Merrill Edge vs Robinhood Comparison: Fees, Features, and More (2025)

Merrill Edge and Robinhood are two leading discount brokerages offering commission-free stock and ETF trading. Use this head-to-head comparison table to evaluate fees, features, trading tools, and account options to help you decide which broker is right for you in 2025.

Head-to-Head Comparison: Merrill Edge vs Robinhood (2025)
Feature Merrill Edge Robinhood
Website https://www.merrilledge.com/ https://robinhood.com/
Broker Type Full-Service Mobile-Only
Trading: Stock & ETF? Yes Yes
ETF & Stock commission No fee No fee
Fractional Shares? No Yes
Percent Allocations? No No
Crypto Trading? No Yes
Crypto Fees not applicable approx. 1%
Options Trading? Yes Yes
Options Fee 65 cents No fee
Bond Trading Available? Yes Yes
Pays for Order Flow (PFOF)? Yes Yes
Interface: Web trading? Yes Yes
Desktop trading? No No
API Trading? No No
Mutual Funds: Offered? Yes No
Total Mutual Funds Over 2,300 None
NTF Mutual Funds Over 800 None
Non-NTF Fund Fee $19.95 not applicable
Early Redemption Fee? Yes not applicable
Redemption Hold (Days) 90 days not applicable
Early Redemption Fee $39.95 not applicable
Accounts: Margin Accounts? Yes Yes
IRAs Offered? Yes Yes
HSAs Offered? No No
Money Market Sweep? Yes Yes, Robinhood Gold
CDs Offered? Yes Yes
Robo-Advisor: Offered Yes No
Robo-Advisor Service Merrill Guided Investing none
Robo-Advisor Fes 0.30% to 0.45% not applicable
Basics: Headquarters Charlotte, NC Menlo Park, CA
Year Founded 2010 2013
Clearing Firm Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Robinhood Securities, LLC
Local Branches? Yes, about 2,800 locations No
New Account Minimum $0 $0

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