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

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

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