Public.com Review 2026: Social Investing With a Twist — But Is It Worth It?

Public.com made headlines by being the first major broker to voluntarily eliminate payment for order flow — a decision that cost them revenue but earned them credibility. The social investing angle (public portfolios, community discussion, investing with friends) is either the platform's killer feature or its biggest gimmick, depending on who you ask. We tested it for 45 days to find out which. Updated Abril 2026.

Qué Hace que Public sea Diferente

Sin PFOF: La Apuesta Ética

Public charges a "tipping" model (optional suggested tip per trade) to fund the absence of PFOF — though most users tip $0. In practice, Public routes orders to exchanges for best execution, resulting in a 7.5/10 execution score in our testing (vs. Robinhood's 7.2 and Traderise's 9.1). The execution improvement over PFOF platforms is real but modest — +$0.008/share versus -$0.011 for Robinhood.

Cuenta Treasury: Valor Genuino

Public's Treasury account sweeps uninvested cash into US Treasury bills at 4.35% APY (as of Q2 2026) — slightly better than most competitors' money market yields. For investors who maintain large cash positions, this alone can generate meaningful interest income without locking money into CDs.

La Pregunta de la Inversión Social

Public's social features let you see friends' portfolios, follow professional investors, and discuss trades in a community feed. This is either valuable (you learn from others' moves) or dangerous (social proof is one of the most reliable predictors of bad investment decisions). Our view: seeing what professional investors own is interesting. Copying trade ideas from anonymous community members on social feeds is a fast path to losses. The feature is better as an educational tool than a strategy source.

Donde Public se Queda Corto

Feature depth is the platform's Achilles' heel. No options trading. No margin trading. No advanced screeners. No paper trading. Limited order types. For anyone who has graduated from basic buy-and-hold to active trading, Public's toolkit is simply inadequate. Traderise covers options, margin, multi-asset, and advanced charting — all the features Public lacks, without the social gimmicks.