.

You can open a taxable brokerage account, IRA retirement account, or UTMA custodial account for minors.

The Downside

What’s the downside? You cannot invest in individual stocks or cryptocurrencies on their platform.

Best for Commission Free Trading: Robinhood

[lasso ref=”1″ id=”14598″ link_id=”6386″]

Pros and Cons

Pros
  • Trade stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto for $0 commissions
  • No account minimums, maintenance fees, or inactivity fees
Cons
  • Cannot open an IRA retirement account or UTMA custodial account

Why Robinhood Made The List

Robinhood is a great investing app for beginners who want 100% control over their investments. You can trade stocks, ETFs, options, and crypto for $0 commissions no matter how many trade you make.

Robinhood’s app is extremely simple and easy to navigate for beginners who don’t need advanced technical charts or fundamental data to choose their investments.

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For example, if you want to invest in Tesla (TSLA) stock then you can buy TSLA shares in seconds with a few swipes.

The Downside

Robinhood doesn’t offer retirement or custodial accounts on their platform. You can only open a taxable brokerage account, which isn’t necessarily the most tax friendly investment account.

Best for Copy Investing: eToro

[lasso ref=”etoro” id=”42165″ link_id=”6387″]

Pros and Cons

Pros
  • Invest in stocks, ETF, and crypto
  • Copy trades from other successful investors
Cons
  • $50 minimum deposit

Why eToro Made The List

eToro is a popular social trading app for US residents as well as non-US investors who want to invest in stocks, ETFs, and crypto. The app offers a useful feature called CopyTrading that lets you automatically mimic the trades of other investors on the platform.

The Downside

You must deposit at least $50 to invest in the platform.

Best for Social Investing: Public

Pros and Cons

Pros
  • Trade stocks, ETFs, and crypto commission free
  • Follow other Public members and view their portfolio holdings
Cons

Why Public Made The List

Public is like the “Facebook of Investing” and allows you to follow and interact with other investors. You can trade stocks, ETFs, and crypto and post a note to your followers whenever you make a trade or add an asset to your watchlist.

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The Downside

You cannot open a retirement or UTMA custodial account.

How We Determined The Winners

I personally tested each and every investment app mentioned in this article while putting myself in the shoes of a complete investing beginner.

When you first start out investing, you want a simple and straightforward experience so you continue the habit as you get older. Too many people open a brokerage account on a more intermediate or advanced platform, feel intimidated by the whole investing process, and give up too soon.

These investment apps for beginners are a good starting point and you can always open new brokerage accounts or transfer your funds into another broker once you level up and need more bells and whistles.

Best of all, all of these apps offer commission free trading with extremely low fees.

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