How Robinhood Financial and Crypto make money?
Our mission is to democratize finance for all. Earning revenue allows us to offer you a range of financial products and services at low cost, including commission-free trading.* Here’s how Robinhood Financial and Robinhood Crypto generate the majority of their revenue:
*No commission on trades of stocks, ETFs, crypto, or options. Other fees may apply, such as for Robinhood Connect. Check out Robinhood Financial’s Fee Schedule for details.
When you buy or sell stocks, ETFs, and options through your brokerage account, your orders are sent to one or more market makers or exchanges for execution. To compete with exchanges, market makers offer rebates to brokerages. Market makers typically offer better prices than exchanges.
Robinhood Securities, our clearing broker, developed a routing system to incentivize the market makers Robinhood has relationships with to compete for order flow based on the amount of price improvement obtained. This algorithm, known as the smart order router, prioritizes sending your order to a market maker that’s likely to give you the best execution, based on historical performance. The smart order router also directs a small portion of orders in stocks or ETFs to an exchange, taking into account the quality of past executions. This preserves our ability to maintain trading in the event that one or more market makers are unable to execute orders. Under applicable exchange fee schedules, we would generally pay the exchange when we take liquidity and be paid when we provide liquidity.
Similarly, Robinhood Crypto has relationships with crypto trading venues that allow you to receive competitive prices. Robinhood Crypto receives variable volume rebates from those trading venues. As of May 13, 2022, for every $100 of notional value for executed crypto orders, Robinhood received $0.35 in rebates from its trading venues.
As of May 26, 2023, Robinhood Crypto’s support of ADA is undergoing system maintenance which may impact pricing and execution. Orders may not execute between 6:00 am and 6:20 am ET. As a result, Robinhood Crypto will not be receiving volume-based rebates for executed ADA transactions.
Check out Robinhood Connect and the Robinhood Crypto Fee Schedule for more details.
Robinhood Connect is an extension of Robinhood Crypto. Currently, for every $100 of notional value for executed crypto orders, Robinhood receives $0.35 in rebates from its trading venues.
There is a fee depending on how you fund your Robinhood Connect transaction:
(The rates shown above are subject to change at any time without notice and at Robinhood’s discretion.) Check out the Robinhood Crypto Fee Schedule for more details.
Robinhood Gold, a suite of powerful investing tools, gives you access to Morningstar research reports, NASDAQ Level II Market Data, bigger instant deposits, and margin investing at a discounted rate, if eligible. You pay a $5 monthly fee for the service. When you invest on margin, you’re borrowing funds from Robinhood Securities. If you use more than $1,000 of margin, you’ll pay 7.75% yearly interest on the settled margin amount you use above $1,000.
Robinhood Securities earns income from lending securities to counterparties.
Robinhood Securities generates income on uninvested brokerage cash that isn't swept to the brokerage cash sweep network of program banks, primarily by depositing this cash in interest-bearing bank accounts.
Sutton Bank, which issues the Robinhood debit card pursuant to license by Mastercard® International Incorporated, receives an interchange fee that is passed to Robinhood Financial, our introducing broker. Interchange fees are earned by most debit and credit card issuers and are meant to cover things like transaction processing and fraud loss. The Robinhood debit card is offered in connection with a brokerage account provided through Robinhood Financial LLC, member of SIPC and FINRA.
Robinhood Securities and Robinhood Financial also receive fees from program banks for sweeping funds to them.
Cash Management is no longer accepting new customers at this time. If you currently use Cash Management, you can sign up to switch to the Robinhood Spending account.
We make money from a range of other, smaller revenue streams, including proxy service revenue and fees listed in the Robinhood Financial's Fee Schedule.
Margin investing involves the risk of greater investment losses. Before using margin, you must determine whether this type of strategy is right for you given your investment objectives and risk tolerance. For more information, review our Margin Disclosure Statement.
Robinhood Financial charges a standard margin interest rate of 11.75% and a margin interest rate of 7.75% for customers who subscribe to Gold. The margin interest rate is calculated by adding 6.5% (for non-Gold customers) or 2.5% (for Gold customers) to the upper bound of the Target Federal Funds Rate, which is set by the Federal Reserve and is subject to change without notice. The formulas used to calculate the margin interest rate are subject to change at Robinhood Financial’s discretion. The margin rates shown are as of May 4, 2023 and might change at any time without notice and at Robinhood Financial’s discretion. The standard margin interest rate will be rolled out to customers who don't subscribe to Gold in phases over a period of time, are subject to eligibility criteria, and so may not be available immediately to all customers.
Robinhood Financial LLC (member SIPC) is a registered broker dealer. Robinhood Securities, LLC (member SIPC) is a registered broker dealer and provides brokerage clearing services.