WeBull vs Robinhood. Both two innovative and fairly new brokers in their own right. So which one should you go for?
It’s always highly individual which brokerage will be a good fit. One broker is a great fit for one person, but a not-so-great fit for another. It all depends on what you want and your trading style.
So to make it easier to choose between these two techies, we’ve created a comparison table you can view, and we’ll give you some background info on both providers.
Webull is an online, mobile-first investing and trading company. Despite being a Chinese company, Webull is headquartered in New York. It’s one of the newer trading platforms to make it big in the online space, having only been established in 2017.
Like several other popular “new age” brokers, one of Webull’s main selling points is its 0% commission stock investing. Webull is primarily aimed towards stock investors, offering thousands of stocks, and it also offers free ETFs and options. Beyond that, Webull also offers ADRs and, more recently, cryptocurrencies.
Another selling point of Webull is its no minimum deposit policy, which means you can get started trading and investing with as little money as you like, something which makes the platform appealing to beginners. As well as a regular brokerage account, Webull also offers three different Individual Retirement Account (IRA) options.
Webull is a “mobile first” broker, which means it is aimed specifically at the younger generation of traders and investors who want easy access to the financial markets via their smartphone. It has seen rapid growth since its launch, exceeding 11 million users in August 2020.
At the moment, Webull is only available in a limited number of countries, including the US, China, India and Brazil. Webull is not yet available in Europe.
Robinhood is in many ways similar to Webull. It’s another “new age”, mobile-first broker that has made its name thanks partly due to the fact you can invest in stocks, ETFs and options with no commission on the platform.
Robinhood is perhaps slightly better known than Webull, having been founded in 2013. The company is headquartered in Menlo Park, California and as of 2020 has 13 million users, making it one of the most popular online trading platforms in the US.
Again, Robinhood is mainly focused on stock investing, offering thousands of stocks from around the world, and it’s also popular for its range of ETFs and options. Robinhood also offers trading and investing options for funds, gold and cryptocurrencies.
Away from the trading side of things, Robinhood also offers cash management services. This means you can get your paycheck, pay bills, send checks, buy groceries, and jump on potential market opportunities all from a single app.
Both Webull and Robinhood hit the news recently during the Gamestop short squeeze. Welcome to our Webull vs Robinhood comparison! As a group of traders from a Reddit forum noticed hedge funds shorting the stock and responded by buying it en masse, causing the stock’s value to rocket, both Webull and Robinhood suspended trading on the stock, causing a lot of controversy as each broker was accused of manipulating the market in favour of hedge funds. If you’re interested in other comparisons and have been asking is Plus 500 or Trading 212 better, we’ve got you covered.
Our Robinhood vs Webull broker comparison found that both brokers are impressive in terms of usability, look and feel. Whereas some older brokers seem to think about design as a bit of an afterthought, Webull and Robinhood are both modern brokers with attractive, impressive designs. This is similar to what we found when we carried out our eToro vs Plus500 and Fidelity vs TD Armitage comparisons.
Webull offers both a web app so that you can trade instantly on your computer, and it also offers downloadable software. Both platforms are very clear, well laid out and easy to use. Everything you need, including watchlists, markets and account settings are positioned down the left hand side so you can navigate through the platform in seconds.
The centre of your screen displays live markets with real-time price updates, and there’s also a news section featured, so you can easily keep up with the latest events. Webull goes for a fairly basic white and blue colour scheme.
Robinhood is designed in a similar way, using a white and green colour scheme and a layout in which everything is easy to reach in seconds. In fact, Robinhood has won several prestigious design-related awards, including the Apple Design Award, the Google Material Design Award, and Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award.
Robinhood’s innovative design, of both the site and mobile app, brings a very modern feel to trading and makes it as simple as possible for beginners, which is a big part of the company’s huge success.
Both Webull and Robinhood also offer mobile apps for Android and iOS so you can trade on the go. Like the web platforms, both apps are very well designed, easy to navigate and they run smoothly with no glitches.
Webull offers some useful research tools on its platform, including trading ideas for stocks, fundamental data for stocks and ETFs, and decent charting tools. Robinhood also offers trading ideas with expert analyst ratings, although the fundamental data and charting is more basic than on Webull.
In 2020, Robinhood introduced a useful feature called Profiles, which allows you to customise your public profile and search other users to see what they’ve traded and invested in.
Both Webull and Robinhood only offer deposit and withdrawals via bank transfer, which may put off users looking to use faster methods, such as PayPal. You can’t even deposit using your debit card.
Webull and Robinhood only offer USD as the base currency, which means you’ll need to pay a currency conversion fee if you’re depositing in GBP or any currency other than USD.
At Webull, ACH transfers take three to five business days to clear, domestic wire transfers take one to two business days, and foreign wire transfers take up to five business days. As a courtesy, Webull grants its users up to $1,000 provisional cash to trade with while waiting for your deposit to clear. Robinhood offers instant transfers for any amount up to $1,000, although any deposit over this amount can take up to five business days to clear.
ACH deposits are free at Webull, although there is an $8 free for domestic wire transfers and a $12.50 free for international wire transfers. Users outside the US can only use wire transfer. ACH withdrawals are free, while domestic wire withdrawals at $25 and international wire withdrawals are $40. Deposits and ACH withdrawals are free at Robinhood, although domestic wire transfers cost $25 and international wire transfers cost $50.
