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

Alpaca 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: Alpaca vs Robinhood (2025)
Feature Alpaca Robinhood
Website https://alpaca.markets/ https://robinhood.com/
Broker Type API-Only Mobile-Only
Trading: Stock & ETF? Yes Yes
ETF & Stock commission No fee No fee
Fractional Shares? Yes Yes
Percent Allocations? Yes; via API No
Crypto Trading? Yes Yes
Crypto Fees 0.35% approx. 1%
Options Trading? No Yes
Options Fee not applicable No fee
Bond Trading Available? No Yes
Pays for Order Flow (PFOF)? Yes Yes
Interface: Web trading? No Yes
Desktop trading? No No
API Trading? Yes; Alpaca Trading API No
Mutual Funds: Offered? No No
Total Mutual Funds None None
NTF Mutual Funds None None
Non-NTF Fund Fee not applicable not applicable
Early Redemption Fee? not applicable not applicable
Redemption Hold (Days) not applicable not applicable
Early Redemption Fee not applicable not applicable
Accounts: Margin Accounts? Yes Yes
IRAs Offered? No Yes
HSAs Offered? No No
Money Market Sweep? No Yes, Robinhood Gold
CDs Offered? No Yes
Robo-Advisor: Offered No No
Robo-Advisor Service none none
Robo-Advisor Fes not applicable not applicable
Basics: Headquarters San Mateo, CA Menlo Park, CA
Year Founded 2018 2013
Clearing Firm Apex Clearing Robinhood Securities, LLC
Local Branches? No No
New Account Minimum $0 $0

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