Thinkorswim vs Robinhood: Which is better for Trading in 2024

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Thinkorswim vs Robinhood

Everybody wants a profitable investment, and for that, everybody needs a perfect brokerage service.

Right?

A perfect brokerage service can help you to achieve your investment goals. But how do we know which is the best brokerage firm that can land us on a pile of profit?

Well, if you are finding the answer to this question, let me tell you, you have landed on the right blog. I will let you know about the best brokerage firms investing with which you can make good bucks too with flexibility.

There are two popular firms out there: Thinkorswim and the most popular one Robinhood. In this blog, we will do a one on one face off between the two apps and let you know which one best fits your investment goals.

So let’s get started.

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Robinhood Overview

Founded in 2013, Robinhood is an online brokerage firm that is controlled by FINRA. It provides its services to individuals and companies investing online. Right now Robinhood has more than 10 million accounts with merchants online.

The most important factor that makes Robinhood famous is its commission-free business model. With Robinhood, you can buy or sell stocks, cryptocurrencies, ETFs, and options that too with zero commission. Together with commission-free trading, it also offers an easy-to-use and flexible interface that attracts the investors most. No matter if you are a beginner or master, Robinhood provides an intuitive and streamlined platform that is very easy to understand and use.

Robinhood offers amazing services including fractional stock trading which allows investors to purchase a portion or part of the company’s wholly-owned stake. Besides, it also offers a plan named “Robinhood Gold”, which gives the investors some premium features like margin trading, professional research, market data research, and instant transfers.

One of the unique options offered by Robinhood is its cash management facility. It allows investors to earn more than .30% APY on their cash.

Robinhood Trading Fee

As we all know, the one thing that attracts more investors towards Robinhood is its zero-commission model. But it’s a business, so Robinhood also charges a fee on its premium plans and services, let’s check them out.

Mainly, Robinhood makes money from its trading platform and premium packages like “Robinhood Gold” which goes around $5 per month.

When we talk about the trading fee on Robinhood, the platform never charges its investors for trading in stocks, ETFs, and other instruments. But it levied some hidden fees that you must know about.

Whenever you want to transfer your account from Robinhood to its competing brokerage firm using the ACAT system, it charges you a fee of $75 flat. And it contains some paperwork also like paper statements and paper confirmations, for these services Robinhood charges $ 5 and $ 2 respectively. For domestic wire transfers, Robinhood charges a flat fee of $25. And for International wire transfers, they will charge you $50.

If you trade in foreign securities, you need to pay a fee of $50. And if you want to cancel or adjust your foreign security trades or investment you need to pay $15.

For ACH and Return wire fee Robinhood charges $9. For SEC or customer regulatory fees Robinhood charges $2.31 for every $100,000 sale. And for the trading activity, they charge $ 0.0119 on stock sales.

Thinkorswim Overview

Thinkorswim is a trading platform from TD Ameritrade founded in 2008 by Thinkorswim but later acquired by TD Ameritrade in 2009. It is an online financial trading platform that works globally.

Thinkorswim is known for the amazing analytics tools that they offer to their investors. Together with amazing service it also offers its users various online courses, email support, personalized coaching, in-person workshops, etc. Most of the private investors who want to learn about complex strategies of market and investment, rely on Thinkorswim.

The one thing about Thinkorswim that attracts the most tech-savvies is its coding language. Advanced investors who know coding can create their indicators effectively and smoothly. It also offers a stock hacker tool. This tool helps online traders to scan their stocks, meet them with their standards, and update with alerts as per their needs.

Thinkorswim Trading Fee

A wide variety of investment plans has been offered by Thinkorswim. From Stocks, ETFs, bonds to CDs treasuries, and futures, Thinkorswim touches every aspect of investment. So to take their services and to build an expanded portfolio you need to know about the trading fee of the platform.

Thinkorswim charges zero commission fees for building portfolios in personal stocks or ETFs. But if you want to invest in options and mutual funds you need to pay brokerage charges. The commission in brokerage is $ 0.65 per contract and $ 49.99 per transaction. For some of the mutual funds, Thinkorswim offers zero brokerage fees.

Even when investors fail to connect with the internet, the broker-support services help the investors to get into trading. Investors can call their brokers and ask them to trade on their behalf. This is the beauty of Thinkorswim, it offers its investors the flexibility of doing business over the call using the Automated Interactive Voice Response System (IVR). For this service, you have to pay a fee of $5 per business.

If you want to place brokerage-support trades on stocks and ETFs, you need to pay a fee of $25 for live trade assistance to Thinkorswim. Both packages also come with a $ 0.65 fee per contract.

Thinkorswim or Robinhood: Which is Better?

So we have discussed all the features, cist, and fees of both Thinorswim and Robinhood. Now it’s time to have a quick look at the pros and cons of both brokerage apps.

Thinkorswim

Pros

  • It offers advanced analytics tools and charting features.
  • Provides resources for educational purposes.
  • Offers a wide range of investment options like stocks, futures, options trading, mutual funds, ETFs, fixed deposits, etc.

Cons

  • Beginners find the navigation option a bit challenging.
  • You need to pay comparatively higher commissions.
  • Lots of options make this app an overwhelming one.

Robinhood

Pros

  • Best for Beginners.
  • High accessibility.
  • Flexible and easy-to-use interface.
  • The cash management feature makes this app a high-yielding one.
  • Free trading in stocks, options, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies.
  • Margin trading and fractional share options.
  • No ACH transfer fee.

Cons

  • No investment research and business tools.
  • Limited investment options.
  • Deep hidden fee structure.

Thoughts

That’s it..!!

This is all about Thinkorswim and Robinhood fee structure. You can now decide which one of the two brokerage apps will help to achieve your investment goals. Both the brokerage firms have their specific audience with specific usages and investment needs.

Thinkorswim is best for its sophisticated charting, amazing analytics tools for trading that help you make better investment decisions. On the other side, Robinhood is best known for zero commission trading USP.

Both are best in terms of trading and investing. Now it’s your time to choose the best as per your investment needs.

Good luck..!!

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