Best Online Brokerages for Beginners in 2024 (2024)

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The best online brokerages for beginners offer low fees, easy trading, educational resources, research access, financial tools, and more. Robo-advisors, like Betterment and Acorns, are popular online brokers for beginners who implement low-cost, passive investing strategies.

Best Online Brokerages for Beginners in 2024

• SoFi Invest®: Best overall online broker for beginners
• Charles Schwab: Best overall online for beginners runner-up
• Fidelity Investments: Best for all levels of investors
• Vanguard: Best for retirement-focused investors
• Betterment Investing: Best robo-advisors
• Ally Invest: Best for banking-brokerage combo

Compare the Best Brokerages for Beginners

Many top beginner-friendly platforms offer brokerage accounts with no minimum deposit and access to educational resources (such as webinars, blogs, videos, training courses, and quizzes). The best online brokerage accounts have easy-to-navigate interfaces, limited investment options, and little to no trading fees.

Here are the top picks for the best online brokerage for beginners, as picked by Business Insider's editors in 2024.

Top Online Brokerages for Beginners

SoFi Brokerage Account

Best for: Beginners

SoFi is the best online broker for beginners seeking a straightforward investing experience. The investment platform has a slimmer lineup of accounts than some bigger competitors, but it covers the most common needs for managing your investments. It also offers a great bank account, lending products, and other financial tools to help you understand your investments.

SoFi Invest® offers active investing accounts and managed robo-adviser accounts with no recurring fees and a $1 minimum to get started. Those include both taxable investment accounts and IRA or Roth IRA retirement accounts.

The only big downside of these accounts is that you can only trade stocks and ETFs. There are no mutual funds available through SoFi. Stock and ETF trades are commission-free. SoFi offers automated investing for $0. SoFi also offers beginner investing educational resources, free financial planning sessions, career coaching, and other perks for SoFi members.

SoFi Invest review

Charles Schwab Brokerage Account

Best for:Beginners Runner-Up

Charles Schwab is a great online brokerage account for beginners because it offers something for investors with virtually any investment need. Not only does this investment app allow you to manage all of your banking and investments with one login, but its investment tools are also designed to grow with you as you learn more and level up your investing style.

For investors who want to manage everything themselves, you can choose self-directed traditional brokerage and retirement accounts where you pick all your investments with no commissions for stock or ETF trades. These accounts have no fees and no minimum balance requirements.

Charles Schwab also offers a robo-adviser, Charles Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, that can manage your investments for free.

Charles Schwab review

Fidelity Brokerage Account

Best for: All Levels of Investors

Fidelity is a powerful low-fee brokerage account for novice investors if your main goal is investing for retirement. It's a brokerage account with no minimum deposit requirement and no fees. It offers a suite of investor tools and resources focused on helping customers reach their retirement goals.

In addition to free stock and ETF trades, Fidelity Investments customers can access more than 10,000 mutual funds without transaction fees. Among those are four funds from Fidelity that charge no expense ratio (that means no fund fees).

Fidelity Go is Fidelity's robo-advisor offering; it's a solid product, though fees are slightly higher on some balances than competitors such as Betterment. Fidelity Go now has one-on-one unlimited coaching calls.

Fidelity Go review

Vanguard Brokerage Account

Best for:Retirement-Focused Individuals

Vanguard has long been a one-stop shop for all things investing. The online brokerage's investment selection includes self-directed accounts, automated investing accounts (robo-advisors), IRAs, education savings plans, and much more.

Beginners might also appreciate the online brokerage's vast suite of educational resources. Vanguard offers a library of insights and guides on various investing topics, as well as market analysis and expert research.

Vanguard offers competitive products for long-term focused investors, but some of its products that best suit active traders (e.g., options) fall short of its competitors. For instance, options contracts will cost you $1 each. This is higher than the options contracts fees for many brokerages. In addition, Vanguard doesn't offer any additional trading platforms for advanced traders.

Vanguard Digital Advisor review

Betterment Brokerage Account

Best for: Robo-Advisor

Betterment is the largest independent online financial advisor. If you are looking for an investment experience where you explain your investment goals, hand over your money, and someone else takes care of everything, Betterment is a great broker for beginners.

The term "robo-adviser" is intimidating to some people, but rest assured, an actual robot isn't sitting there picking stocks for you. Instead, you answer some basic questions about yourself and your investment goals when signing up. Based on your answers, Betterment Investing will provide investing advice and recommendations based on your goal details.

Betterment is also a good brokerage option for small business employers looking to offer their employees 401(k) plans. Betterment offers unique benefits like the new student loan match program through Betterment at Work. However, you'll have to pay extra to take advantage of human advisor guidance if you can't meet the $100,000 minimum attached to Betterment's premium account.

Betterment review

Ally Invest Brokerage Account

Best for: Banking-Brokerage Combo

Most of the brokerages for beginners above offer an integrated bank account, but if you are looking for the best bank account and brokerage combo, Ally Invest may be the best option for your needs. Ally Bank is a broker for beginners that offers some of the highest-rated checking and savings options and a low-fee investment platform that works well for beginners.

Ally Invest's Robo Portfolios rely on ETFs, and Ally manages and monitors each portfolio daily. The robo-advisor offers four investment portfolio options: Core, Income, tax-optimized, and Socially Responsible.

It doesn't have the flashiest or fullest-featured trading platform, but it gets the job done and makes it easy for beginners to manage their banking and investments with one login. Also, Ally doesn't offer cryptocurrencies directly, but you can get exposure to crypto through Ally Invest Funds, which include crypto assets.

