A corporate bond costs $100 to buy on Public, and a stock trade starts at $5. The fees sit on the automation. Trades placed inside the platform's investment plans run $0.49 to $1.99 until an account reaches $50,000, and anyone without a Premium membership pays $2.99 for every extended-hours trade.
Cheap to get in, priced per use on the features that save you effort: that mix holds across most of the platform.
Public launched in 2019 as a self-directed investing app. It isn't a robo-advisor. The automation sits on top of choices you make, not the other way around.
Trades Are Commission-Free, but Several Other Fees Aren't
U.S. stocks and ETFs trade with no commission during regular market hours, and Public charges no management fee. The costs show up around the edges: extended hours, index options, bond markups, and the automated plans.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| U.S. stock and ETF trades, regular hours | $0 commission |
| Extended-hours trades | $2.99 per trade (free for Premium) |
| Stock and ETF options contracts | No fee, plus rebates of $0.06 to $0.18 per contract by tier |
| Index options | $0.35 per contract for Premium, $0.50 for non-Premium |
| Bonds | Up to $0.50 per $100 par value |
| Treasury Account | Up to 0.29% annual advisory fee |
| Crypto orders from $0.01 to $500 | $0.49 to $6.29, depending on order size |
| Crypto orders above $500 | 1.25% of the order |
| Trades inside investment plans | $0.49 to $1.99 (waived at $50,000+) |
| Management fee | None |
Regular market hours run 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET. The extended windows are 4:00 to 9:30 a.m. and 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. ET. One thing the fee schedule doesn't tell you: trading outside regular hours generally means fewer buyers and sellers and wider spreads, so the execution price can differ more from what you see quoted than it would midday.
More Than 9,000 Stocks, Plus Bonds, T-Bills, Options, and Crypto
The asset lineup is wider than many low-cost apps offer:
- More than 9,000 stocks, in whole or fractional shares.
- ETFs, with price alerts and recurring investments. Mutual funds are not offered.
- Thousands of individual corporate, Treasury, and municipal bonds. Corporate and Treasury bonds start at $100.
- Stock and ETF options contracts, which carry no fee and pay rebates. Index options carry per-contract fees.
- Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), and others. Bakkt Crypto provides the trading, but buying, selling, holding, and setting up recurring buys all happen inside Public.
Account types cover taxable brokerage, Traditional and Roth IRAs, Treasury Accounts, Bond Accounts, and high-yield cash accounts. Public also offers IRA matching. Accounts are open to people 18 or older with a valid Social Security number who are U.S. citizens, U.S. residents, or visa holders with a U.S. residential address.
The High-Yield Cash Account Pays 4.1% and Spreads FDIC Coverage Across Partner Banks
The High-Yield Cash Account is a secondary brokerage account, and balances sit with Public's partner banks. The APY was 4.1% as of 1/6/25. There's no monthly maintenance fee, no minimum balance, and no cap on transfers and withdrawals.
FDIC insurance runs up to $5 million, built from $250,000 of coverage at each of several partner banks. Worth checking if you already bank elsewhere: FDIC limits apply per depositor, per institution, so money you hold directly at one of those same partner banks counts against the same $250,000 bucket.
Public itself is not a bank. The yield comes from the bank network behind the account.
The Bond Account Buys 10 Bonds With a $1,000 Deposit
Instead of picking bonds one at a time, a Bond Account deposit purchases 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. Interest is paid out across 20 payments a year, and the minimum deposit is $1,000.
Public quotes a 6% average annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the 10 bonds, before fees, as of 1/24/25. Its own disclosures are worth reading closely here. The 10 bonds are not chosen with any one investor's situation in mind, and every bond trade carries a markup. An issuer default, or a sale before maturity, can hand back less than was put in. And that 6% is an average measured on one date: what a buyer actually earns turns on the price paid for each bond, so the figure at purchase can come out higher or lower.
The Treasury Account Holds T-Bills and Carries SIPC Coverage, Not FDIC
A Treasury Account invests only in Treasury bills and is custodied at The Bank of New York Mellon. Balances below $500k are covered by SIPC insurance, and the T-bills themselves are backed by the U.S. government. That's a different protection than a savings account gets, because FDIC insurance doesn't apply here. The rate is variable, and the account carries an advisory fee of up to 0.29% a year.
