Investing Brokerages & Advisors

Is Robinhood Gold Worth It? Here's What You Get for $5 Per Month

For $5 per month, Robinhood Gold includes more advanced market research, better IRA matches, bigger deposits, margin discounts, and more.

By Kat Tretina

Edited by Lauren Graves

Updated Feb. 20, 2025

Robinhood Gold is a monthly subscription service offered through the Robinhood investment app. It costs $5 per month and offers more advanced market research and stock data, larger instant deposits, discounted margin trading, more interest on cash accounts, and IRA contribution matching.

In general, we'd recommend a Robinhood Gold account to more serious investors. The standard, free version of Robinhood will be best for anyone who can get by investing stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and crypto without access to more advanced market data and trades.

Robinhood Gold is worth it for investors who will use the extra tools, although you can get some features elsewhere without paying extra. Learn more about what tools and perks are included with this plan and when to consider becoming a Robinhood Gold user.

What is Robinhood Gold?

Robinhood Gold is an optional monthly subscription service offered through the Robinhood investing app. For $5 a month, Robinhood Gold gives you access to advanced market research, in-depth data, larger instant deposits, margin trading, and IRA matching.

How it compares to the standard Robinhood plan

Robinhood is a trading and investing platform that allows individual investors to buy and sell fractional shares of stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies with $0 trading fees. It also gives access to options trading and extended market hours on business days.

The free version of Robinhood doesn't offer advanced tools for investors with more experience. Robinhood Gold is a premium upgrade designed for individuals with more investment experience. Gold does not include access to assets not supported by the Robinhood platform, such as mutual funds and bonds.

What does Robinhood Gold offer?

Robinhood Gold provides you with the following premium trading tools and features you can't get from the free version of the app.

Deeper market research (Morningstar)

Robinhood Gold subscribers have unlimited access to in-depth stock research and analysis from Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment research.

In-depth research reports from Morningstar are available for approximately 1,700 stocks and analyze factors such as the company's business strategy, leadership, and fair market value.

Access to Level II market data (Nasdaq)

Advanced investors and day traders frequently use Level II market data to inform their investing decisions. This data provides information about stock availability and pricing, including bid and ask prices. As an investor, this can give you an idea of how much demand a stock has, which might inform its future value.

Robinhood partners with Nasdaq TotalView to provide Level II market data for Robinhood Gold subscribers. One downside to this is that it only covers stock orders on the Nasdaq exchange and doesn't include data on stocks traded elsewhere.

Interest on uninvested cash

The Robinhood cash sweep program is available to all Robinhood users. It lets you set uninvested cash aside to keep it safe. This program, called the IntraFi Network Deposit Sweep Service, sweeps money into program banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) up to $250,000 per bank and $2.5 million in total (this limit was increased from $1.5 million in 2024). Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, and Truist Bank are just a few institutions in the program.

With Robinhood Gold, you can also earn interest on your uninvested cash; up to 4.00% (as of 12/27/24) APY (subscription fees apply), to be exact.

Brokerage cash sweep accounts aren't uncommon. For comparison, Betterment's Cash Reserve account earns up to 4.25% (as of Dec. 2, 2024) APY, and Wealthfront's Cash Account earns up to 4.00% APY. Neither requires upgraded subscriptions to earn interest, while Robinhood requires a Gold membership.

Editor's note

A typical brokerage cash account is like a savings account with extended FDIC coverage and some checking features.

Make bigger instant deposits

When you deposit money into a brokerage account, you often have to wait a few days for it to clear before using it to trade. That may be frustrating if you want to take advantage of market conditions.

The free Robinhood account allows instant deposits, which gives you immediate access to up to $1,000 after initiating a deposit. Robinhood Gold gives you instant access to up to three times your portfolio's value, depending on your portfolio and type of account.

Discount on margin investing

All Robinhood users have access to a margin account that enables them to borrow cash from Robinhood to purchase assets.

Robinhood Gold users can borrow up to $1,000 on margin without paying interest. After that, you'll pay 4.70% to 5.75% interest, depending on how much you borrow. These are very low margin rates compared to other brokerages, including E*TRADE and Schwab.

Warning

A margin account gives you more purchasing power, possibly leading to greater profits — but we'd only recommend it to investors who know what they're doing and have a healthy appetite for taking risks. Investing involves risk no matter how you do it, but investing on margin is especially risky. You can incur greater losses on top of owing the money you borrow.

Boosted IRA matching

Gold Robinhood members qualify for up to 3% IRA matching on qualifying contributions to their IRAs. This match is applied to annual contributions, and you can also earn 2% on IRA transfers and 401(k) rollovers until Apr. 30, 2025 (and then 1% after that).

Normal Robinhood users qualify for 1% IRA matching.

How much does Robinhood Gold cost?

Robinhood Gold is free for the first 30 days. After the trial period ends, it costs $5 per month. If you don't cancel your subscription, you'll continue to be charged each month.

