Robinhood vs Public (2026): Fees, Premium Plans and Which Is Cheaper

Short answer: Public is cheaper for an options trader and for borrowing; Robinhood is cheaper for a paid membership and for crypto if you route to market makers. Both charge nothing on US stock and ETF trades. Robinhood passes through $0.04 per options contract; Public passes through about the same and pays a rebate of $0.06 to $0.18 per contract back. Margin starts at 5.25% at Robinhood and 5.15% at Public. Read on both firms' fee schedules, October 2026.

The investor behind this page trades stocks and ETFs, sells and buys a few options contracts a week, holds some idle cash, borrows now and then, and occasionally buys crypto. We read Robinhood's trading fees article, its Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Crypto fee schedules (dated 15 and 16 October 2026), and its margin rates and Gold pages. On the Public side we read the fee schedule (last updated 13 October 2026) and the options, margin, Reserve and high-yield cash pages, all on 26 October 2026. Finpresso data: our investing apps ranking, updated September 2026, evaluates 5 apps and places Robinhood at #4 and Public at #5, behind Fidelity, Schwab and Interactive Brokers. This page is the head-to-head between those two; the single-broker detail is in the Robinhood review and the Public review.

Fees side by side

Commissions tie. The money sits in the options rebate, the membership price, the crypto route and two small lines most comparisons skip: the instant withdrawal fee and Public's inactivity fee.

Options: Public pays you, Robinhood charges you

Robinhood collects a combined $0.04 per options contract on every buy and every sell to cover the options regulatory fee and the OCC clearing fee, and adds $0.0003 per contract for the Consolidated Audit Trail. On sells it also passes through the FINRA trading activity fee of $0.00329 per contract, although Robinhood's page notes that FINRA has paused that fee from 1 October to 31 December 2026.

Public's schedule itemizes the same charges: $0.02 regulatory fee, $0.02 clearing fee and $0.0009 audit trail fee on each side, which comes to $0.0409 a contract, and $0.00279 per contract on sells. Orders of fewer than 10 contracts are capped at $0.05 a contract in total. Then the rebate: Public pays $0.06 per stock or ETF contract up to 999 contracts a month, $0.10 from 1,000 to 4,999, $0.14 from 5,000 to 9,999 and $0.18 above 10,000, with SPY, QQQ, IWM and API orders earning the Tier 1 rate in the first three tiers.

Take a trader who spends about $5,000 a year on premium and buys 100 contracts and sells 100 contracts a month, which is 2,400 traded contracts a year and 1,200 sells. At Robinhood the combined fee is $96.00, the audit trail fee is $0.72 and the trading activity fee on sells is $3.95, so the year costs $100.67, or $96.72 while the activity fee is paused. At Public the pass-through fees are $96.00 plus $2.16 plus $3.35, $101.51 for the year, but the Tier 1 rebate on 2,400 contracts is $144.00, counting each bought and each sold contract. On our arithmetic Public ends the year $42.49 ahead and Robinhood $100.67 behind, a swing of about $143 for a modest trader. The SEC fee on $2,500 of sold premium rounds to a few cents at either broker.

Index options flip in Public's favour too. Robinhood charges $0.50 a contract unless you pay for Gold, which lowers it to the $0.35 Public charges every customer, and both pass on exchange fees on top. If index options are your main product, read our options trading platforms ranking before settling on either app.

Memberships: Gold versus Reserve, at four times the price

Robinhood Gold is $5 a month after a free first 30 days. It pays 3.6% APY on brokerage cash with no cap or minimum, adds a 3% match on IRA contributions, cuts index options to $0.35 a contract, makes the first $1,000 of margin interest-free and caps management fees on Robinhood Strategies above $100,000. Our Robinhood Gold cost page runs the break-even by balance.

Public Reserve is $20 a month or $200 a year, four times Gold's monthly price. Its page lists 3.75% APY on cash against 3.30% on the free Core plan, a 4% IRA match against 1%, a 1% match on up to $250,000 in Generated Assets, a 0.5% match on up to $250,000 in a Direct Index or Treasury account, and priority support. The matches are paid out over 12 or 24 months and require the subscription to stay active, so the headline "$4,000+ in annual value" assumes maximum deposits in every product.

Price the cash alone. On $20,000 of idle cash, Gold earns $720 a year and costs $60, so $660 net; Public Core earns $660 with no subscription, a dead heat. Reserve earns $750 and costs $240, $510 net, so Reserve only beats Core on cash once the balance passes about $53,000 on our arithmetic (the 0.45 point spread has to cover $240). Below that, the IRA match is the reason to pay for Reserve: 4% on a $7,000 contribution is $280 against Gold's $210, before either firm's recoupment rules if you cancel.

Want the daily version of these numbers? Finpresso readers get the rate changes in the morning brief at finpresso.com.

Margin: Public is a tenth of a point cheaper

Both brokers tie their rate to the Federal Funds target range and step it down by balance. Public charges 5.15% up to $50,000, 5.00% to $100,000, 4.75% to $1,000,000, 4.50% to $10 million, 4.45% to $50 million and 4.20% above that, computed from a 4.00% upper target as of 17 September 2026. Robinhood charges 5.25% up to $50,000, 5.05% to $100,000, 4.75% to $1,000,000, 4.5% to $10 million, 4.45% to $50 million and 4.20% above.

On a $10,000 balance carried for a year, Public costs $515 and Robinhood $525. A Gold member pays interest on $9,000 only, $472.50, plus the $60 subscription, $532.50 in total, so Gold does not make Robinhood the cheaper lender at that size. The two ladders meet at $100,000 and stay identical from there, which makes Public the better borrower only in the first two tiers.

