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. It’s 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. It’s also a great way to learn how investing works and build confidence before committing larger sums.
However, it’s 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 — 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. We’ve 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:Â 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:Â 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.
Moomoo’s US platform offers commission-free trading on US stocks, ETFs, and OTC shares, with access to international stocks and ADRs from a single account.
The platform includes free real-time quotes, Level 2 market data, advanced charting with 60+ technical indicators, and stock screening tools to help investors analyse markets.
Traders can use mobile and desktop apps with integrated research, news, paper trading, and TradingView connectivity, aimed primarily at active and self-directed investors.
Moomoo Review: A nod to bullish trading and investing
Verdict:Moomoo is an online trading and investing platform developed by Futu Holdings, a technology-driven brokerage firm based in Hong Kong. Moomoo offers a range of long term investment products like fractional stocks and ETFs as well as speculative options and margin trading.
Moomoo is available in Canada, Australian Singapore and the US and has a robust platform that caters to both retail and more sophisticated traders. Compared to platforms like Robinhood and Webull it’s got better data, DMA and global market access. However, for active traders it’s not as institutional grade as Interactive Brokers or more established platforms like TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim.
There are a few key features to Moomoo like real-time market data and advanced charting where you can trade DMA, with good technical indicators for advanced traders. There is also a good demo trading account so you can practice before you deposit real funds. You can also make a automatic buy sell order on Moomoo with OCO stop and limit orders for effective risk management of positions.
We consider Moomoo a safe trading platform as they are regulated by the SEC in the US, the MAS in Singapore and ASIC in Australia.
Pros
Free U.S. stock trading with no commissions.
High-quality market data and analytical tools.
Access to global markets (e.g., Hong Kong and Chinese shares).
Engaged social trading community.
Cons
May feel complex for beginners who are not familiar with advanced trading tools.
Limited in terms of certain account types (e.g., retirement accounts may not be available everywhere).
Some features (e.g., market data) require a subscription fee after a trial period
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.