Ally Invest review

Introduction to Brokerage Account for Beginners

Easy-to-use trading platforms for beginners are crucial for those starting their investment journey to access tools and resources designed to simplify the investing process.

Getting started can feel overwhelming, but with the best investment apps for beginner investors, novice traders can more easily grasp the basics of online investing.

Features of a Beginner-Friendly Brokerage Account

The best brokerages for beginners offer a handful of investing features suitable for beginners. These features include goal-building tools such as tax loss harvesting, automatic rebalancing, portfolio management, and similar financial planning tools.

Educational resources, like webinars and blogs, are also extremely beneficial for new investors.Low minimums and fees are more suitable for beginners just getting acquainted with investment products and services. More advanced online brokerages will require higher fees and minimums to access advanced trading and charting tools.

Criteria for Choosing a Brokerage Account as a Beginner

When looking for a beginner-friendly brokerage account, look for brokerages offering comprehensive educational resources, easy-to-use interfaces, simplified trading strategies, strong customer support, and low fees. Robo-advisors are a great place to start.

Understanding Fees and Commissions

Many of the best online brokerage accounts for beginners require only low minimums (or no minimums at all). Low to no trading fees for beginner-designed investment apps are also common. Common perks include commission-free trades and no AUM fees.

If you can swing it, you shouldn't be paying recurring fees or minimum charges with most of the best brokerage accounts. You may see some fees for phone or broker-assisted trades, as well as commissions for some mutual funds and other investments.

Watch for hidden fees, especially on asset trades such as index funds, options contracts, futures, and digital currencies.

Getting Started with Your First Brokerage Account

To open your first online brokerage account, consider the type of account, investment options, and features you're looking for. Once you know what you want, compare different brokerage accounts that fit the bill and find the one that best fits your needs. You can then begin the application process, fund your new account, and invest.

Tips for a Successful Investment Journey

• Set investing goals: Establish clear investment goals to focus on how you allocate the funds in your account. When starting, think of long-term and short-term investment goals to strive for. These can include saving for a trip, retirement, or a housing fund.
• Diversify your investment portfolio: Diversification is one of the most important investment strategies. By diversifying your holdings, you get exposure to multiple market sectors while mitigating unnecessary risk and volatility.
• Understand risk: All investments, even those considered safe, carry some risk. There is never a guarantee that your investments will turn profitable. Certain volatile assets like individual stocks or real estate pose a much higher level of risk and reward. Your portfolio's exposure to risk depends on your personal preferences and goals.
• Avoid high fees: Certain investments and brokerage accounts charge high fees that may eat away at your potential gains over time. Avoid these high fees by seeking low-cost alternatives or different investment strategies.

Best Online Brokerages for Beginners FAQs

Why You Should Trust Us: Our Expert Panel For The Best Online Brokerages for Beginners

We interviewed the following investing experts to see what they had to say about online brokerages for beginners.

• Sandra Cho, RIA, wealth manager, and CEO of Pointwealth Capital Management
• Tessa Campbell, Investment and retirement reporter at Personal Finance Insider

What are the advantages/disadvantages of investing through an online brokerage for beginners?

Sandra Cho:

"The advantage of an online broker is that fees are generally much less than a full-service broker, and the disadvantage is that the service is much less than a full-service broker."

Tessa Campbell:

"Online brokerages designed for beginners come with multiple advantages for new investors with simple-to-use platforms, simplified trading strategies, educational resources, minimal fees, and easy portfolio diversification. Some of the most popular online brokers for beginners are robo-advisors, which are automated investment platforms that use computer algorithms to trade and manage your investment portfolio.

"The disadvantage of beginner-friendly online brokerages is that you won't get access to advanced trading strategies and market data. You also won't get the same level of account flexibility as you would with a more hands-on trading platform designed for experienced investors."

Who should consider opening a beginner-friendly online brokerage?

Sandra Cho:

"Online brokers tend to attract two main types of investors in my experience, day traders and people who are extremely fee-conscious."

Tessa Campbell:

"Online brokerages for beginners are best for, well, beginners with limited trading experience. These platforms offer accessible, easy-to-use investing interfaces. A beginner-friendly broker may be a good option if you're looking to avoid all the complicated bells and whistles found with other advanced investing platforms. Moreover, these brokers tend to have lower fees and minimums, which makes them appealing to fee-conscious individuals."

Is there any advice you'd offer someone who's considering opening a beginner-friendly brokerage account?

Sandra Cho:

"Stay simple. Keep to long trades and stay away from options like riskier naked shorts where you can literally lose your shorts."

Tessa Campbell:

"Make sure to thoroughly compare different online brokers for beginners to ensure that the platform you choose best fits you. Not all online investment platforms offer the same features and investable securities. So if there's a certain feature you're looking for, such as automatic rebalancing or ESG funds, make sure that you pick the best broker for that feature."

Methodology: How We Choose the Best Online Brokers for Beginners

The best online brokers for beginners were rated using Business Insider's rating methodology for investment platforms. This rating system compares beginner-friendly online brokerage based on investment options, fees, ethics, trustworthiness, and customer support.

To make it onto this list, brokerages must offer commission-free stock, ETF trades, and no recurring account fees (excluding robo-advisors). Other important focus areas include available investments, types of accounts, and high-quality investment platforms. Strong investment research and education resources were another plus but carried less weight in the decision process.