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So, you want to buy and sell stocks but don't want to pay those expensive fees time and time again. You're in luck, there are free stock trading platforms that trade with no commission fees. That can be really huge. I'm sure you already know that though or else you wouldn't be here. We have compared the best free stock trading platforms in a way that is easy to understand so you can decide for yourself which one is right for you. You will also be taken inside of each of these platforms so you can see what each platform has to offer. Now, where else will you get this kind of behind-the-scenes look! You may have heard about one of or two of these services before but I doubt you've heard about all of them. I will show you what makes each service good and what I think they can improve on. Robinhood Most people in the United States have heard about Robinhood by now. They offer free stock, ETF, and options trades and have started to introduce Cryptocurrency as well. They are probably the fastest-growing stock investment brokerage in the United States due to their easy-to-use app and accessibility. What Separates Them from the Rest? Robinhood allows you to trade Stocks, ETFs, Options, and Cryptocurrencies. Most free brokerages only allow you to trade ETFs and Stocks. If you are interested in trading Options or Cryptos, this is the best bet as of now for free trading. Robinhood also allows you up to $1000 in instant transfers. This means that instead of waiting 3-5 days for funds to settle when you make a deposit, the second you authorize the transaction, Robinhood will let you start trading your deposit (up to $1000) instantly. This is a huge benefit. When I want to buy into a stock, I usually want to do it right away. If I make a deposit that afternoon, I will be able to make that trade instantly instead of waiting days! Lastly, Robinhood allows you to trade after hours. Most brokerages only allow you to trade during the normal market hours of 9:30 am to 4:00 pm EST. With Robinhood extended hours, you can trade during the pre-market time frame which starts at 9:00 pm EST and after-hours up to 6:00 pm EST. Where are they available? Currently, Robinhood is only available in the United States. What Do They Provide? You can trade stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptos with no commission fees. There is also the ability to do research to help you decide which securities to trade but the research is pretty limited. Anytime I want to do research a trade on Robinhood, I generally do my research on a third-party site like http://finance.yahoo.com and then I go back and make the trade on Robinhood. In addition to their normal service, they offer a service known as Robinhood Gold. Robinhood Gold is their premium service. With it, you get access to a margin account that allows you to trade with money that isn't yours. The benefit is that without making a deposit, you can invest more money. Does this mean it's riskier? Of course! You're basically borrowing money to invest. If your investments go up in value, you keep the difference. If the value goes down, you owe Robinhood what is lost. In addition to margin trading, you can have larger instant deposits. Instead of only being limited to $1000 instant deposits, you can double this by upgrading to their 1st Gold Tier which costs $6/month. There are higher tiers as well. Inside Robinhood Pros and Cons Pros: Free Commission Trading on Stocks, Options, ETFs, and Cryptos Instant Trading up to $1000 with the free Robinhood Instant Account Extended Hours of Trading (2 1/2 hours of extra trading that most investors don't have access to) Easy to use App geared towards the beginner investor Cons Limited research capability Can't buy/sell mutual funds Only available in the United States Unique Offer If you join Robinhood, you will get a free share of a stock valued between $2.50 - $200. Also, any time you refer a friend to Robinhood, you will each get a free stock! Join Here and Get a Free Stock! Read the Full Review of Robinhood Here Webull Webull started out as a stock market research app designed to help investors research potential stocks. Now they are a brokerage competing with Robinhood. They offer zero-commission trading and give margin accounts with a 3.99% finance charge. What Separates Them from the Rest? Webull allows the use of a margin account for 6.99%. The percentage lowers based on the account balance. Large brokerages like TD Ameritrade charge around 9.50%. This alone is a good reason to use Webull if you want to open a margin account. Webull is the only commission-free service that I know which allows you to "short" stocks. Shorting stocks means you can sell shares of stock that you don't own yet and buy them back at a later time. People will do this when they believe bad news is about to occur and they want to make money based on a stock's value decreasing. Shorting a stock is a more advanced type of trading. Webull also offers the most versatile suite for analyzing and researching stocks as far as a discount brokerage is concerned. Where are They Available? Currently, Webull is available inthe United States and outlying territories, India, Malaysia,The Philippines, Japan, and Korea. They are growing every year though. What Do They Provide? Since they started out as a stock research app, they have an incredible suite of research and analytic tools used to choose stocks and track investments. Virtual (paper) trading is built right into the app so you can try stock strategies without the consequence of