---
title: 'Robinhood vs Fidelity | Which Is Best In 2026?'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=NBqcQ9H50O4'
video_id: 'NBqcQ9H50O4'
date: 2026-06-28
duration_sec: 0
---

# Robinhood vs Fidelity | Which Is Best In 2026?

> Source: [Robinhood vs Fidelity | Which Is Best In 2026?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=NBqcQ9H50O4)

## Summary

This video compares Robinhood and Fidelity brokerage platforms, breaking down fees, asset selection, research tools, and overall user experience to help investors decide which is best.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to comparison** [0:00] — Video compares Robinhood and Fidelity, covering fees, asset selection, research tools, and more. Presenter has years of experience with both platforms.
- **Overview of Robinhood** [0:42] — Robinhood is a commission-free platform popularized for beginners. Offers stocks, ETFs, options, futures, crypto, and prediction markets. App is mobile-first and user-friendly.
- **Overview of Fidelity** [1:39] — Fidelity is a full-service brokerage with decades of history, managing trillions. Offers stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, options, bonds, CDs, and more. Desktop-oriented with robust tools.
- **Sign-up bonuses** [2:18] — Robinhood offers up to $200 in free fractional shares for new accounts. Fidelity offers no signup bonus.
- **Asset selection: Stocks & ETFs** [3:13] — Both support major exchanges. Robinhood discusses stock tokens for 24/7 trading in EU. Fidelity adds OTC (penny stock) trading.
- **Cryptocurrency offerings** [3:55] — Robinhood supports 20+ cryptos with full custody. Fidelity supports only 4 (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Solana) but also offers crypto ETFs.
- **Mutual funds** [4:45] — Fidelity offers over 10,000 mutual funds including exclusive zero expense ratio funds. Robinhood does not offer mutual funds.
- **Options and futures** [5:18] — Both support options; Robinhood has no per-contract fees, Fidelity charges $0.65. Robinhood offers futures trading; Fidelity does not.
- **Bonds and fixed income** [5:41] — Fidelity provides direct bonds, treasuries, CDs. Robinhood only offers bond ETFs.
- **Fees and pricing** [6:23] — Both commission-free for stocks/ETFs. Robinhood uses payment for order flow; Fidelity does not. Options: Robinhood free, Fidelity $0.65/contract. Crypto: Fidelity 1% fee; Robinhood volume-based.
- **Account types** [7:48] — Both offer taxable brokerage and IRAs. Robinhood offers IRA match (1-3%). Fidelity additionally offers 529 plans, HSAs, cash management, and robo-advisor (Fidelity Go).
- **User experience** [9:19] — Robinhood is mobile-first, intuitive, clean. Fidelity is desktop-first with powerful research tools but a less sleek app.
- **Which platform is best?** [10:31] — Beginners and those wanting crypto/prediction markets: Robinhood. Traditional assets, retirement planning: Fidelity. Options traders: Robinhood for cost, Fidelity for tools. Free bonus: Robinhood.

### Conclusion

Robinhood suits beginners and crypto-focused investors, while Fidelity excels in traditional assets and retirement planning. You can also use both platforms to maximise benefits.

