Webull vs. Robinhood: the subject of a great modern debate between people who love self-directed mobile investing platforms.
When Robinhood first surfaced, it was a flawed but fun industry disruptor known for making free trades. We’ve now reached a new age in self-directed mobile investing as Webull and Robinhood are constantly updating their offerings to compete for users.
In this article, I’ll help you understand who should use Webull, who should use Robinhood and who should use a different brokerage firm altogether.
Table of Contents
- What Are Webull and Robinhood, Exactly?
- Which Is Better for Beginners?
- Which Trading Platform Is Better?
- Webull vs. Robinhood: Key Product Differences
- Why Choose Webull?
- Why Choose Robinhood?
- Neither Platform May Work for You
What Are Webull and Robinhood, Exactly?
| Webull | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|
| Company type | Self-directed investment platform | Self-directed investment platform |
| Best For | Intermediate investors, swing traders | Beginning investors |
| Stands Out For | Charts and data | Simplicity and speed |
| Missing product | Fractional shares | Short selling |
Webull and Robinhood are both free, mobile, self-directed brokerage firms.
Robinhood came first. Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt founded it in April 2013 after building high-frequency trading platforms for giant companies in New York City. They realized that hedge funds and brokerages were able to execute high-volume trades for pennies, while retail investors had to pay per-trade fees and maintain account minimums.
Robinhood eventually forced discount brokers to become fee-free brokers in order to compete with the company’s no-fee trades and no-minimum accounts.
Webull came online as a brokerage platform in 2017. It’s headquartered in the United States, just like Robinhood. But it’s a subsidiary of Fumi Technology, a multinational Chinese company. It began as a research firm, which explains why it offers charts and data that are superior to what you get from Robinhood.
Webull and Robinhood are both regulated by the SEC and FINRA and are SIPC-insured, standard for U.S. brokerage houses.
Webull and Robinhood fit into the same category as more traditional brokerages like Fidelity Investments and Charles Schwab (what some Webull and Robinhood users call “Boomer brokerages”). Those brokerages are much more robust in terms of their research capabilities and product offerings but weren’t designed mobile-first.
Webull vs. Robinhood: Which Is Better for Beginners?
Robinhood has been criticized for offering access to beginner investors. The company aggressively markets toward young people. And it’s easy to find industry critics online who think Robinhood needs to make a similar effort toward educating its customers.
Some of the points that critics make about Robinhood are fair. It’s not great that people who have never invested can make risky options trades on margin on their first-ever day of investing without more stop signs and education from the platform.
Webull also offers paper trading, which can be a tremendous learning tool for new investors.
Paper-trading offers a no-risk, real-world scoreboard. Paper trading platforms give you a certain amount of fake money, which can you invest in real stocks at real price points. This lets you track your performance with zero financial consequence. Some platforms even offer small monetary prizes for the best performers during a certain time period.
Robinhood’s simplicity and speed are designed for the beginning investor. That person may get overwhelmed or discouraged by all the bells and whistles that Webull offers.
In my opinion, Robinhood is designed more for beginners and is a better fit for new investors (as long as they know their limits). Webull’s main advantages are related to charts and data, which new investors probably don’t know how to use without learning from third-party sources. Therefore, for most beginners, those items may add needless complication.
Webull vs. Robinhood: Which Trading Platform Is Better?
Webull offers a better trading platform. Two years ago, it wasn’t a particularly close call. Although Robinhood has started to close the gap.
Investment industry website Benzinga described Webull’s platform as “Robinhood on steroids.” Stock and options trading site Warrior Trading said Webull has “built a platform that blows away Robinhood’s current offering.” That’s despite the fact that Robinhood has consistently improved its trading platform.
Webull features high-quality charts with technical indicators, a stock screener with a surprising number of features, macro insights, stock and industry strength rankings, daily level of net cash inflows into indexes and more.
Robinhood recently added a stock screener for the first time.
Money expert Clark Howard does not recommend day trading, as it’s a risky, complex undertaking. A conservative, long-term, buy-and-hold strategy is best for most people. But for those who do trade frequently, there are better platforms than Robinhood and even Webull. However, Webull is great for swing traders who don’t need precise entry and exit points.
