Best Brokers For Beginners
Highlights:
• Beginner investors should look for a broker that offers accounts and tools that are friendly to new traders.
• Robo-advisor accounts and trading simulators are often great for people who are just getting started.
• Robinhood and Charles Schwab both deliver a solid set of resources for newer investors.
Before opening your first investment account, take a look at the products and services below from Robinhood and Charles Schwab:
Robinhood for Beginners
Robinhood has several features that new investors may want to use. In particular:
Robo accounts:
Through Robinhood Strategies, the company offers investment-advisory accounts. These managed accounts use software to build portfolios with stocks and ETFs. When sales are needed for tax purposes, the program can handle those transactions as well. Because the firm makes the investment decisions inside these accounts, the investor mainly just answers a few questions during the online setup. That makes it a good match for beginners.
Trade recommendations:
Beginners who want to pick their own investments can open a self-directed brokerage account at Robinhood instead of a managed account. In a self-directed account, the investor is responsible for the choices, but Robinhood offers a helpful tool: analyst ratings. These ratings appear on many stock profiles and are pulled together from multiple research sources. When we checked Tesla, we found 49 ratings with the following breakdown:
| Stock Recommendation | Rating Percent |
|---|
| Buy | 40.8% |
| Hold | 36.7% |
| Sell | 22.4% |
Under the ratings on a stock profile, Robinhood also displays short snippets from Morningstar analysts. To view the full Morningstar report, a Gold subscription is required. It costs $5 per month.
Simple software:
Robinhood offers three platforms: a mobile app, a website, and a browser-based platform. The browser platform, called Legend, can take longer to figure out, but the app and the regular website are easy to use. Most beginners will learn the app and website fairly quickly.
On the website, clicking the search bar at the top opens a drop-down menu with useful tools, including a custom screener. With this screener, you can scan exchanges using filters like 52-week low and dividend yield. Click a result to open the stock’s profile page, where the trade ticket is already built in. You can also place an order using a dollar amount, which makes trading simpler for new investors.
Categories of securities:
In the same search bar area, Robinhood also provides groups of stocks and ETFs. These categories can help self-directed investors find ideas. For example, typing “Retail” brings up the Consumer Services & Retail group. Here are some other categories we found:
- Automotive
- Technology
- Consumer Goods
- Index ETFs
- Bond ETFs
- Popular Recurring Investments
Education:
Robinhood customers (both brokerage and advisory) have access to a large set of learning materials. The firm publishes a lot of investing content, and much of it can be found at Sherwood.news and robinhood.com/learn/. Sherwood is focused on market news, while the Learn section is aimed more at investing education. Both can help new investors, although the Learn section is usually the better starting point for complete beginners. Here are a few example topics we saw:
- What is a stock?
- Getting started with options
- Introduction to futures
Social networking:
Robinhood rolled out a community forum called Robinhood Social. Through this feature, traders can discuss assets and daily market news. Users can also follow one another and view each other’s trades.
Robinhood has also launched Trading Trends, which tracks trades placed by Robinhood customers, hedge funds, and company insiders. These data points can be found on a stock’s profile page.
Cash management:
Alongside these tools for beginners, Robinhood also offers banking-style products, including spending
accounts, an FDIC sweep, a debit card, and a Visa Signature credit card. These features can be connected to an investing account to create a more complete money-management setup.
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Charles Schwab for Beginners
Schwab offers many of the same beginner-friendly resources that Robinhood does. For example, Schwab
provides robo accounts through its Intelligent Portfolios program. Opening an automated account is straightforward, and no prior investing experience is required.
Some of Schwab’s software is also very easy to use. Schwab’s website, for example, is generally
intuitive. However, the thinkorswim platforms at Schwab are aimed more at experienced traders. Even so,
thinkorswim includes a practice feature called paperMoney, which gives beginners a way to learn the software with no real-money risk. Schwab customers can use thinkorswim in demo mode. Robinhood does not offer a simulated trading mode on its platforms, so Schwab has an advantage here.
Schwab also offers something Robinhood does not: a branch network. With nearly 400 branch locations across the United States, Schwab can provide local, in-person support that Robinhood generally does not offer. A wide range of services are available at these branches, which can be helpful for investors who want face-to-face assistance.
One service available at Schwab branches is investment advice. Schwab’s financial planners can create retirement plans and help clients choose investments for their portfolios. This creates traditional advisory accounts (not robo accounts). These advisor-led accounts can be ideal for newer investors who want more guidance than an automated program can provide.
Schwab customers who want to make their own investment choices can also explore Schwab’s selection of
mutual funds, which many beginners find easier than trading stocks, options, and ETFs. Mutual fund orders execute after the market closes at the fund’s net asset value, and orders are typically placed in whole-dollar amounts. Schwab offers a very large menu of mutual funds that are available to investors.
Like Robinhood, Schwab provides research and education. Schwab’s library of learning materials is extensive, and it also offers Schwab Network, which includes live and on-demand market programming.
Click the Learn tab on Schwab’s website to access a large collection of resources, many of which are
designed with beginners in mind. You’ll find Schwab Network (Schwab’s live market coverage) and Onward, an online investing magazine. Schwab also offers articles, videos, and a long list of podcasts. The Learn section includes many thinkorswim videos that walk through different parts of the platform, and the New Client Welcome Center can also be accessed from the same Learn menu.
Newer investors who are starting to focus on retirement can find helpful tools at Schwab in both advisory and self-directed modes. Beyond human planning support, Schwab’s website provides multiple retirement calculators and planning tools that do-it-yourself investors can use.
Click the Products tab on Schwab’s website and then select Financial Planning. On that page, users can
build a personalized financial plan using Schwab’s tools. There are also several calculators available. Examples include:
- Estate planning
- Buying a house
- Saving for college
- Preparing for retirement
Like Robinhood, Schwab rounds out its investing services with bank products that can be linked to
investment accounts. Examples include
checking accounts, savings accounts, and mortgages. Debit cards and credit cards are also available. Schwab also offers other financial products, including insurance and annuities, for investors who want an all-in-one approach to money management.
Charles Schwab Website
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Fees and Minimums
One major advantage of both firms for beginners is that neither requires a large account minimum to get started. A brokerage account at either company has a $0 minimum, and neither charges recurring fees like annual or inactivity fees.
Advisory accounts have different requirements. Robinhood Strategies has a $50 minimum, and stock investing inside Strategies generally requires $500 or more. Robinhood charges a 0.25% management fee for Strategies. Schwab’s Intelligent Portfolios program has a $5,000 minimum, and Schwab does not charge an advisory fee for the standard Intelligent Portfolios program.
In self-directed accounts, the minimum trade size can be small, which helps beginners practice using real money. At Robinhood, the minimum amount for fractional-share orders is $1. At Schwab, many mutual funds can be started with $1 minimums, and Schwab Stock Slices allows purchases of S&P 500 stocks in $5 increments.
Educational resources at both companies can generally be accessed without special fees, and some materials can be viewed even without an account, which can be a simple way to start learning before opening an account.
Updated on 3/4/2026.
Chad Morris is a financial writer with more than 20 years experience
as both an English teacher and an avid trader. When he isn’t writing
expert content for Brokerage-Review.com, Chad can usually be found
managing his portfolio or building a new home computer.
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