The Best Apps for Fee-Free Investing

Investing can be a risky endeavor. Making it even more difficult are all the commissions and other fees you must pay along the way. But it does not have to be this way. There are a number of great apps that will let you make investments without incurring any fees.

Here are five of the best:

1. M1 Finance

M1 Finance lets you build and control a diversified portfolio of both stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) without any commissions. It also comes lots of terrific features, such as the ability to purchase fractional shares and make deposits automatically.

The app is further easy to set up and use, even if you do not have a lot of experience investing. You simply make an investment to your portfolio and the app does all the allocation to it for you.

2. Fidelity

If you are looking to build a balanced portfolio, Fidelity’s app will let you do this through the wide range of ETFs the company offers. They also offer individual retirement accounts (IRAs) that come without both maintenance fees and minimums. What this means is that you make even a micro-investment and still not incur any fees. They even offer funds without management fees.

The app itself is also clean and easy to use, and it comes with lots of valuable features.

3. TD Ameritrade

Through TD Ameritrade’s app, you can buy more than 100 leading ETFs without any commissions. The discount broker also offers IRAs that come without any maintenance fees or minimums.

But the app offers a lot more than just fee-free investing. It also comes, free of charge, with research tools and portfolio analysis. Though the one thing that you need to keep in mind is that the company also offers investments products that carry fees. So, make sure you filter out these products when searching for funds.

4. Robinhood

While a number of apps let you buy funds free of fees, the Robinhood app lets you buy and sell stocks for free. You can even use the app to make both stop loss orders and make limit orders. Though it does limit the number of free trades you can make (3 in a 5-day period) unless you have at least $25,000 invested with them, and you also cannot buy fractional shares.

Another limitation of the app is that its research tools are limited, which means that you will likely have to combine it with another research app.

5. Vanguard

With Vanguard’s app, you can buy or sell any of the company’s ETFs without any commissions. They also make it easy for you to avoid other account service fees. They further do not require any account minimums, and there are no minimum purchases, either. Though you do have to buy at least one single share.

On the downside, the app offers a user experience that is considerably worse than many of its competitors. Its interface is clunky and outdated, and it only offers rudimentary functionality.