## Transcript

If you're looking to invest using Robin
Hood or Fidelity and are wondering which
is best, this is the video for you.
We're going to be breaking down the key
features as well as differences between
the fees, asset selection, research
tools, and more. I've been using both
the Robin Hood and Fidelity apps for
years now and covering them over on my
blog investingssimple.com.
So, I'll be sharing all of that
experience here with you. Now guys, a
lot of time and research went into
making this the best comparison
possible. So if you appreciate that,
make sure you drop a like and subscribe.
Real quick, I just have to mention that
I'm not a financial adviser and this
isn't personalized financial advice.
Let's start out by explaining what these
two platforms are and then we'll dive
into a sidebyside comparison here of
their offerings and you can skip ahead
at any point in time using the table of
contents down below. Robin Hood is a
brokerage platform that arguably changed
investing forever by popularizing
commissionfree stock trading. Since
then, they've continued to innovate with
new product offerings like Robin Hood
Legend, their advanced trading platform,
and most recently prediction markets
where users can bet on realworld
outcomes. The Robin Hood app is
primarily designed for beginners who are
looking for an easy and modern way to
invest without dealing with complex
interfaces or tools. With Robin Hood,
you can invest in stocks and ETFs,
options, futures, and crypto all from
one single app. If you want a full
comprehensive walkthrough, I have a full
Robin Hood tutorial that I'll link down
in the description below, and I'll also
put a card in the corner. Fidelity is a
full-ervice brokerage platform that has
been around for decades and they manage
trillions of dollars of assets. They
serve everyone from casual investors to
institutions, retirement investors, and
more. Fidelity offers stocks and ETFs,
mutual funds, options, bonds, CDs, and
more. But truth be told, most would say
that their app and desktop interface
aren't as modern and easy to use
compared to Robin Hood. And if you're
looking for a beginner's guide to
Fidelity, I will leave my full tutorial
link down in the description below, as
well as a card in the corner. Now, let's
talk about the best part for most
people, and that's any free signup
bonuses that you might be able to jump
on. Robin Hood has a generous incentive
where you can get a free fractional
share worth up to $200 when you open up
a new account and fund it with any
amount of money. The cool thing is you
actually get to choose your free
fractional share from a list of 20
leading American companies. So, it's
kind of like a gift card to go out and
buy the stock that you actually want.
So, be sure to visit
ryanoscriber.com/roinhood
or use the affiliate link in the
description below to grab that free
stock bonus. And unfortunately, Fidelity
doesn't offer any kind of signup bonus
or promotion. But that's because they've
already become a household name and they
don't need to incentivize people to get
them to sign up. And keep in mind, you
could always sign up for both if you
wanted to to make the best of both
worlds. Moving on now, let's talk about
the difference in the asset selection
between Robin Hood and Fidelity.
Starting with stocks and ETFs, Robin
Hood supports the trading of over 11,000
different securities listed on the major
exchanges like the New York Stock
Exchange and the NASDAQ. In addition,
they recently started rolling out stock
tokens for about 2,000 different
securities, allowing for 247 trading in
the EU. Fidelity, on the other hand,
supports all of the same stocks and ETFs
as Robin Hood for the most part. But in
addition, they also support OTC or
over-the-counter markets. These penny
stocks carry significant risk and
require additional agreements within
your Fidelity account, but nonetheless,
they are still available for trading.
But what about crypto investing? Both
Robin Hood and Fidelity support cryptos,
but the asset selection varies a lot.
Robin Hood supports the trading of over
20 different popular cryptocurrencies,
and you can even send and receive them,
giving you full custody of your digital
assets. Fidelity also supports crypto
trading and the ability to send and
receive them, but as of scripting this
video, they only support four
cryptocurrencies. This list includes
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Solana.
So, yes, they've got the majors covered,
but to be honest, the selection is a
little underwhelming. Now, Fidelity does
also offer crypto ETFs. Three different
funds offering exposure to Bitcoin,
Ethereum, and Solana, but you can invest
in these crypto ETFs through any
brokerage platform. So, they're not
exclusive to Fidelity. One category that
is exclusive to Fidelity, though, is
their mutual fund investments. Fidelity
offers over 10,000 different mutual
funds, including 450 that you will only
find on Fidelity. This includes their
popular zero funds, which come with an
unheard of zero expense ratio. Robin
Hood, on the other hand, doesn't offer
mutual funds at all. For investors who
prefer professionally managed funds,
this can matter a lot. But if you're
just looking to own individual stocks or
ETFs, this might not move the needle for
you. Now, both platforms also support
options trading, but they're designed
for different types of users. Robin Hood
focuses on simplicity and ease of use.
Meanwhile, Fidelity offers more advanced
tools, analytics, and strategy
flexibility for traders who want deeper
control. But Robin Hood does offer
futures trading, which is not something
that you will currently find through
Fidelity. When it comes to bonds and
fixed income investments, Fidelity
offers direct investments into
treasuries, corporate bonds, municipal
bonds, and CDs. On Robin Hood, exposure
mainly comes through bond ETFs rather
than buying bonds directly or other
fixed income investments. Overall,
you'll find a broader range of
traditional investments through
Fidelity. Meanwhile, Robin Hood offers
more new age investments in terms of
