8 Best Stock Trading Apps for 2026

When I think of a stock trader, I picture someone working at a desk with a computer – and perhaps multiple monitors full of charts and market data. But another platform is quickly replacing the desktop trading battlestation for many retail investors.

The average American checked their phone. 186 times a day In 2025⁽⁰⁾

Brokers know this, and in recent years a growing number of them have developed mobile app platforms with advanced trading capabilities.

All the platforms listed below offer the following features, which we consider a table-top stack for an app for advanced traders:

• Free Stock Trading: Only a handful of brokers reviewed by NerdWallet still charge commissions for stock trades, and you won’t find any on this page (although interactive brokers offer users the option to pay very low commissions for speeding up orders). Many brokers also offer free option trades on this page.

• Fractional shares: All brokers on this page allow you to buy as little as 1 share of a stock, giving you more control over position size. Many brokers now allow investors to buy at least $1 of stock, although some have higher minimums.

• Strong UX: We didn’t just look at ratings to judge these brokers’ apps – we tested them ourselves, opened accounts and traded on our phones. All of the brokers here scored at or near the top on our mobile user experience rubric.

Beyond these criteria, the best stock trading app for this you It will vary based on the features you consider most important. So, we’ll start with the three apps that are the best for a particular feature. Read on to see what each one stands for—and also where each falls short.

Robin Hood has done more than any other broker to popularize trading through a phone app, and is a leader and innovator among mobile brokers.

If you’re the type of trader who likes to use leverage (i.e. borrowed money) to increase your potential profits, and you can afford the risks that come with it, there’s another reason to like Robinhood: it offers the lowest average margin rate of any broker we review. Both the high end and low end of its rates (which vary based on balance) are about as low as you can go. Which has a couple of brokers The least The rates are low, but they often require very large balances, hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

Other trading features that stand out about Robinhood: Robinhood is also a standout for another type of high-risk venture that traders often favor: cryptocurrency trading. Robinhood has the widest crypto selection of any stockbroker we review, and is one of the few stockbrokers that offers features like staking and send/receive capabilities in its crypto offering.

Where Robinhood falls short for entrepreneurs: Unlike some of its competitors, Robinhood does not have any basket trading feature. You can only buy or sell one investment per order. Also, if you want to trade Bondsyou might miss Robin Hood: they’re only available in the form of bond ETFs.

This article is for advanced traders. Focused on interactive brokers. Really high level traders. Want to buy South African stocks? Malaysia’s Agricultural Futures Contract? Options on French bonds? Interactive Brokers has you covered.

It has, by far, the widest investment selection of any broker we review, covering a wide variety of asset classes (including stocks, bonds, options, ETFs, mutual funds, futures, currencies, crypto, event contracts and physical precious metals) as well as direct access to dozens of international exchanges.

Other trading features that stand out about Interactive Brokers: IBKR also has the most extensive research and data offerings of any broker we review, with more than 140 services available from more than 40 providers. However, not all of them are free. Some require a paid subscription.

Where interactive brokers fall short for traders: IBKR is one of the few brokers on this list that still charges a per-contract fee for option trades. IBKR Pro users also pay a fraction of a percent commission on stocks in exchange for faster and more efficient order execution, although free accounts do not.

Several brokers reviewed by NerdWallet now offer free options trading, with no commissions or contract fees — but the public is the only one. negative cost on options trading; In other words, it pays you For options trading.

Public, like the other brokers on this page, makes money by selling customer order data to high-frequency trading firms, which use it to inform their trading decisions — a business model known as payment for order flow (PFOF). However, unlike the other brokers on this page, Public shares a portion of the PFOF revenue from option trades with its customers in the form of a rebate of between $0.06 and $0.18 per contract, depending on your trade volume.

Other commercial features that stand out to the public: If you’re the type of trader who likes to keep some money on the sidelines to buy dips, Public stands out for its non-invested cash management options. It offers a high-yield cash account with a 3.3% APY at the time of last update, as well as a Treasury account that automatically invests your money in T-Bills, potentially offering higher yields and exemptions from state taxes.

Where the public is less for traders: Public offer on fractional shares Mostly assets — 75% stocks, all Treasuries, and about 100 other bonds, to be exact — but the fact that its fractional share offering isn’t universal puts it at a disadvantage against its rivals. Also, it has a $5 minimum for fractional shares, which ranks high among brokers that offer this feature.

The three apps listed above have unique benefits for traders, but they aren’t the only good stock trading apps out there. Below is a list of five other brokers that scored highly on a mix of trading and mobile app-related metrics in NerdWallet’s review process.