By Bo Starr, Co-CEO of Grifin. Last verified August 17, 2026.

If your $100 is already sitting in Cash App and you want to buy one or two stocks with zero new setup, Cash App Investing is the better choice. If there's any chance you'll want a retirement account, more than occasional bitcoin, or room to grow, open Robinhood, because Cash App Investing is taxable-only and can't offer an IRA at all.

Before we referee: we make Grifin, a competing investing app, disclosed here so you can weigh our judgment accordingly. Ours links the cards you already use through Plaid and automatically buys fractional shares of the public brands you spend at, inside a real brokerage account; it gets one sentence in the argument below and isn't in the verdict.

What can you actually buy on each app?

Both offer commission-free stock investing with fractional shares from $1, so your $100 goes to work whole on either one, and neither charges a subscription for basic stock buying, so the fee fight here is about extras rather than entry. Robinhood's shelf is far longer: thousands of stocks and ETFs, options, a range of cryptocurrencies, and 24-hour trading on many names. Cash App Investing covers a solid list of stocks and ETFs plus bitcoin, and only bitcoin, on the crypto side. For a first $100, the shorter shelf honestly doesn't hurt; nobody needs options for their first hundred dollars. Where the shelf matters is the account type underneath it, which is the section most comparisons skip.

Does either app offer a retirement account?

Robinhood does, Cash App doesn't, and for a first-time investor this is the most important paragraph in this post. Cash App Investing is a taxable brokerage account, full stop, with no IRA option of any kind. Robinhood offers traditional and Roth IRAs with a 1% match on contributions, 3% for Gold subscribers at $5 a month or $50 a year. If your $100 is the start of long-term saving rather than a one-time experiment, a Roth IRA is probably where it belongs, and only one of these apps can open one. Plenty of pages compare fees and interfaces for a thousand words without mentioning this. It's the whole ballgame for a saver.

What does bitcoin cost on Cash App now?

Cheaper than it used to be, with a catch on small buys. Starting in February 2026, Cash App dropped fees on recurring bitcoin purchases and on buys over $2,000. Smaller one-time purchases still carry a tiered fee that runs from roughly 2% at the small end down to about 0.9% as the amount grows. So a casual $25 one-time bitcoin buy still pays a real markup, while a $25 weekly recurring buy doesn't. If bitcoin is your main interest and you'll set up recurring purchases, Cash App is now genuinely competitive. Robinhood offers more coins beyond bitcoin, which matters to some people and is a hazard for others.

What happens when you want to leave?

This is Cash App's sharpest edge, and it cuts on the way out. Cash App charges $75 to transfer your stock out to another brokerage, and fractional shares can't be transferred at all, meaning partial shares get sold, with tax consequences, rather than moved. Robinhood also charges a $75 outbound transfer fee, so neither is generous here, but the fractional-share limitation stings more at Cash App because fractions are most of what a $100 investor owns. The practical advice: whichever app you pick, think of it as a place your money might live for years, not weeks, because the exit has a toll booth either way. And if you already suspect you'll consolidate at a bigger brokerage someday, the cheapest transfer is the one you never make, so consider starting where you plan to end up.

When is Cash App Investing the right call?

When friction is your enemy and simplicity is the goal. If you already use Cash App, the money is there, the identity verification is done, and buying $50 of a company takes about a minute with no new app, no new login, and no subscription. For someone who has circled investing for years without starting, removing every step between impulse and ownership has real value. One or two stocks, maybe a recurring bitcoin buy, nothing fancy: Cash App does that job well and free. Grifin is a narrower tool than either one: it links your card, matches purchases to publicly traded brands and buys fractional shares of them, and most of its members had never owned a stock before they signed up.

When should you pick Robinhood instead?

When the first $100 is meant to be the first of many. Robinhood gives that money more places to grow: an IRA with a match, a bigger menu of ETFs for diversification, recurring investments to automate the habit, and a platform you won't outgrow in six months. The tradeoff is temptation, since the same app serves options and around-the-clock trading to anyone who scrolls far enough, and a first-timer should treat those tabs like the liquor cabinet. A practical middle path: open the Robinhood account, set a single recurring buy of a broad ETF, and never visit the discover tab. The recommendation stands: Cash App for the simplest possible start with money already in the app, Robinhood for the start that's supposed to lead somewhere.

Facts about other apps checked against their own pricing pages on August 17, 2026.