The proliferation of investment apps has coincided with the evolution of user preferences,

The proliferation of investment apps has coincided with the evolution of user preferences, with a growing number of people opting to mainly manage their money through tablets or smartphones. Stock trading and robo-advisor platforms have embraced this transition by focusing on improving their mobile app experiences. Brokers’ desktop trading platforms have historically had more features and capabilities than mobile, but the experiences and functionality have increasingly become virtually interchangeable. This improved consistency between mobile and desktop provides investors with a more synchronized experience in terms of alerts, watchlists, and updates, while also improving the ease with which you manage your money and monitor your investment goals.

To help evaluate the best options in the industry, we performed extensive research on a range of U.S.-based offerings to determine the top platforms for several categories.

Practice trading with virtual money
Find out what a hypothetical investment would be worth today.

SELECT A STOCK

• TSLA

• TESLA INC

• AAPL

• APPLE INC

• NKE

• NIKE INC

• AMZN

• AMAZON.COM, INC

• WMT

• WALMART INC

SELECT INVESTMENT AMOUNT
$ 1000

SELECT A PURCHASE DATE
5 years ago

CALCULATE

Best Investing Apps
Wealthfront: Best Automated Investing App
TD Ameritrade: Best Self-Directed Trading App
TD Ameritrade: Best App for Beginners
Interactive Brokers: Best App for Active Traders
tastytrade: Best App for Options Traders

Wealthfront: Best Automated Investing App
Wealthfront
OPEN AN ACCOUNT
Account Minimum: $500
Fees: 0.25% for most accounts, no trading commission or fees for withdrawals, minimums, or transfers

Why We Chose It
Wealthfront delivers a powerful, digital-only investment experience that gives users access to comprehensive money management features through an elegant, sleek design. You’ll find the financial guidance, account aggregation, goal setting, investing, and banking options to be both user-friendly and seamless to navigate. Wealthfront’s Self-Driving Money allows you to further automate your finances by using a rules-based approach to move money between your accounts while optimizing for your goals, putting even control of your financial journey right at your fingertips.

The mobile apps for Android and iOS platforms are both superb and are on par with the desktop experience in terms of features, functionality, and ease of navigation. The app is thoughtfully designed to minimize unnecessary data inputs or typing, opting instead to leverage more user-friendly sliders, drop-down menus, and auto-fill functionality. You’ll still have to input user IDs and passwords when linking external accounts, but generally, the workflows are intuitive and consistent. Overall, while E*TRADE’s Core Portfolio robo-advisor offering won our Best Robo-Advisor for Mobile Experience category, Wealthfront was our best overall robo-advisor, and its platform provides a polished, smart user experience with exposure to a significantly greater range of comprehensive money management tools.

Pros & Cons
Pros

• Comprehensive financial planning tools

• The digital-only financial guidance through Path is best in class

• Thoughtful mobile experience designed to reduce errors and optimize functionality

• Self-Driving Money provides seamless financial management through your smartphone

Cons

• External account syncing can be inconsistent

• No discounts for larger balances

• No human financial advisors

TD Ameritrade: Best Stock Trading App

OPEN AN ACCOUNT
Account Minimum: $0.00
Fees: $0.00 for equities/ETFs. $0.65 per contract for options. Futures $2.25 per contract

Why We Chose It
TD Ameritrade stands out for creating a mobile trading experience that can be more intuitive than the desktop version while maintaining a deep feature set. The mobile trading features are neatly organized into easy-to-understand functionalities and menus. This simple design incorporates watchlists, orders, managing positions, options, and chart customization. If you are using the TD Ameritrade app, the workflow is slimmed down to focus on what you need for buying and selling as well as monitoring the overall portfolio. With thinkorswim, however, the workflow mimics the downloadable platform and allows you to customize charts, analyze positions, and much more.

Regardless of which app you use, you’ll find that TD Ameritrade’s mobile experience has all the accessories needed to manage your money on the go. The apps provide a dynamic and powerful alternative to the full desktop versions. While thinkorswim users will still gravitate to the desktop version whenever possible, the TD Ameritrade app can serve its users as the primary trading platform. The big question in the coming months is what from the TD app experience will be brought over to Schwab as their integration has started in 2023 and is expected to complete in 2024.

Pros & Cons
Pros

• Expertly designed mobile apps that are more streamlined than desktop versions

• Choice between two apps appeals to users of all backgrounds

• Charts, updates, and customizations fluidly sync between mobile and desktop platforms

• Extensive investment selections and trading functionality

Cons

• Drawing on charts is only available through thinkorswim mobile

• TD Ameritrade doesn’t offer fractional share trading

• Some tools are only available on one platform, creating a challenge for hybrid users

• Potentially big changes ahead as Schwab integration moves to completion

TD Ameritrade: Best App for Beginners

OPEN AN ACCOUNT
Account Minimum: $0.00
Fees: $0.00 for equities/ETFs. $0.65 per contract for options. Futures $2.25 per contract

Why We Chose It
TD Ameritrade also wins our best app for beginners category, boasting a clear educational focus that empowers users to better understand the market and investing. TD Ameritrade supports a range of educational offerings that match investors of all backgrounds. That said, TD Ameritrade’s education through the app isn’t as in-depth as the website. The educational angle has been slimmed down to put more focus on investing on the go rather than learning about investing on the go. Even this slimmed-down educational experience is much more comprehensive than the competition, however, as TD Ameritrade is pulling from one of the deepest libraries of content around.

Investors can start with TD Ameritrade without committing to the platform by trading via a paper account, a helpful feature for investors to understand how the market behaves without risking capital. For paper trading on mobile, you have to use the thinkorswim mobile app. This is a great feature for aspiring traders to test out, but it can be intimidating if you are just looking to do basic investing. Overall, however, you will find that the mobile experience gives a comprehensive feel without being overpowering, allowing you to choose features that match your capabilities. This allows for a gentler introduction to investing and makes TD Ameritrade an excellent choice for beginner investors. As mentioned, we will see how the merged TD Ameritrade and Schwab apps combine and what features are ported over this year before the TD Ameritrade app is retired.

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