Webull is a mobile-first brokerage platform that offers a unique community-driven experience. Its very well-designed mobile app prioritizes ease of use, helping beginners jump right into the world of investing. However, learning on Webull’s platform is held back by comparatively thin educational materials and only so-so customer service. Meanwhile, a lack of access to common asset classes could limit the app’s usefulness for more experienced investors.
Pros
1. Strong mobile app with an excellent user interface
2. No minimum deposit or platform fees
3. Paper trading available
4. Offers two free stocks to new account holders
5. Access to traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and rollover IRAs
6. Access to 11 different cryptocurrencies
7. Active Webull community facilitates connection and discussion among users
Cons
1. No mutual funds, bonds, futures, or foreign exchange (forex) trading
2. No live chat, poor phone support
3. Very limited educational resources
4. Fewer research tools than other leading brokerages
5. Accepts payment for order flow
Who Should Choose Webull?
Webull is narrowly focused on doing one thing well: Offering a mobile brokerage app that makes stock trading, buying cryptocurrency, and options trading easy for new investors. To this end, a thriving user community is baked into the platform. Think of it like an in-house Twitter that can help you learn about trading.
In both platform design and marketing focus, it’s clear that Webull is competing directly with Robinhood for the business of newbie investors. It’s also clear from our analysis that the Webull platform offers more features than Robinhood, including things like individual retirement accounts (IRAs), watch lists, alerts, screeners, paper trading, and advanced charting options.
There are some big drawbacks to Webull, however. Compared to the best online brokers for beginners, there is a relative dearth of educational materials, leaving inexperienced investors to go off-app to pursue self-directed learning—although they can always turn to the Webull community. You cannot buy mutual funds or bonds on Webull, and there is no futures or foreign exchange (forex) trading. The customer service experience is also subpar.
Webull has a decent line-up of 11 cryptocurrencies and plans to offer more in the future—and it charges relatively competitive commissions on crypto trades for a beginner-friendly platform. Just be warned that there’s no good way to move your coins off the platform, hindering its usefulness for anybody serious about crypto trading.
We feel that intermediate investors might get the most out of Webull—people with some trading experience who like the mobile-first brokerage experience but are frustrated by Robinhood’s limitations. That said, intermediate investors might be better served by the advanced features offered by the best online brokers.
Webull Commissions and Fees
Like the vast majority of online brokerage platforms today, Webull charges no trading commissions on stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). There are no inactivity fees or monthly maintenance fees either.
Unlike most other online brokerages, Webull charges no commissions or contract fees for options trading. But not everyone can access this trading: You must be approved to trade options after filling out an application that gauges your knowledge of options, your risk tolerance, financial resources, and your investment experience.
Similar to many other online brokerage platforms, Webull’s commission-free trading comes with an important caveat: The firm receives payment for order flow. That means Webull fills buy and sell orders via a third-party market maker, which pays Webull for the order flow.
While payment for order flow can sometimes provide better prices or faster trades, it’s not a given—and Webull gets compensated whether the trades are beneficial to its users or not. So the $0 price tag on trades may come at the cost of having potentially slower trade execution or suboptimal prices for your orders. Similarly, the “free” trading for crypto means that any prices that display have a 1% commission baked into them for Webull.
Margin Interest Rates
Webull’s margin interest rates are relatively competitive. The average margin interest rate for Webull customers is 6.17%. In addition, Webull only charges margin accounts interest for leveraged positions held overnight.
Deposit and Withdrawal Fees
To deposit funds into a Webull brokerage account from a U.S. bank account, you have two options: ACH transfer and U.S. domestic wire transfer. There is no fee for ACH deposits or withdrawals, but you can only transfer a maximum of $50,000 from your bank account to your Webull account a day. Wire transfers have a larger dollar limit but incur fees.
Users with non-U.S. bank accounts are required to use an international wire transfer to deposit or withdraw funds from their Webull brokerage account. There is no ACH or fee-free option.
Webull Platform and Technology
Webull’s mobile app is very well designed and user-friendly. The clear, minimalist interface helps keep all of the charts, graphs, and data sources from feeling overwhelming for new investors.
Besides its excellent mobile app, Webull offers a web-based platform and a downloadable desktop platform. Interfaces on each are broadly similar, easy to use, and simple to navigate.
Webull provides users with two tiers of market data. All users have access to Level 1 trading data that includes the highest bid information. Level 2 data shows the scope of bid/asks prices for given security. New users get three months’ complimentary access to Level 2 data; afterward, it costs $1.99 per month.
The Webull community is a unique aspect of this platform. The community is set up like a proprietary Twitter feed: Users comment on stock news or individual stocks, and they also can post reactions to price changes.
Webull encourages users to make predictions rise or fall of individual stocks by awarding Webull points to those with correct predictions. These Webull points can be redeemed for entries to paper trading competitions, in which users construct fake portfolios to win real money. This combination of gamification and social media keeps users engaged without requiring them to actively trade.
Webull Range of Offerings
Webull has a limited range of tradable assets on its platform. Users can invest in the following asset classes:
1. Stocks
2. ETFs
3. Options
4. Cryptocurrency (though crypto cannot be transferred off-platform)
Webull users can sell stocks short, and they also have access to traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and rollover IRAs, in addition to standard taxable investment accounts.
There is no cash management account option on Webull, so users cannot earn interest on uninvested cash.
Webull Research and Education
Other than its paper trading offering, Webull’s educational resources for new investors leave much to be desired. Though the platform offers a news blog with multiple sources, there are no educational articles, instructional videos, interactive online courses, or webinars available.
The Webull community may serve as a helpful educational tool for new investors, but it requires active engagement with the feed and is only as good as the community members who post regularly.
Webull does invite new investors to find guidance via Ticker Tocker, which connects new investors to mentors and trading coaches around the world—but Ticker Tocker’s cost ranges from $10 to $1,000, depending on the user’s specific needs. We have not evaluated the quality of advice or mentoring available on this service.
Webull Customer Service and Security
Webull’s customer service is better than rival Robinhood’s customer service, but it’s still nothing to write home about.
Phone support is available between 9:30 am and 4:00 pm ET, Monday through Friday. Customer service representatives are polite and helpful when you can reach them. In our tests, about half the time we called we were stuck on hold for more than 10 minutes and ultimately did not see our call answered.
You can also reach customer support via email, and the brokerage appears to be relatively responsive, with reply times measured in hours rather than days. However, there is no live chat available, so if you are faced with a problem in the evening or weekend, you’ll have to take your chances with email.
As for security, Webull provides two-factor authentication, 128-bit encryption, mobile security features, and firewalls. They also provide the standard $500,000 of Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) insurance for clients, up to $250,000 of which can be cash.
Webull’s clearing firm, Apex Clearing, provides additional insurance. Webull customers are protected for securities and cash up to an aggregate of $150 million by Apex’s policy, with maximum individual customer limits of $37.5 million for securities and $900,000 for cash.
About Webull
Founded in 2017, Webull started as a portfolio consolidation and research platform before it began offering brokerage services. Its technology team is based out of Hunan, China, but New York City is home to its U.S. customer-facing and brokerage operations.