Stockpile

Stockpile was the first company I trusted to start my first investment portfolio in 2017.
The interface is clean and super easy to navigate which was important as a first time user.

Most of the companies I decided to invest were available and I never had any issue transferring money in or out. Customer service was prompt the few times I contacted them and very Thorough.

When I first started investing, every trade/ commission was an extra $0.99. Last year they made the trades free.

Sad news. Starting in July, a monthly fee of $4.95 will be charged to have an account with stockpile. The fee covers added benefits such as, Crypto trading and no fee gifting. These are features I'm not particularly interested in.

For customers with a preexisting account, can pay $19.95 for a lifetime membership. For people like myself who decide to let their money sit and grow, we either sell our shares with a profit or loss and withdraw the money. Or we pay this extra fee to let our money sit.
My opinion is that preexisting members should not have to pay anything.

I have other portfolios on other platforms that do not require a membership. Other platforms already offer the feature stockpile is adding for free.

Just my two cents for anyone looking to open an investment account.

So far I cannot complain about the security from stockpile. When I have logged in on my phone or laptop the site was always up. There have been no glitches unlike robinhood.

They sold my shares without my permission. When you read the reviews of the app it tells the story. All of these customers got an email stating we sold a portion of your shares to cover your monthly fee which we notified you about. Yet no one got the email stating a monthly fee was coming to a previously free account. Furthermore, when you try to login to your account to see what is happening, they have frozen all of these existing customers accounts and your username and password no longer work! Then, when you request a new password they state your email doesn't exist! This the same email they are using to email about selling your shares! Finally, when you email customer support for help with login, they don't help you and instead give you some jargon about you have been notified as to our changes. But I still cannot access my money! They are thieves and they are hundreds of customers stating the same exact thing that happened to me this past week. The longer I try to gain access to my money and withdraw it the more blockades they throw in the way. It is a very small amount of money I have in there but I have never had this much trouble accessing my own money from any brokerage, bank or app over the years. They know exactly what they are doing and they are making millions doing this to thousands of customers. Oh and they plan on sharing your banking information with 3rd parties.