Micro investing is one of the best ways to build wealth for the future as the power of compounding returns can help you make more money in the long run.
Micro-investing is an accessible way to start investing with small amounts of money, often just a few pounds at a time. Itβs designed for beginners or those who want to grow their wealth gradually without needing large lump sums. The concept is simple: instead of trying to time the market or save up a big amount first, you invest small, regular amounts over time, a strategy known as dollar-cost averaging.
The earlier you start the more money you will make!
For example, you can see from using our investment returns calculator, you can see that by investing as little as $20 a month, with 7% returns, you can build up an investment portfolio with over $6,000 in it over 20 years.
This approach helps smooth out market volatility. When prices fall, your regular contribution buys more shares or fund units; when prices rise, it buys fewer. Over the long term, this can help reduce risk and deliver steadier returns compared to one-off lump sum investing.
Many investment apps and platforms like Interactive Brokers now make micro-investing effortless by rounding up your everyday purchases or automating small monthly deposits into diversified portfolios. Examples include platforms like Moomoo or eToro, which invest spare change or set amounts into ETFs, index funds, or sustainable portfolios.
The key benefit of micro-investing is building a long-term habit. By consistently investing, even $10 or $20 a month, you can benefit from compound growth, where returns generate further returns over time. Itβs also a great way to learn how investing works and build confidence before committing larger sums.
However, itβs important to understand that all investing carries risk. Your money can go down as well as up, and micro-investing should be viewed as a long-term strategy, ideally over five years or more.
In short, micro-investing helps you get started sooner, stay disciplined, and make investing part of your routine β proving that small, regular contributions can make a big difference to your financial future.
Best Micro Investing Apps & Accounts
We currently rate Interactive Brokers as the best stockbroker in America based on our pricing, market access, margin and customer reviews matrix. Weβve compared and tested the best major American stock brokers that offer online stock trading and investing as well as other peripheral products such as ETFs (exchange-traded funds), options and futures.
Description: Amazing technology, and always first to market with innovative trading tools. Interactive Brokers lets you trade stock on 90+ international exchanges, with $0 commission and some of the lowest financing rates in the industry.
Yes, IBKR is an excellent US stock broker, low costs, excellent market access and superb apps and platforms.
Pricing:Β Interactive Brokers is very cheap for trading stocks, especially in the IBKR Lite account, where commissions are $0 on US-listed stocks and fractional stocks. For more advanced traders, IBKR Pro commissions are USD 0.0005 to USD 0.0035 per share, but you get significant price improvements from IB SmartRouting.
If you are trading stocks on margin, Interactive Brokers have some of the lowest margin loan financing rates in the industry from USD 4.83% to USD 5.83%.
You can also actually get IBKR to pay you by letting them borrow your fully paid up stocks and letting them lend them out to short sellers, through their stock yield enhancement program.
Market Access: IBKR probably has the best market access of all the stock brokers we compare. You can trade a huge range of international stocks and IBKR has local access to over 90 stock exchanges. There are very few stocks you cannot trade on IBKR.
Apps & Platforms:Interactive Brokers’ stock trading apps and platforms are seriously good. When I traded on the desktop workstation platform, I was able to pair trade two stocks against each other.
IBKR is one of the few platforms that allows you to do this. Probably because when I interviewed IBKR founder Thomas Peterffy before testing the platforms, he told me that he thinks the most successful stock traders are ones that trade one company against another.
Customer Service:Β Because Interactive Brokers is one of the largest stock brokers in the world, customer service is largely automated and they were even using automated chatbots before the AI revolution took over.
This is a good example of how they are at the forefront of stock trading technology. However, it can be a bit of a pain trying to get through to someone on the phone if you are not a large customer with a personal stock broker.
Research & Analysis: You get lots of research and analysis from Interactive Brokers, including the IBKR Campus, for beginners to improve their stock trading. For longer-term investors, there is fundamental data on 30,000 companies and over 5,000 analyst ratings to give you an indication of whether a stock is a buy or a sell.
Description:eToro is getting better all the time. For beginners, it's great, but I think it will get more advanced as time goes on. I could tell this from when I interviwed the head of eToro US, Andrew McCormick. They have big plans for American investors. eToro lets you trade 3,000+ US stocks with 0% commission, but where they excel is their copy trading feature where you can follow popular investors and copy their stock traders and portfolios.
Yes, overall, we rate eToro as a recommended stock broker in the US as they are correctly regulated and offer a wide range of US stocks to trade.
Pricing: It’s free to trade US stocks on eToro. There is 0% commission and $0 withdrawal fees for transactions over $30 and instead makes it’s money from interest on cash balances and payment for order flow (PFOF).
Market Access:Β You can trade about 3,000 US stocks in America with eToro which isn’t as much as other US stock brokers like Interactive Brokers, but it is enough for most investors that want to buy shares in major companies like Tesla, Nvidia and Microsoft. However, US traders do not have access to international stocks.
App & Platform:Β These are great for beginners, I found them really simple to use and quite intuitive. However, for more advanced or high-frequency stock traders it may be a bit too basic. They are geared more towards people investing in the long term or running copy portfolios.
Customer Service:Β eToro provides very good customer service. Most of it is automated, but we found that we received quick responses when asking questions about stock trading.
Research & Analysis:Β This is where eToro really excels. There is some great analysis on their social channels, but the best part of eToro is being able to see what stock other people are buying. There is also a good social fee so you can get stock trading ideas too.
Richard is the founder of the Good Money Guide (formerly Good Broker Guide), one of the original investment comparison sites established in 2015. With a career spanning two decades as a broker, he brings extensive expertise and knowledge to the financial landscape.
Having worked as a broker at Investors Intelligence and a multi-asset derivatives broker at MF Global (Man Financial), Richard has acquired substantial experience in the industry. His career began as a private client stockbroker at Walker Crips and Phillip Securities (now King and Shaxson), following internships on the NYMEX oil trading floor in New York and London IPE in 2001 and 2000.
Richard’s contributions and expertise have been recognized by respected publications such as The Sunday Times, BusinessInsider, Yahoo Finance, BusinessNews.org.uk, Master Investor, Wealth Briefing, iNews, and The FT, among many others.
Under Richard’s leadership, the Good Money Guide has evolved into a valuable destination for comprehensive information and expert guidance, specialising in trading, investment, and currency exchange. His commitment to delivering high-quality insights has solidified the Good Money Guide’s standing as a well-respected resource for both customers and industry colleagues.