Both Webull and Robinhood have no minimum deposit for their standard accounts, so you can start investing with as little as you like. Both of these stock brokers allow you to deposit up to $50,000 per business day into your account.
Our Robinhood vs Webull comparison found that if you use different bank accounts to deposit and withdraw, there is a 60-day holding period at each broker due to regulatory compliance.
Webull offers three contact methods for customer support – phone, email and social media. Regarding the latter, you can contact the support team on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. The Webull website also has an extensive Help Centre which contains help and answers to many common issues.
Robinhood’s customer service team is a little less quick and easy to get hold. You have to select a category, topic and subtopic. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be suggested an article from the Robinhood Help Centre that may answer your question. If you still need assistance, you can fill in a contact form. There’s no telephone contact number, which may put some investors off.
The Webull website claims its customer support team are on hand to help 24/7
Neither broker’s customer service has particularly impressive user reviews.On Trustpilot, Webull has a ‘bad’ rating with one and a half stars from 55 reviews, with users claiming that they haven’t received promised referral stocks, that it can take a long time for issues to be resolved, and that the account verification process can be length. Robinhood has even worse ratings, with just one star from close to 3,000 reviews on Trustpilot.
It’s worth bearing in mind that the ratings for both brokers have been influenced by their actions in the wake of the Gamestop short selling event, with many reviews claiming they manipulate the market in favour of hedge funds.
To see how these two brokers compare to the customer service of other UK platforms, read our Plus500 vs Trading 212 comparison.
Webull and Robinhood are both regulated, licensed online brokers that provide safe and secure trading services. The two platforms are very similar in terms of their licensing and security levels.
Both brokers are registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and are members of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). This means that securities customers are protected up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash.
Our Robinhood vs TD Ameritrade comparison found that while neither broker is licensed by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), they are both secure, trusted brokers.
Both Webull and Robinhood have a verification process for new customers. This may require you to provide identification documents such as your passport. This is to help identify minors and prevent potential crime such as money laundering.
One thing to be mindful is that both brokers offer crypto trading through separate registered accounts, neither of which are members of FINRA or SIPC. This means that your cryptocurrencies are not protected like your stocks are.
Whereas Webull is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ, Robinhood isn’t a publicly traded company so it only discloses limited financial information in comparison to Webull.
Both Webull and Robinhood are best known for their stock trading options, and both allow you to buy stocks commission-free, meaning you can invest in top companies with no fees! This is the same as some other online brokers like we reveal in our eToro vs Trading 212 comparison. The same also goes for ETFs and options on both platforms, so these brokers are two of the cheapest on the market.
Other markets do incur fees, however. Webull charges for crypto and forex trades in the form of a variable spread. There is a 100-basis point spread on either side of a crypto trade. As the spread is variable, we recommend taking a look before creating an account and depositing.
Unlike Webull, Robinhood also offers crypto investing with 0% commission. This is pretty rare in the online investing scene, so it’s definitely worth bearing in mind if you’re a crypto investor, as you can trade the likes of Bitcoin and Ethereum with zero charges.
Webull also charges an annual margin rate if you choose to trade with a margin account. The margin rate starts at 6.99% for deposit balances up to $25,000 and it gradually decreases down to 3.99% for deposit balances upwards of $3,000,000. The rate is calculated on a daily basis and paid monthly.
Both Webull and Robinhood also charge regulatory transaction fees, which are fees charged by regulatory bodies that both brokers pass onto the customer. For example, FINRA charges a trading activity fee which the brokers charge to the users for sales of 50 shares or more. The fee is $0.000119 per share for equity sells and $0.002 per contract for options sells. The fee is rounded up to the nearest penny and never goes over $5.95.
Our Robinhood vs Webull comparison found that neither of these brokers charge an inactivity fee, so you don’t need to worry if you want to pause your trading for a few months.
In truth, Webull and Robinhood are very similar brokers and it’s hard to separate them. Both offer the same asset classes and have the main selling point of 0% commission on stocks, ETFs and options, meaning their two the cheapest brokers around for stock investing.
It’s worth noting that whereas Webull charges a spread for crypto trading, Robinhood doesn’t charge users to invest in cryptocurrencies, which means Robinhood has the slight edge in terms of fees. Other than that, the fees are almost exactly the same for each platform.
Both brokers are beginner-friendly and have no minimum deposit amount, however, Robinhood offers fractional shares whereas Webull doesn’t, so you can invest from just $1 on Robinhood. On the flip side, Webull probably has a better selection of advanced tools and research features which mean it may better suit experienced traders and investors.
The two brokers are very similar in most other aspects. For example, both only offer payments and deposits via bank transfer. This may put some users off, particularly if you’re looking for a broker that accepts e-wallet payments like PayPal. Both Webull and Robinhood also have very well designed, user-friendly websites and mobile investment apps, so they’re great platforms for beginners.
These two brokers are also very similar when it comes to safety, with both having the same licensing and regulatory standing. Neither are outstanding in the customer service department, though Webull does offer telephone support whereas Robinhood doesn’t.
Overall, there isn’t a clear winner when it comes to Webull vs Robinhood. If you’re looking to trade crypto, Robinhood may be a better match due to its lower fees, but if you’re looking for a broker that offers telephone support, you’ll probably be best off choosing Webull.
Ultimately, we recommend doing some of your own research into each broker to help ensure you pick the one that’s right for you.