things like cryptocurrency and
prediction markets. To quickly touch on
that, Robin Hood allows users to bet on
realworld outcomes through this new
feature. Although some critics have
labeled this as speculation, not
investing. Moving on now, let's quickly
touch on the fees and pricing for both
platforms. And if you've made it this
far in the video, make sure you hit that
subscribe button for me. Both Robin Hood
and Fidelity offer commission-free
trading for stocks and ETFs, but there
is a difference between the business
models here. Robin Hood engages in a
practice called payment for order flow
or PFO. Meanwhile, Fidelity does not,
and this is when a broker gets paid for
routing a trade through a specific
trading firm rather than directly to the
stock exchange. Moving on now, let's
talk about options fees. Robin Hood
offers options trading with no base
exercise or assignment fees in addition
to no per contract fees on stock and ETF
options. Fidelity on the other hand
charges a 65cent fee per options
contract which isn't much but it does
give Robin Hood a lead here from a cost
perspective. Lastly, looking at crypto
fees, Fidelity charges a 1% fee on buy
and sell transactions. Robin Hood has a
more complex fee structure which is
based on your previous 30-day trading
volume. I'll put the fee schedule on
screen now, but basically the greater
volume that you trade, the lower your
overall fees are. So, Robin Hood does
have a slight lead here when it comes to
crypto fees, and they have a strong lead
when you're looking at crypto selection.
Moving on now, let's talk about the
different account types offered by both
Robin Hood and Fidelity. Starting off
with Robin Hood, you can open up a
traditional taxable brokerage account as
well as both Roth and traditional IAS.
For many, that's more than enough to get
started with investing for the long
term. And speaking of retirement
accounts, Robin Hood offers a 1 to 3%
match on contributions, which is a key
differentiator. Fidelity also offers a
taxable brokerage account in addition to
both traditional and Roth IAS, but
you'll also find 529 plans, HSAs, and
even cash management accounts available,
too. They don't offer an IRA match, but
one thing you might be interested in is
the Fidelity Go Robo Advisor. This is a
digital financial service that offers
professional management of your money,
and it comes with no advisory fees for
balances under 25,000. For balances over
25K, the advisory fee is 0.35% of assets
under management. Robin Hood offers
something similar called Robin Hood
Strategies, and this also gets you a
customized and fully managed portfolio.
Robin Hood Strategies has a low 0.25%
25% asset management fee. So, it's
slightly lower than Fidelity Go for
accounts over 25,000. But overall,
Fidelity really stands out for their
robust retirement planning tools and
features. You get access to detailed
calculators, goal tracking, and
portfolio analysis that can help you
think through long-term decisions in a
more structured way. But what about the
overall user experience or user
interface with both of these platforms?
Both Robin Hood and Fidelity have an
appbased version as well as a desktop
trading platform, but Robin Hood is
really built as a mobile first platform,
and you can really tell that as soon as
you open up the app, the interface is
extremely intuitive, clean, and easy to
navigate, even if you have never
invested before. Onboarding is fast,
funding an account is simple and instant
in many cases, and placing a trade only
takes a few taps. For more active stock
traders, Robin Hood Legend adds more
advanced charting and trading tools
while still keeping everything
relatively streamlined. You can check
out my full tutorial for Robin Hood
Legend in the description below, and
I'll also put a card in the corner. Now,
Fidelity, on the other hand, is more of
a desktop first experience. While it
does have a mobile app, the platform
really shines on a computer. You can get
access to powerful research tools,
advanced screeners, in-depth analytics,
detailed account insights, and more. The
Fidelity app itself is still pretty good
and easy to navigate, but it's just not
as simple and sleek as Robin Hood. So,
with all of that said, let's talk about
which platform is best. And as I'm sure
you've guessed, there is no
oneizefits-all answer here. If you're a
complete beginner looking for the
easiest to use platform, Robin Hood is
likely going to be a good option because
that's basically how they got started,
offering commissionfree trading on a
very beginnerfriendly app. In addition,
if your priority is having access to new
age assets like a wide variety of
cryptos and prediction markets, for
example, Robin Hood is in the lead. But
if you are instead looking for more old
school traditional assets like direct
bond investments, CDs, and mutual funds,
Fidelity is likely best for that. Now,
if you're looking to invest for
retirement, Robin Hood does offer that
contribution match, which is a
compelling offer. But overall, Fidelity
has a much greater selection of
retirement planning tools and features.
Now, options traders will likely favor
Robin Hood from a cost perspective, but
Fidelity offers a more robust set of
tools and features for advanced traders.
And lastly, for those looking to score a
free bonus, Robin Hood is in the lead.
You can get a free stock worth up to
$200 when you open a new account and
fund it with any amount of money. So, be
sure to visit ryanoscribner.com/roinhood
to get started. Fidelity might not have
any freebies, but they have built a
strong reputation over multiple decades,
and it's hard to compete with that.
That's going to wrap things up for me,
guys. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Be sure to check out my full Robin Hood
and Fidelity tutorials linked in the
description below to learn the ins and
outs of both of these platforms. If you
made it to the end of the video, guys,
make sure you subscribe and hit that
like button for me. You can click below
to watch this next video that you might
enjoy. And I will see you next time.