Summary
Recommended for beginners looking for free trading and a great mobile-only trading platform
Revolut is a fast-growing fintech startup founded in 2015 and mainly known for its banking and payment services. In 2019, the company also launched its commission-free stock trading, which is provided by Revolut Trading Ltd.
Revolut is regulated by multiple top-tier regulators, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Clients' assets are protected up to $500,000 ($250,000 cash) under the Securities Investment Protection Corporation's (SIPC) insurance. Revolut is also regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Revolut pros and cons
Revolut offers free stock trading (though conditions apply) without inactivity fees. Account opening is seamless, fully digital, and really fast. In addition, the mobile app is well designed and user-friendly.
However, only US shares and cryptocurrencies are available for trading, meaning that other asset classes like mutual funds, options or bonds are all missing. Research and educational tools are also very basic or lacking altogether, and you can get answers only to some basic questions through customer support.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Free stock trading | • Limited product portfolio |
| • Fast and easy account opening | • Basic research and missing educational tools |
| • Great mobile trading platform | • Poor customer service |
| 🗺️ Country of regulation | UK, DriveWealth (Revolut's execution partner) is regulated in the US |
| 💰 Trading fees class | Low |
| 💰 Inactivity fee charged | No |
| 💰 Withdrawal fee amount | $0 |
| 💰 Minimum deposit | $0 |
| 🕖 Time to open an account | 1 day |
| 💳 Deposit with bank card | Available |
| 👛 Depositing with electronic wallet | Available |
| 💱 Number of base currencies supported | 1 |
| 🎮 Demo account provided | No |
| 🛍️ Products offered | Stock, Crypto |
Author of this review
Revolut review
Fees
Revolut provides a certain amount of free stock trades, depending on your plan. On the other hand, there is also a custody fee.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Low trading fees | None |
| • Low non-trading fees | |
| • Free stock trading |
| Assets | Fee level | Fee terms |
|---|---|---|
| US stock | Low | Unlimited free stock trades for Metal accounts; 5 and 3 monthly free stock trades for Premium and Plus accounts, respectively. 1 free trade for Standard accounts |
| EURUSD | - | Not available |
| Mutual fund | - | Not available |
| Inactivity fee | Low | No inactivity fee |
We ranked Revolut's fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.
To get things rolling, let's go over some lingo related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees, and non-trading fees.
- Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
- Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.
Below you will find the most relevant fees of Revolut for each asset class. For example, in the case of stock investing commissions are the most important fees.
We also compared Revolut's fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, Freetrade and Robinhood. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of Revolut alternatives.
To have a clear overview of Revolut, let's start with the trading fees.
Revolut trading fees
Trading fees are low both for stocks and for cryptos.
You can choose from three different account types at Revolut; each charges different fees for stocks:
- the Standard account is free and includes 1 free stock trade per month (previously 3);
- Plus users will receive 3 free stock trades per month;
- the Premium account costs $9.99 per month and includes 5 free stock trades per month (previously 8);
- the Metal account costs $14.99 per month and allows you to make an unlimited number of free stock trades.
Once you have exceeded your monthly free trade limit, each trade costs £1, or its close equivalent in your base currency:
| GBP 1 | EUR 1 | DKK 9 | NOK 11 |
| PLN 4 | RON 5 | CZK 28 | SEK 11 |
| BGN 2 | HUF 368 | HRK 8 |
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US stock | $1.0 | $0.0 | $0.0 |
However, we and our customers experienced that there are sometimes 5% fees. Revolut's customer support said that this is a buffer for stocks that are more volatile and it's charged to cover some additional fees. We think this fee should be more transparent to the customers.
Crypto fees
Revolut provides cryptos from the Bitstamp crypto exchange and charges a 1.5% markup on the cryptocurrencies' bid or ask price.
