Greenlight Investing Review: Kid-Friendly Investing App

Easy to use, with rich educational content

Greenlight is popular with kids and parents, and that’s mainly because of the user experience. Learning how to use the app doesn’t take long. Kids can quickly jump in and start learning about investing.

Greenlight’s educational content strikes a good balance between informative and fun. Greenlight Level Up™, a financial education game, is one of the standout features. It features quick, bite-sized lessons on investing and other financial concepts, followed by a short quiz to test your knowledge.

Commission-free investing, approved by parents

Greenlight lets kids choose the investments they like while parents stay in control. It has more than 4,000 stocks and ETFs, with insights from investment professionals at Morningstar.

When your child wants to invest, they can send you a request in the app. You decide whether to approve it.

You don’t have to worry about paying commission on your investment. Greenlight offers commission-free trading of stocks and ETFs. Almost all the best stock brokers offer this, but it’s still a significant bonus.

Fractional Shares for Investing on a Budget

Buying a whole share of a company can be expensive. Some of the most popular companies have share prices of $200 or more. This makes it difficult to build a diversified portfolio, especially for kids who are starting out investing on a tight budget.

This isn’t a problem with Greenlight, as it offers fractional shares that you can buy for as little as $1. Even if your child invests between $25 and $50, they can still use that amount to buy shares of a few of their favorite companies.

Covered by SIPC insurance

Investing with Greenlight is as safe as any well-known stock broker. It offers brokerage services through DriveWealth, LLC, which is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC).

SIPC protects clients of SIPC member brokerage firms if they suffer a financial setback. It covers up to $500,000 of securities and cash, which includes up to $250,000 of cash in your account. Keep in mind that this does not protect against market losses—if you make an investment that loses value, it is not covered.