Investing Brokerages & Advisors

These Are the Most Popular Investment Apps in Every State (According to Google)

Using Google Trends data, the FinanceBuzz team determined which investment app is the most popular in every state in the country.

Updated May 13, 2024
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Investment apps and services have become more common and accessible in recent years, allowing motivated users to take greater control of their investing decisions. Apps of this kind, such as Robinhood, even played a starring role in one of the major financial news stories of the last year, the WallStreetBets subreddit/GameStop saga.  

In fact, Robinhood’s involvement in that story helped the company add over 6 million users in the first two months of 2021, an enormous increase given that the company was averaging just 200,000 new monthly users prior.

Robinhood isn’t the only investment app to receive a boost from the increased cultural interest in investing either. Another popular app, Acorns, grew their user base to more than 9 million people after adding 600,000 new accounts in the first six weeks of 2021. According to their founder, that growth rate represents the company’s biggest growth quarter on record.

Based on the level of demand these numbers indicate, it is no surprise more companies than ever before have been introducing and improving their investment platforms in recent years. Between existing platforms and companies looking to launch digital and app-based services, there have never been more choices available for interested investors. Some of these options are more popular than others, for any number of reasons. From the ease of use to user-friendly fees to greater investment possibilities, there are plenty of reasons to choose one app over another.

To better understand the investment app landscape in America, our team turned to Google Trends to find which of these platforms are most popular in every state.

In this article

Map of the most popular investment app in every state


State Most popular investment app
Alabama TD Ameritrade
Alaska M1 Finance
Arizona JP Morgan Chase
Arkansas Acorns
California E-Trade
Colorado Vanguard
Connecticut Webull
Delaware Stash
District of Columbia Charles Schwab
Florida Twine
Georgia Acorns
Hawaii Robinhood
Idaho Stash
Illinois M1 Finance
Indiana JP Morgan Chase
Iowa TD Ameritrade
Kansas TD Ameritrade
Kentucky Acorns
Louisiana JP Morgan Chase
Maine Acorns
Maryland Robinhood
Massachusetts Fidelity
Michigan Acorns
Minnesota Robinhood
Mississippi Stash
Missouri Twine
Montana TD Ameritrade
Nebraska TD Ameritrade
Nevada E-Trade
New Hampshire Fidelity
New Jersey E-Trade
New Mexico Robinhood
New York JP Morgan Chase
North Carolina Robinhood
North Dakota Ally Invest
Ohio JP Morgan Chase
Oklahoma Stash
Oregon Acorns
Pennsylvania Vanguard
Rhode Island Merrill Edge
South Carolina Stash
South Dakota Robinhood
Tennessee Acorns
Texas Robinhood
Utah SoFi Invest®
Vermont Vanguard
Virginia E-Trade
Washington tastyworks
West Virginia Fidelity
Wisconsin Ellevest
Wyoming Acorns

We wouldn’t have been surprised if Robinhood had been the most popular investment app after the company’s high-profile involvement in the Gamestop saga. But another app that seeks to simplify investing snuck by them to take the crown in our analysis. That app is Acorns, the top-searched investment app in eight states, while Robinhood took the top spot in just six states.

While Robinhood became a household name and a trending topic for several weeks in January of 2021, Acorns’ success came via consistency. Acorns earned a more steady proportion of search volume over the course of the last year as opposed to getting a major but temporary boost in searches. This helped Acorns to earn the top spot in so many states. But while some negative publicity has seen search interest in Robinhood drop, it is still trending well ahead of 2020 in terms of average search popularity and may dominate these rankings in a year’s time.

Two other apps were most popular in at least five states, with the offerings from TD Ameritrade and JP Morgan Chase meeting that benchmark. Several other apps fell just short of the five-state threshold, as Stash and E-Trade were most popular in four states each. All told, 22 different investment apps were most popular in at least one state.

Map of the most popular investment app by region


Region Most Popular App
Midwest TD Ameritrade
Northeast Vanguard
South Acorns
West E-Trade

We also used our data to determine which investment app is most popular in different regions of the country. We used standard classifications from the U.S. Census to determine which states belong in each of the four regions, and then found which app was most popular in the highest number of states in each region.

When looking at the data this way, we found a true diversity of opinion when it comes to investment app preferences around the country. Each region of America crowned a different app as most popular, with TD Ameritrade taking the Midwest and Vanguard the Northeast. Acorns was tops in the South, while E-Trade proved most popular in the West.

Evaluating top investment apps

Knowing which investment apps are most popular in different states is one thing. Understanding why these apps are popular is something else. Luckily, our team at FinanceBuzz has reviewed a number of the country’s most popular and best investment apps and can share insights into the pros and cons of each.

Acorns Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Great for new investors
  • Does not require a large initial investment
  • Automates investing
  • Can automatically invest your spare change

Cons:

  • You can pick how aggressive you want your investments to be but cannot choose specific stocks to invest in or avoid

Read our full Acorns review

Robinhood Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Offers commission-free trades
  • Allows buying and selling of cryptocurrency
  • No minimum investment level required to open an account
  • Allows for options investing
  • A good choice for new investors

Cons:

  • Only available to investors in the United States
  • Large investments may take several days to process before you can use funds for trading
  • Certain kinds of stocks are not available on the platform

Read our full Robinhood review

Stash Pros and Cons

Pros:

  • Offers helpful, educational material to users1
  • Offers users a tremendous variety of accounts and options for earning money
  • Allows for purchasing of fractional stock shares
  • Allows for round-up style investments

Cons:

  • Does charge fees for certain features2
  • Requires a more hands-on approach than some platforms

Read our full Stash review

Still undecided? Read our comparison of Robinhood vs. Acorns vs. Stash to take a deeper dive.

For those interested in even more investment choices and education, be sure to check out our entire collection of investing reviews and our guide to investing basics.

Methodology

FinanceBuzz collected Google Trends search data on 48 different terms relating to various investing apps and platforms on May 11, 2021. The time frame for the collected data was set to “Past 12 months.” In the event of ties, terms were compared head-to-head within Google Trends to determine a winner.