Gold and 'Precious Metals'
Gold (XAU) can now be traded with Premium and Metal accounts if you add an XAU account through the Commodities widget. The product's costs are derived from the XAU market with a 0.25% markup by Revolut during market hours and a 1% markup during non-market hours.
Non-trading fees
Revolut has low non-trading fees; it charges no inactivity or withdrawal fee. However, it charges an annual custody fee of 0.12%. This is an x12 growth compared to the previous custody fee.
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account fee | No | No | No |
| Inactivity fee | No | No | No |
| Deposit fee | $0 | $0 | $0 |
| Withdrawal fee | $0 | $0 | $0 |
Revolut review
Account opening
Revolut has an easy, fast, and fully digital account opening, requiring no minimum account balance.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Fast | None |
| • Fully digital | |
| • No minimum deposit |
Can you open an account?
Stock trading is not available in all of the countries where Revolut's basic service is available. Use our handy tool above to find out whether stock trading is available.
What is the minimum deposit at Revolut?
There is no required minimum deposit. You can move even just a couple of dollars to your trading account from your Revolut account to get started with buying shares.
Account types
Revolut has three account types: Standard, Premium and Metal. All three account types offer commission-free trading; the difference among them lies mainly in the amount of monthly free stock trades they offer:
- the Standard account allows 1 free stock trade per month;
- the Plus account provides 3 stock trades per month;
- the Premium account offers 5 free stock trades per month;
- while the Metal account places no limit on the number of free trades.
Your trading account with Revolut is a general investment account. Other account types usually offered by traditional brokerages such as corporate, joint, IRA or ISA accounts are not available.
How to open your account
Revolut account opening is user-friendly and fast. Our account was verified within one business day.
The 5 steps of Revolut account opening:
- Download the app and create a Revolut account
- Go to 'Dashboard' and click 'Trading'
- Add some personal information, like your nationality and tax number
- Answer a few questions about your employment status, annual income, and investment objectives
- Accept user and market data agreements
Revolut review
Deposit and withdrawal
Revolut offers several deposit options, and both deposits and withdrawals are free even when using wire transfers. On the negative side, you can only use a USD-based account for trading and we experienced issues when canceled orders.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Credit/Debit card available | • Only one account base currency |
| • Free withdrawal | • Funds can be blocked after cancel order |
| • No deposit fee |
Account base currencies
You can have many base currencies when using the Revolut app but you can only trade from a USD-based account, as you can only trade on the US stock market.
It takes only a few seconds to create a USD account, but you need to exchange the amount you wish to trade into USD before you place an order. It would be more convenient if you didn't have to exchange the money yourself and Revolut made the currency conversion automatically.
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of base currencies | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Deposit fees and options
Revolut charges no deposit fees. In addition to bank transfer, you can top up your Revolut account by using credit/debit cards, Apple Pay, or Google Pay.
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Credit/Debit card | Yes | No | No |
| Electronic wallets | Yes | Yes | No |
A bank transfer can take several business days, while topping up your Revolut account with a credit/debit card is instant. You can only deposit money to your trading account from your Revolut account.
Revolut withdrawal fees and options
Revolut charges no withdrawal fees. You can move money from your Revolut trading account to your Revolut account instantly and for free. From there, though, similarly to Revolut's competitors, you can only use bank transfer to withdraw money to your standard bank accounts.
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank Transfer | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Credit/Debit card | No | No | No |
| Electronic wallets | No | No | No |
| Withdrawal fee | $0 | $0 | $0 |
How long does it take to withdraw money from Revolut? We tested the bank transfer withdrawal and it took 1 business day.
How do you withdraw money from Revolut? You can withdraw money from Revolut by following these steps:
- Go to 'Payments'
- Select 'Bank Transfer'
- Add your bank account
- Choose the currency and the amount you wish to withdraw
- Initiate the withdrawal
Funds blocked when order canceled
Lastly, we experienced sometimes that the funds were blocked for more days after canceling an order. This is not a standard practice at other brokers.