Crypto: flat fees at Public, routing choice at Robinhood

Public's crypto is provided by Zero Hash and priced per order: $0.49 on orders up to $10, $0.69 up to $25, $1.19 up to $50, $1.69 up to $100, $3.29 up to $250, $6.29 up to $500 and 1.25% of the order above $500. Recurring investment plans pay 1.25% regardless of size, and API orders pay 0.60% under $10,000 of monthly volume, falling to 0.10% above $100 million.

Robinhood Crypto's default market maker routing charges no commission, and Robinhood says it receives volume rebates from those market makers instead; the fee schedule prints no spread figure. Exchange routing, used by Legend and the ladder tools, charges 0.95% on standard orders and 0.50% on reduced ones under $10,000 of 30-day volume, dropping to 0.75% and 0.35% up to $50,000. A $1,000 buy each month costs $150 a year at Public on the app, $114 on Robinhood's exchange route and no commission on its default route. If crypto is the main reason you are choosing, our Coinbase vs Robinhood comparison and the crypto exchanges ranking are the better pages.

Transfers, withdrawals and the small print

Leaving either broker by ACATS costs $100, and a domestic outgoing wire is $25 at both. Instant withdrawals differ: Robinhood charges up to 1.75% with a one-dollar minimum and a $150 cap, Public up to 3.5% with the same minimum and no printed cap, so moving $5,000 out instantly can cost $87.50 at Robinhood and $175 at Public. Public also charges $3.99 a month on accounts worth less than $70 with no activity for six months, $5 per paper statement and $50 for overnight check delivery; Robinhood prints $2 for paper statements and $20 for an overnight check. Robinhood's ADR custody fees and Public's 0.30% foreign exchange charge on non-USD deposits apply only to those products.

Verdict by use case

• Active options trader: Public. The rebate turns a roughly $100 annual fee into a credit at 2,400 contracts, and index options cost the Gold rate without a subscription.
• Cash parker under $50,000: Robinhood Gold or Public Core, which net out within a few dollars; Reserve only pays once the balance clears about $53,000 or you max an IRA.
• IRA saver who will keep the subscription: Public Reserve, whose 4% match beats Gold's 3%, as long as the $240 a year is covered by the contribution size.
• Margin borrower under $100,000: Public, at 5.15% against 5.25%.
• Crypto buyer: Robinhood's default route, which prints no commission, over Public's 1.25% above $500.
• Occasional investor who may go quiet: Robinhood, because Public's inactivity fee applies to small idle accounts.

For the same comparison against other brokers, see Webull vs Robinhood and Fidelity vs Robinhood.

How we compared

Every figure comes from the two firms' own pages: Robinhood's trading fees article, its Robinhood Financial fee schedule, its crypto fee schedule, its margin rates and Gold pages, and Public's fee schedule, options, margin, Reserve and high-yield cash pages, all read on 26 October 2026. The worked examples multiply those printed figures and are labelled as our arithmetic; rates tied to the Federal Funds target move when it does. We hold no account at either broker.

FAQ

Is Robinhood or Public cheaper in 2026?

Public is cheaper for options and for margin under $100,000: it pays a $0.06 to $0.18 rebate per stock or ETF contract where Robinhood charges $0.04, and its base margin rate is 5.15% against 5.25%. Robinhood is cheaper on the membership, $5 a month for Gold against $20 for Reserve, and on crypto by its default no-commission route. Stock and ETF trades are free at both.

How much does Public pay per options contract?

$0.06 per stock or ETF contract for up to 999 contracts a month, $0.10 from 1,000 to 4,999, $0.14 from 5,000 to 9,999 and $0.18 at 10,000 or more, with SPY, QQQ, IWM and API orders at the Tier 1 rate in the lower tiers. Regulatory, clearing and audit trail fees of about $0.0409 a contract still apply on each side, capped at $0.05 on orders under 10 contracts.

What does Robinhood charge for options?

No commission, plus a combined $0.04 per contract regulatory and clearing fee on every buy and sell, $0.0003 per contract for the audit trail, and $0.00329 per contract on sells for FINRA's trading activity fee, which FINRA has paused for the last quarter of 2026. Index options cost $0.50 a contract, or $0.35 for Gold members, plus exchange fees.

Is Public Reserve worth $20 a month?

On cash alone, only above roughly $53,000 of balance, because the 3.75% Reserve rate beats the 3.30% Core rate by 0.45 points and the subscription costs $240 a year. The 4% IRA match is the stronger case: on a $7,000 contribution it pays $280, against $70 on Core and $210 with Robinhood Gold, and the match is paid over 12 months and can be recouped if you cancel within a year.

Which has the lower margin rate?

Public, at 5.15% on balances up to $50,000 and 5.00% up to $100,000, against Robinhood's 5.25% and 5.05%. From $100,000 up both charge 4.75%, then 4.50%, 4.45% and 4.20% on the same breakpoints. Robinhood Gold waives interest on the first $1,000 borrowed.

Does either broker charge an inactivity fee?

Public does: $3.99 a month on an account worth less than $70 with no activity for six months, per its October 2026 fee schedule. Robinhood's fee schedule lists no inactivity fee. Both charge $100 for an outgoing ACATS transfer and $25 for an outgoing domestic wire.

This page is general information, not personalized financial advice; confirm current terms with Robinhood and Public before you open or fund an account.

Cite this: Finpresso, "Robinhood vs Public (2026): Fees, Premium Plans and Which Is Cheaper", October 2026.

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