Cash App Review

Cash App Ratings at a Glance

The popular payment platform, Cash App, has a new brokerage option that enables its users to start buying and selling securities right through the same app where they send and receive payments. With Cash App Investing, users enjoy zero-commission trading, fractional share investing, and other cool perks that beginners or mobile investors need in an online broker. Learn more about the platform’s new investment options in our Cash App Investing review below:

Cash App Investing is a brokerage option built right into the payment platform so if you already have the app, you can buy stocks and bitcoin on Cash App, without downloading a new app. The brokerage account is targeted to new investors and is relatively bare-bones as a result, but it is also a convenient option for passive investors who want to manage all their assets in one platform.

The investing features include:

• Approximately 1,000 stocks and exchange traded funds (ETFs). The reason for the limited security options as compared to other online brokers is that Cash App only supports stocks listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ that have a $1 billion+ market capitalization or $5 million average daily trade volume. This filters out some of the smaller or less frequently traded stocks because these tend to be higher risk and Cash App focuses on low to medium risk investments to keep its platform beginner friendly.
• Fractional share investing. This means you can invest in a stock even if you can’t afford the full price of a share. It’s a great way to diversify your portfolio, even if you only have a small amount of money to invest. Instead of buying one or two full shares in a single company, you could spread that cash across a wider range of stocks by buying only fractions of a share in a handful of companies.
• Multiple order types available. While it’s more of a bare bones broker platform, you are still able to place limits or stop losses on your orders. With a limit or stop loss order, you can trigger an automatic buy or sell order once your criteria are met. This allows you to automatically sell a riskier stock before you lose more money than you’re comfortable with (or to lock in your profits) or automatically buy a stock once it hits a price, you’re comfortable paying.
• Automated investing. You can schedule daily, weekly, or bi-weekly orders to automatically invest your money for you. For example, you can schedule it so that a fixed portion of your paycheck automatically gets invested as soon as it hits your account. This makes it easier to build investing into your financial plan. You can cancel the automatic investing any time you want right through the app.

Because Cash App also acts as a payment platform and offers banking services, using the app for investing as well makes it easy to manage your cash and investments all in one place. Get your paychecks and other direct deposits sent directly to your cash app account and invest your extra money into stocks or crypto instantly.

The key features that are missing that more frequent or advanced traders might miss are the full range of stocks and ETFs, derivatives, other cryptocurrencies aside from Bitcoin, and the ability to open a margin account or an IRA account. You also don’t have much in the way of research or technical analysis built into the platform so investors would need to do the bulk of their research outside the app.

While the features and securities available are limited compared to other brokerage platforms, it is still a young platform relative to its competitors. Square, the company behind Cash App, has said that its still developing new features for the platform. Users can expect to see more securities and more investing tools added to the app in the coming months and years.  

The goal of the new investing features is to make investing affordable and accessible, no matter how much cash you have to start with. There are no account maintenance fees, no commission on your trades, and no monthly minimums.

There are fees associated with buying and selling Bitcoin, though. If you want to invest in the cryptocurrency, the fees vary based on the volatility of the coin at the time of your trade. However, it’s usually between 1% to 1.76% of the total purchase price. You will see exactly how much the fee is on the order page before you confirm your order. 

Cash App offers customer support via the mobile app itself, the website’s help page, and a customer service phone line. However, customers have noted that representatives don’t always respond promptly or resolve your issue in a timely manner. 

Because the payment platform was originally built to be primarily used on your phone, the new investing features are built right into the app you already know how to navigate if you had Cash App already.

You can view all your stocks and bitcoin in the app as well as search other tickers and see their price history. While the research options are a little limited, all the basics are right there at your fingertips, so you have the ability to manage your investments wherever you are.

Cash App Investing is a very simplified brokerage platform that is great for new investors but will also serve passive investors with a more conservative strategy since the stock selection available is tailored to more risk-averse investing styles. While it lacks some of the more robust research tools and the full range of securities that more advanced traders would be interested in, the basics that it does provide, including fractional share investing, allow new investors to start building a portfolio with as little as $1. You can learn how the stock market works, manage your investments, and set up automated trading, all from your phone. 

Benefits of Cash App

The biggest advantage that Cash App Investing brings is that it makes investing incredibly simple, even for those who are buying and selling stock for the very first time. The app offers all the basic tools you need to get started and uses plain language that makes it easy to learn how it all works. 

One of the most unique features is the ability to buy fractional shares. This is a relatively new investing option that is still only offered by a select few brokers, but it makes the larger, lower-risk stocks that are often too expensive for new investors accessible. 

The ability to integrate your brokerage account and banking into a single app is another unique benefit that users will enjoy. When you use it for banking, sending, and receiving money, and investing, it makes it easy to manage all your assets in one convenient, easy-to-use app.

Frequently Asked Questions