Webull Review 2024: Pros, Cons and How It Compares

Where Webull shines

Low costs: Webull ranks among the best in terms of costs, with free stock and options trades and no equity options contract fee.

Advanced tools: Webull was built to be user-friendly for a mobile-first generation, but that doesn’t come at the expense of advanced charting and screener tools.

High interest rate on uninvested cash: As of Oct. 2024, Webull users earn over 4% APY on their uninvested cash, which is among the highest of any brokerage.

What type of investor should choose Webull?

Intermediate traders: Webull isn't as advanced as Interactive Brokers, but you can do more than you can on Robinhood, a main competitors.

Active traders: If you're hoping to get more out of your investing than a buy-and-hold strategy, Webull could be a good choice.

Options traders: With no cost to trade equity options, options traders will save money here.

What the Nerds think 🤓

Webull at a glance

How to sign up for a Webull account

To sign up for a Webull account, you'll need to gather some information about yourself, such as your Social Security number and bank account information, and then head to Webull's website or app and choose an account type. Taxable brokerage accounts and IRAs are both available, and optional high-yield cash management accounts can be added to each.

Webull's signup process is fairly smooth, although the app did once interrupt our reviewer with a questionnaire about their employment while they were exploring the trading interface. Webull offers provisional buying power on deposits — that is, you don't need to wait for funds to settle to start trading. It's a nice touch that is only offered by a few of the brokers we review.

What to know about Webull's fees

Webull's trading costs are among the lowest in the business. Stocks, ETFs and options are commission-free, and equity options have no contract fee, either. Webull only charges a modest $0.55 per-contract fee on non-equity options, such as index options.

Webull charges no annual or inactivity fees and has no account minimum, but we had to ding its account fees score for its $75 outbound ACATS transfer fee, which applies to both partial and full transfers.

Webull's trading platforms and apps

Webull excels at marrying the minimalist look and feel the mobile-first generation is accustomed to with the capabilities of a more advanced product. This also helps Webull achieve the somewhat unique feat of creating a platform that bridges intermediate level trading and advanced trading, ushering users along their investment journey as they gain more experience.

Much like Robinhood, the app allows quick access with a passcode. Some brokers make you re-enter your username and password frequently, while others have somewhat lax security and keep you logged in even after long periods of inactivity. Webull's passcode system is a nice compromise between these two extremes. The extended trading hours (4:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern time on weekdays) are a nice touch, as well.

Webull offers investors access to initial public offerings (IPOs), as well as over-the-counter (OTC) stocks for an additional commission. That puts it ahead of some brokers in terms of the capabilities of its trading platform — but behind those that offer free OTC stock trades.

Over the years, Webull has streamlined its app experience to make it easier to navigate for new investors. It offers users a lot of information — chart widgets and screeners and whatnot — but it's relatively easy to find the "buy" and "sell" buttons. However, advanced investors might find those widgets and screeners somewhat disappointing compared to what's available from other trading-oriented brokers.

Webull's investment selection

Despite a robust offering for active traders, Webull lacks access to some common securities, such as mutual funds. For investors interested in saving for retirement in an IRA, this could make it harder to truly diversify across assets traditionally found in a retirement portfolio.

The only choices for bond investors are Treasury bonds and bond ETFs. Webull charges 0.07% of face value for Treasury bonds with durations of up to 12 months. It charges 0.5% of face value for bonds with durations of 1 to 3 years, and 0.7% of face value for longer-duration bonds. These are higher fees than many other brokers charge.

On the upside, Webull offers fractional shares of select stocks and ETFs — and provides cheap credit to advanced investors via some of the lowest margin rates in the business (ranging from 5.74% and 9.74% at the time of last update). It also offers commodities and futures trading.

Crypto offering: Webull's sister app Webull Pay gives investors the ability to trade 8 cryptocurrencies for USD. Webull Pay offers investors a smooth, easy-to-use trading experience with a $1 minimum investment. However, like many crypto offerings from stock brokers, it has fewer features than many pure-play crypto brokers. There are no crypto-crypto trading pairs, staking features, or third-party wallet compatibilities on Webull Pay, for example.

Other key Webull features

Research and data

Webull has really stepped up its third-party research and data offerings over the last year. The app now offers research and data from more than a dozen providers.

Nasdaq Total View, Trading Central, S&P, Benzinga, Dow Jones, CBOE, OPRA, NBBO, CME Futures Levels 1 and 2, Hong Kong Level 2, OTC Markets Level 1, LSEG and Trading Central all offer news, research or data through Webull.

Customer support

Webull has no branches for in-person meetings, and only offers customer support via phone during market hours, putting it at a disadvantage to some more established brokers.

However, online support is available 24/7. Webull has also built out an extensive bank of educational articles and webinars in the last year, and boasts an easily-navigable website.

Execution quality

Webull accepts payment for order flow (PFOF), which can result in orders being executed slightly slower or at slightly worse prices than at non-PFOF brokers — although its effects will be negligible for most investors. The PFOF business model involves routing customer orders through trading firms for execution, and the trading firms can use the customer order data to inform their own trading decisions. Webull says its execution quality is 98.96% for trades of up to 99 shares.

High-yield cash management account

Webull investors who opt into a cash management account get their uninvested cash swept into a network of accounts at partner banks that accrue interest daily and pay it out monthly. Webull's current APY of over 4% on uninvested cash is available to all users.

IRA account

Webull offers both Roth and Traditional IRAs, and accepts rollovers. Webull IRA investors can choose their own investments or use Webull Smart Advisor, a robo-advisor. It's possible to opt into a cash management account within an IRA, and earn interest on uninvested cash.

From time to time, Webull has offered to match a small percentage of the balance of a rolled-over retirement account, but these are generally limited-time promotions. Webull's 3.5% match offer for rollover IRAs ended in Oct. 2024. One major Webull competitor, Robinhood, offers an ongoing 1% IRA match.

Good to know about Webull

Extra fees for foreign stocks

Webull is one of the few brokers we review that offer direct access to stocks that trade on non-U.S. exchanges, but buying foreign stocks costs $5 per trade, and selling them costs $0.05 per trade. For international-minded investors, Interactive Brokers may be a cheaper option.

Separate app and signup process for crypto

Although Webull Pay shares a name with Webull's brokerage business, the two are separate apps for which you must create separate accounts.

There's a lot to like about Webull Pay's signup process. Linking a bank account through Plaid is easy, and the instant-deposit feature allows you to start trading any of 8 cryptocurrencies as soon as you initiate a deposit.

However, the fact that Webull Pay is walled off from Webull's brokerage accounts makes it a slightly more inconvenient choice than other brokers that allow users to trade stocks and crypto in the same place, such as Robinhood.

Is Webull safe?

All investing comes with the risk of loss. Webull offers FDIC insurance to protect cash deposits and is covered by Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) insurance, which protects brokerage accounts. These types of insurance don't apply to investment losses or price fluctuations. Webull is also regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ensure compliance with securities regulations, and by FINRA, which regulates broker-dealers.

Is an investment at Webull FDIC insured?

Webull's cash management accounts are covered by FDIC insurance, and its brokerage accounts are covered by SIPC insurance. Brokerage accounts with Webull receive up to $500,000 in SIPC insurance for cash and assets in the account, and cash management accounts are FDIC insured up to $1.5 million through a network of partner banks.

Is Webull right for you?