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Revolut review
Web trading platform
Revolut does not offer a web trading platform, as it's available only on mobile. This is a drawback, as web-based applications are convenient to use and accessible from all devices.
| Trading platform | Score | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Web | - | No |
| Mobile | 4.9 stars | Yes |
| Desktop | - | No |
Revolut does not offer a web trading platform.
Revolut review
Mobile trading platform
Revolut offers a great and user-friendly mobile trading platform, with Touch/Face ID login and good search functions. On the other hand, there is no two-step login.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • User-friendly | • No two-step (safer) login |
| • Good search function | • Limited order types |
| • Touch/Face ID login |
Revolut offers a mobile trading platform developed in-house. Similarly to other mobile-first services, Revolut offers a great interface catering mostly to the average user. It's available in 24 languages.
| Bulgarian | Croatian | Czech | Danish | Dutch | English |
| Estonian | Finnish | French | German | Greek | Hungarian |
| Italian | Japanese | Latvian | Lithuanian | Norwegian | Polish |
| Portuguese | Romanian | Slovakian | Slovenian | Spanish | Swedish |
Look and feel
Revolut's mobile trading platform is user-friendly and well designed. You can familiarize yourself with the platform in just a few minutes.
Login and security
You can log into Revolut's platform by typing a four-digit passcode, or using TouchID on compatible devices.
Search functions
The platform's search functions are easy to use; simply begin to type an asset's name or ticker to view relevant hits.
One thing we missed was categorization. It would be great to be able to filter companies based on industry, market capitalization, price level, etc.
Placing orders
As of August 2020, new order types have been introduced, such as limit order, stop-loss and out-of-hours (also known as outside market hours) orders. Unfortunately, options are still very limited when it comes to order validity, as you cannot set good-till-cancel or good-till-date type of orders.
Alerts and notifications
There is a price alert function on the Revolut mobile platform that lets you know whenever the price of an instrument surpasses or drops below a pre-set level.
Revolut review
Desktop trading platform
Revolut does not offer a desktop trading platform.
Revolut review
Markets and products
Revolut has a limited product portfolio, as you can only trade certain US stocks, cryptos, gold and silver. It lacks other popular asset classes like mutual funds, bonds or options.
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ETF | No | Yes | Yes |
| Forex | No | No | No |
| Fund | No | No | No |
| Bond | No | No | No |
| Options | No | No | Yes |
| Futures | No | No | No |
| CFD | No | No | No |
| Crypto | Yes | No | Yes |
Stocks and ETFs
You can trade more than 850 stocks listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges. Freetrade has a similar offer, the difference being that you can access the London Stock Exchange as well. Robinhood's offering is much wider.
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stock markets (#) | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| ETFs (#) | - | 58 |
2,300
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Cryptos
Revolut offers Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, Stellar lumens and Litecoin cryptos. Revolut's crpypto offering is slighty worse than Robinhood's but you can still trade the most popular ones. Freetrade doesn't offer cryptos.
| Revolut | Freetrade | Robinhood | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cryptos (#) | 6 | - | 7 |
Starting April 2020, Revolut extended the availability of cryptocurrencies to Standard accounts as well, in addition to Premium and Metal accounts. As of September 2020, Australian residents also have to the opportunity to trade cryptos.
FCA bans the sale of crypto-derivatives to UK retail consumers from 6 January 2021.
Gold and 'Precious Metals'
In March 2020, Revolut introduced gold trading for Premium and Metal Accounts. As of now, only Gold (XAU) and Silver (XAG) are supported on the platform, but later on, Revolut will add more metals and commodities to their selection.
Favourites - Converter, Auto Exchanges
Tapping on the top right corner's star symbol, you'll be greeted with the 'Favourites' page, in which you can create watchlists, alerts, converters and auto exchanges.
With 'Converter', you can simultaneously check multiple currencies' value in comparison. You can also set automatic exchanges between currencies with the 'Exchanges' feature.