Margin fees

There's an annual interest charge of up to 5.75% (as of 12/19/24) when you borrow more than $1,000 on margin. This interest is calculated daily, and Robinhood charges your account at the end of each billing cycle.

For example, let's say you use $3,000 worth of borrowed money. The first $1,000 is included interest-fee with your $5 Robinhood Gold subscription, so you'd only pay interest on the additional $2,000.

Multiply $2,000 by the annual interest rate, then divide by 365 to calculate the daily interest rate. In this case, you would pay about $0.32 per day in interest.

Is Robinhood Gold worth it?

We think Robinhood Gold would be worth it for you if:

You want quick access to funds for large purchases.
You would benefit from access to deeper research and data for advanced trading.
You trade or want to trade on margin.
You have a Robinhood IRA.

If you're a beginner or prefer a passive investment strategy, you may not find much value in Robinhood Gold and might be better off saving $5 each month. After all, that's $60 a year you could invest instead.

Alternatives to Robinhood Gold

Although Robinhood Gold could be a valuable service for some investors, it's not for everyone. You may want to use the free Robinhood app or an alternative trading platform such as Acorns or Moomoo.

Acorns Gold vs. Robinhood Gold

With Acorns¹ *Important Risk Disclosure Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Please consider, among other important factors, your investment objectives, risk tolerance and Acorns’ pricing before investing. Investment advisory services offered by Acorns Advisers, LLC (Acorns), an SEC-registered investment advisor. Brokerage services are provided to clients of Acorns by Acorns Securities, LLC, an SEC-registered broker-dealer and member <a href="https://www.finra.org/#/">FINRA</a>/<a href="https://www.sipc.org/">SIPC</a>. Round-Ups® investments are transferred from your linked funding source (checking account) to your Acorns Invest account, where the funds are invested into a portfolio of selected ETFs. If you do not maintain an adequate amount of funds in your funding source sufficient to cover your Round-Ups® investments, you could incur overdraft fees with your financial institution. Only purchases made with Round-Up accounts linked to your Acorns account with the feature activated are eligible for the Round- Ups® investment feature. Round-Up investments from your funding source will be processed when your Pending Round-Ups® investments reach or exceed $5. For additional important risks, disclosures and information, please visit <a href="https://www.acorns.com/terms/">https://www.acorns.com/terms/</a>. , you can start investing money with as little as $5. It may be a good option for new investors who want passive and diversified portfolios, as Acorns automatically invests your money in ETFs² The ETFs comprising the portfolios charge fees and expenses that will reduce a client’s return. Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the funds carefully before investing. Investment policies, management fees and other information can be found in the individual ETF’s prospectus. Please read each prospectus carefully before investing. and allocates your investments according to your goals and risk tolerance.

Acorns allows you to open taxable brokerage accounts and individual retirement accounts, among other account types. Like Robinhood Gold, the premium Acorns Gold subscription offers IRA matching and better APYs on uninvested cash. But we'd recommend Acorns Gold more for beginner investors looking for hands-off investing, while Robinhood Gold is better for a more active strategy.

Visit Acorns or learn more in our Acorns review.

Moomoo vs. Robinhood Gold

As with Robinhood, Moomoo is a commission-free³ U.S. residents trading in U.S. securities may trade commission-free using the moomoo app through Moomoo Financial Inc. Other fees may apply. For more info, visit <a href="https://www.moomoo.com/us/pricing">moomoo.com/us/pricing</a>. investment app. It allows users to trade on the U.S. and Hong Kong stock markets. Investors may buy and sell stocks, ETFs, options, and American depository receipts, which give investors access to foreign stocks and markets. One missing asset class in Moomoo is cryptocurrencies because it does not allow investors to buy or sell them.

Unlike Robinhood, Moomoo doesn't charge extra for access to its best analytical tools and research, so we recommend it above Robinhood for serious stock traders who wouldn't use all of the features included with the paid Robinhood Gold subscription. However, Moomoo doesn't offer crypto or IRAs.

Visit Moomoo or learn more in our Moomoo review.

FAQs

How to cancel Robinhood Gold

Robinhood Gold is easy to cancel if you decide you're not getting enough value out of the service to justify the cost. To cancel your paid subscription and downgrade to the standard version of Robinhood, just navigate to the menu from the investing app and select "Investing." From there, find the Robinhood Gold membership tab and look for the button that says "Cancel membership."

Follow the prompts to cancel from there. If you sign up for the 30-day free trial, you can decide to cancel before you're charged $5 and still access premium features until your trial is up.

How much is Robinhood Gold's monthly fee?

Robinhood Gold's monthly fee is $5. You can also opt to pay this as a $50 annual fee once per year. This monthly subscription fee doesn't include additional charges for other brokerage services.

Bottom line

At just $5 per month, Robinhood Gold might be a worthwhile subscription for seasoned investors. The service offers detailed market data, larger instant deposits, and margin trading. However, novice or passive investors who don't use those features may feel the service isn't worth the fee.

Other platforms, including robo-advisors or investment apps, could be a better fit for you. Explore your options by checking out our picks for the best investment apps.