using real money. If you're not sure if a trade would be good or not but think you've identified a winning trade, try it with paper trading in the app and see if you had been right with the security of not using real money. You can use smart alerts to let you know when a stock moves or triggers a property that you've been tracking like P/E ratio, volume, or price. Another feature is analyst ratings so you can see what the general sentiment is for the stock you are tracking. Use Webull's incredible screening feature to identify stocks that meet a very specific set of properties that you are trying to narrow down. For example, do you want stocks with a volume greater than 1,000,000 shares, a P/E ratio between 5-15, and that offer 3% dividends each year? Enter those criteria with only a few hand gestures and hit save. The list will populate with stocks that meet your criteria. Webull offers low margin pricing for margin accounts as mentioned above as well. Inside Webull! Pros and Cons Pros: Commission Free Trading 3.99-6.99% margin accounts Now, minimum deposits An incredible suite of research and analytic software Great news feed for industry news The ability to "short sell" stocks Extended hours are permitted for trading Available in more countries than Robinhood Cons: Only allows stock and ETF trading It relies heavily on the mobile interface. The web-based interface is limited (although they have a desktop app.) Now, instant buying power. They do have provisional buying power after the transfer but it can take between 30minutes to a full day to execute. Unique Offer: If you join Webull, you'll get a free stock valued between $3 - $300 without even having to fund the account. That means just for signing up, you'll have a stock. If you fund your account with $100 within 30 days, you'll get a second free stock which is valued between $4 - $1000. It's hard to beat two free stocks. Most brokerages give you nothing for free. For those that do offer an incentive, it's usually only one free stock of lesser value. Join Webull and Get a Free Stock between $3 and $300 Today! Read the Full Review of Webull Here Public (Formally known as Matador) This is the newest of the commission-free stock trading services I am reviewing today. It is only available on iOS currently but an app for Android is in development and you can be put on the notification list by signing up on their website. What Separates Them from the Rest? Matador brings a social element to investing that is completely unique. Imagine Matador like Instagram or Twitter meets Robinhood. You can follow friends and friends can follow you. Also, you can see what the overall Matador community is trading. You can explore stocks by various categories as seen below: (and yes, I need to charge my phone...) Where are They Available? Matador is a new service only available in the United States. What Do They Provide? Like all services in this post, Matador offers commission-free trading. There is no minimum deposit. You can browse stocks based on popularity in the Matador community or even by popularity among your friends. You can browse stocks by 50 different categories from various different industries. Matador offers a feed where all of your activity is posted along with the activity of all friends in your network. Similar to Twitter, you can see various friend's new stock acquisitions and comment on each other's statuses. Inside Public (Formerly Matador) Pros and Cons Pros: Commission Free Trading Easy to use platform A category system for choosing and researching stocks Social element with community and friends Ability to network with other investors and comment through feeds Cons: Only in the United States Currently only available on iOS (Android App in production) It only allows the trading of stocks and ETFs Unique Offer Rather than give random shares of stock away, Public gives away a free slice of stock valued up to $50. When you sign up, you can choose from 1 of 9 stocks that you would like to own and Public will gift you the slice of stock. When I joined, I told two friends about it and within a few days, I had $40 in rewards. I didn't get the free slice of stock for signing up though because I joined from their site and not through a friend link. The link below will give you a free slice of stock since you are joining under my invitation link. Join Public Today and receive a free slice of stock! Read the Full Review of Public Here Recap of the Best Free Stock Trading Platforms So, there you have 3 of the best free stock trading platforms. Hopefully, this review showed you each one and gave you a good idea of what each app has to offer. You learned what each app provides as well as what the pros and cons are for each platform. You should also see what makes each company unique to help you choose an investing platform that can deliver what's important to you! You could even join all 3 as I did. It's completely up to you. Robinhood is easy for beginners and offers a very simple platform and offers the most in terms of types of investing. Webull allows you to "short sell" stocks and provides the best platform for market research and analysis. Matador allows you to see what's trending and share your trades with friends so you can learn from each other. If you know of another trading platform that offers Free Commissions, feel free to comment or contact us and we'll gladly review it ourselves. I hope you enjoyed this review. If you did, please leave a comment below. As always, if there is someone you think could benefit from this helpful article, please share it with them!