Investment Plans Sit Between Self-Directed and Robo-Advisor
The investment plans are where Public's middle ground lives. You can start from a pre-built plan organized by risk tolerance, bond strategy, theme (cybersecurity and climate change, among others), or geographic region. Or build your own with up to 20 stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies. Then you set a deposit schedule: daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Public invests each deposit across the plan, and preferences can be changed at any time.
That's dollar-cost averaging, spreading purchases over time rather than buying all at once. It is not a portfolio built for you, though. Public can suggest a plan; it won't design one around a questionnaire the way a robo-advisor does.
The transaction fees deserve attention here. Trades inside a plan cost $0.49 to $1.99 unless the account holds $50,000 or more. Since the fee applies per trade, a plan with a long list of holdings generates more of those charges on every scheduled deposit than a plan with a handful. Recurring crypto orders are their own line item at 1.25% of each order.
The AI Tools: Alpha, the Earnings Hub, and Key Moments
Public runs an AI research tool called Alpha, powered by GPT-4, which launched in May 2023. You can ask it questions about a specific stock and get an answer back. The Earnings Hub produces breakdowns of earnings calls once they wrap, and a Key Moments dashboard explains what's behind a stock's movement. The pitch is compression: reading a summary rather than digging through filings and transcripts.
Premium and a $50,000 Balance Overlap on Perks
A free account covers stock, ETF, and crypto trading. Public Premium adds deeper data: advanced stock and ETF insights including revenue reports and company metrics, analyst reports and Morningstar ratings, portfolio management tools, and free extended-hours trading. It carries a monthly fee, waived for accounts holding $50,000 or more.
Balance tiers layer on top:
- At $50,000, free extended-hours trading, no transaction fees inside investment plans, priority support, and Premium access at no charge.
- At $250,000, concierge service with VIP support, personalized offers, and exclusive invitations.
No Mutual Funds, and the Research Tools Cost Extra
Two gaps stand out. Mutual funds aren't available, which rules out a common building block for anyone used to index funds inside a 401(k). And the advanced analysis tools sit behind the Premium fee, where several larger brokerages include comparable charting and screening at no cost: Schwab's thinkorswim and Power ETRADE both do.
Public's educational library is also thinner than what Fidelity or Charles Schwab publish, and the platform makes few recommendations. New investors who want to be walked through decisions will find less hand-holding here.
Security, Insurance, and What App Reviewers Say
Public is a licensed brokerage and a member of FINRA and SIPC, so securities in an account are protected up to $500,000 against brokerage failure. That covers the firm going under, not investment losses. Data is secured with AES 128-bit encryption and TLS 1.2.
App store ratings stood at 4.7 out of 5 as of Nov. 19, 2024. Customer support turns up on both sides of the reviews: some users name it as a reason for the high mark, others say it never sorted out their problem. Beyond that, the favorable reviews tend to be about the app's design and its social side, while the critical ones come back to withdrawals that take longer than expected and to bugs.
How Wealthfront, M1 Finance, and Robinhood Divide the Portfolio-Building Work
- Wealthfront does the building. A short questionnaire at signup produces a portfolio of low-cost ETFs, and the account runs tax-loss harvesting on it. The advisory fee is 0.25% a year, the entry point is $500, and the setup suits a passive investor. Public asks you to pick or build a plan instead; Wealthfront never puts that question to you.
- M1 Finance splits the work. Its "Pies" are assembled from "Slices," which can be individual stocks, ETFs, or smaller Pies, and Model Portfolios are there for anyone who'd rather start from something pre-built. Deposits are then divided by your target allocation, with underweight Slices topped up first.
- Robinhood leaves the building to you, and it's the closest match to Public in feel: commission-free stocks, ETFs, and options, crypto, and fractional shares from as little as $1, but no investment plans and no bond funds. The app also runs 24-hour trading, issues a cash back credit card, and offers IPO access. For $5 a month, Robinhood Gold layers on margin, research reports, and faster access to larger deposits.
A Broad Menu That Comes With Setup Work and Small Fees
The platform rewards involvement. Someone who wants corporate bonds at a $100 entry point, a cash account for money not yet deployed, options rebates, and crypto in the same app as their stocks gets an unusually broad menu for a commission-free brokerage, and the AI research tools cut down the reading during earnings season.
The setup work doesn't go away, though. Every plan has to be chosen or built, the analysis tools that help most sit behind Premium, mutual funds aren't offered, and the small per-trade charges inside plans keep applying until a balance clears $50,000. A portfolio assembled for you, or free advanced charting, is available elsewhere.