Webull vs. Robinhood: Key Product Differences
| Feature | Webull | Robinhood |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic stock | ? | ? |
| International stock | X | ? |
| ETFs | ? | ? |
| Crypto | ? | ? |
| Options | ? | ? |
| Short selling | ? | X |
| Fractional shares | ? | ? |
| IRAs | ? | ? |
| Mutual funds | X | X |
| Trading on margin | ? | Paid members only Charges interest on margin above $1,000 |
| Pre-market trading | 4-9:30 a.m. ET | 7-9:30 a.m. ET |
| After-hours trading | 4 p.m.-8 p.m. ET | 4-8 p.m. ET |
| Dividend reinvestment | X | ? |
| Paper trading | Daily/weekly competitions Monetary prizes | X |
| Pays interest | X | 1.5% APY (4.5% for paid members) |
| Phone support | ? | ? |
| Community | Twitter-like platform focused on stocks | X |
Pitting Webull vs. Robinhood used to give a person whiplash. For every offering that Webull has and Robinhood doesn’t, there was an opposite.
Robinhood added IRAs near the end of last year and Webull added fractional shares since the last time I reviewed both investment companies. The former also extended its trading hours and added 24/7 phone support for customers.
Why Choose Webull?
Webull’s niche is younger traders who are dissatisfied with Robinhood’s lack of features.
If you’re an undercapitalized active trader (less than $100,000) or a swing trader, Webull is a pretty good platform. If you’re an intermediate investor with some understanding of (and reliance on) technical analysis, it’s also better than Robinhood.
Webull started as a research firm and therefore it’s way ahead of Robinhood in terms of research and analytics, which is Robinhood’s weakest link.
If you want to short stocks, you can do that on Webull but not on Robinhood. Webull also allows an earlier time window for free pre-market trading.
Why Choose Robinhood?
Robinhood is much faster in terms of cash movement. Webull involves more waiting time for transactions to settle.
“More data” means more complexity within the Webull platform. If you’re a beginner, more data may be meaningless to you. It might serve only to give you a headache.
There’s something to be said for Robinhood’s beautiful simplicity in terms of efficiency. Robinhood is better for quick glances and for facilitating long-term buy/sell trades because of those elements.
The benefits of Robinhood’s commitment to streamlining extends to things like signing up, where it’s faster and simpler, and to compatibility: For example, Robinhood works with Apple Watch and Webull doesn’t. Robinhood also offers a better mobile app.
Neither Platform May Work for You
If you’re a serious investor, Webull vs. Robinhood may be the wrong comparison. You may be better off weighing Webull and Robinhood against Fidelity and Schwab.
If you plan to make big, time-sensitive trades, or if you want to research a company’s fundamentals fully before investing long-term, Fidelity and Schwab are better. They weren’t designed as mobile-first platforms and aren’t as user-friendly. But Fidelity and Schwab offer better platforms to execute serious trades. They also offer more tools and data.
Our list of the best investment companies includes Robinhood, Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard. It’s important to note that Clark is not a huge fan of Robinhood but has long recommended the latter three.
It’s important to know yourself. If the easy access and gamification of the stock market is going to tempt you into trading more often or taking on more risk, you may want to avoid Webull and Robinhood.
Maybe you believe that Robinhood intentionally removed pain points for inexperienced users. Maybe you think they just didn’t anticipate the subculture that has formed around the platform. Either way, Robinhood has started playing catch-up, attempting to put up better guardrails. But they’re still a ways off.
If you’re someone who needs those guardrails, Fidelity and Schwab are good alternatives.
Final Thoughts
It’s great that the comparison between Webull and Robinhood exists.
Robinhood forced discount brokers to become what Clark calls “free brokers,” because they had to stop charging a fee for each trade. On a smaller scale, Webull and Robinhood have the same dynamic. Each side seems intent on shoring up its relative weaknesses. The presence of a direct competitor will continue to improve the customer experience on each platform.
If you’re experienced enough to incorporate research and data into your trades, Webull is better. The same holds true if you’re a swing trader. (Again, that’s not day trading, but be cautious.)
If you’re a beginner or you’re undercapitalized, Robinhood is a great introduction to investing.
In both cases, it’s important to understand tried and true investing principles, such as taking a long-term approach and avoiding unnecessary risks.
I’ve used both platforms for years. I personally prefer Robinhood for the simple elegance of its app and the frictionless way it allows me to execute transactions. Webull’s app isn’t intuitive and is more cluttered in my opinion.
Plus, I find some of Webull’s features — additional charting, trends and a community element — with a skeptical eye. Robinhood gets branded as a stock-trading version of a casino, but Webull’s design includes a lot of elements that I’ve seen from online sportsbooks and casinos.
Robinhood hasn’t been perfect, but it also seems to iterate and improve at a much faster pace.
