Get to know your investing fees

Our goal is to make it easy and affordable to start investing with the Plynk® app. The Plynk team^* is committed to being fully transparent about fees, so you know exactly what you’re paying (and even better: what you’re not paying).

We want your money to work for you. The Plynk app is free to use, and you can trade stocks and funds with no fees or commissions.

There are many different types of investing fees that exist, so let’s break it down.

Fees you don’t pay with the Plynk app:

- Subscription fees: Some apps charge a monthly subscription fee just to use them. The Plynk app does not.

- Account fees: Brokerages can have annual fees to maintain your account, but with the Plynk app that doesn’t happen.

- Commissions: When trading in the Plynk app, there are no fees to buy or sell stocks and funds.

- Custody fees: Other apps may charge fees to hold and maintain your investments, that’s not the case with Plynk.

- Mark ups, spreads, or PFOFs: Sometimes broker-dealers will set the price you pay slightly higher than the actual market price (or slightly lower if you’re selling) to make a little money. This can be called a lot of different things, including payment for order flow (PFOF). With the Plynk app, you don’t pay for this.

Third-party investing fees you do pay with the Plynk app:

- Expense ratios (for funds): If you decide to invest in funds, you’ll likely pay what’s called an expense ratio. This is a yearly fee funds charge that cover the costs of operating them (like the fund manager’s salary, legal fees, and administrative costs).

Each fund may have a different expense ratio and they’re automatically taken out of the money you invest. So if you invest $10 in a fund with an expense ratio of 1%, $0.10 is taken out as the fee and $9.90 is invested.

In the Plynk app, you’ll see expense ratio listed among other stats for that fund.

- Paxos customer fee on crypto trades: For each trade made in your Paxos crypto account, there is a small fee that Paxos charges. With crypto trades $100 and under, the fee is $0.50. For crypto trades above $100, there’s a 0.5% fee.

This customer fee is added by Paxos to the total amount of your crypto trade. For example, if you buy $10 worth of crypto, the total amount you’d pay would be $10.50 with fees. If you buy $200 worth of crypto, the total amount you’d pay would be $201.00 with fees.

Why fees matter

It’s important to take a close look at an account’s fees before making the decision to invest. Because while $5 here or 3% there may seem small, those charges can really add up over time, especially when you consider compound growth. The higher your fees, the less of your money is getting invested (and therefore the smaller potential for growth over time).