Stocks on Revolut
You can trade more than 850 stocks listed on the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges.
Revolut review
Research
Revolut offers live market data, but other research tools are very basic or unavailable.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • User-friendly | • Limited interactive charting |
| • Live market data | • No trading ideas |
| • No fundamental data available |
Trading ideas
Revolut does not provide trading ideas.
Fundamental data
Revolut does not offer fundamental data.
Charting
Revolut has poor charting tools. There are no technical indicators, and some other charting tools are also missing, such as a trendline editor. You can only use a basic chart and view some limited key information, such as changes in the the stock price during the past week.
Newsfeed, Watchlists
Thanks to constant updates, Revolut now has a watchlist and a newsfeed.
The newsfeed is available from both the overview trading page and under any product you choose. If you check the latter, it'll be filtered to show only what is relevant to the given product. They are provided by 3rd party news sites, like Zolmax, CNBC, Investing, and Yahoo.
Under the Favourites tab (star symbol in the top right corner) you can create Watchlists. They are grouped by asset types - just tap on 'Add new'.
Revolut review
Customer service
Revolut has a great chatbot and a useful FAQ, but phone support offers only pre-recorded answers, while live chat is slow and its responses aren't always satisfactory.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Phone support | • No 24/7 support |
| • Live chat | • Irrelevant answers |
| • Only pre-recorded answers on the phone |
You can contact Revolut via:
- chatbot
- live chat
- phone
The chatbot is great, although it can answer only basic questions. For example, it gave clear answers about what stocks are available or what order types are offered.
We also tested live chat, which was slow and we didn't get clear and useful answers to our questions.
Revolut phone support was fast, but all you get is pre-recorded answers. It's great if you have some basic questions, but it is not suitable for more specific queries.
We also missed email support.
All in all, there is certainly room for improvement in Revolut's customer service options.
Revolut review
Education
There are no education materials or a demo account available at Revolut.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| None | • No demo account |
| • No trading platform tutorial videos | |
| • No educational videos |
Education is not a particularly strong suit of Revolut. They do offer some how-to videos on their Youtube channel, but these focus mainly on the use of the Revolut mobile app.
Revolut review
Safety
Revolut is overseen by top-tier US and UK regulators, and it also has a banking license. However, it is not listed on a stock exchange and does not disclose its financial information.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| • Majority of clients belong to a top-tier financial authority | • Not listed on stock exchange |
| • Banking background | • Financial information is not publicly available |
Is Revolut regulated?
Yes, it is regulated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Is Revolut safe?
To be certain, we highly advise to check two facts:
- how you are protected if something goes wrong
- and what the background of the broker is.
How you are protected
Revolut transmits client orders to DriveWealth LLC, a company that provides the trading platform and services for Revolut Trading. Sometimes Revolut refers to them as "Third Party Broker".
This company falls under US federal regulation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). DriveWealth acts as an agent, executing orders by transferring the orders to a floor broker at the NYSE. Revolut's clients are protected up to $500,000 (including up to $250,000 cash) under the Securities Investment Protection Corporation's (SIPC) insurance.
Background
Revolut is a relatively young company, established in 2015. The longer track record a broker has, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises.
Revolut has a banking license (in Lithuania), which makes it subject to tougher regulations than brokers.
Being regulated by a top-tier regulator and having a banking license are all great signs for Revolut’s safety.
Revolut review
Bottom line
Revolut's fees are great. With all three types of accounts, you can trade US stocks for free (though monthly limits may apply). Account opening is easy, fully digital, and fast. You can use an awesome and user-friendly mobile trading platform.
Revolut has some drawbacks though. The product portfolio covers only US stocks and some crypto currencies. There are only a few research tools, while it offers no educational material at all. Customer service could also be improved.
If you want to trade US stocks for free and are looking for an easy-to-use mobile platform, Revolut is a great choice.