3 Reasons I'm Not Switching From Robinhood to SoFi, Despite the Perks

As a Robinhood brokerage user, I recently underwent a crisis of faith. From the lips of a colleague spilled praise for SoFi® (Social Finance), the all-in-one bank and stock brokerage company. Apparently, he'd recently seen the light and moved his checking and savings accounts to SoFi®.

His reasons for switching to SoFi®: a competitive APY, an all-in-one platform, and fantastic tech. It was enough to knock my confidence in Robinhood down a peg. For one thing, Robinhood doesn't offer banking services. Mostly, it's just a place to trade stocks and crypto.

For another thing, SoFi® offers big returns on bank balances. Robinhood offers a cash-sweeps program that pays high returns, but there are two problems: You only get paid on uninvested brokerage cash, and you've got to pay $5 per month for a rate competitive with SoFi®.

After performing a frenzied SoFi® vs. Robinhood comparison, I've decided to stick with my old brokerage, warts and all. Unlike SoFi®, Robinhood offers crypto. Plus, it's dead simple. Finally, I'm just not ready to commit fully to SoFi®'s all-in-one platform.

Both are solid picks. Read on for a more in-depth look at three reasons I'm not switching from Robinhood to SoFi®, despite the perks.

1. Robinhood lets you trade crypto

I'm not a big crypto trader. But I buy Bitcoin -- I treat it like a stock, a long-term investment in my financial future. Robinhood lets me purchase Bitcoin and Ethereum fee free. It's cheap and convenient for me, a crypto dabbler.

SoFi® used to offer crypto trades, but the platform has shut that down. If I were to move my holdings to SoFi®, I'd need to sell my coins or move my holdings to another platform. It's more convenient for me to have most of my holdings on one platform. Adding SoFi to the mix would complicate that.

That said, SoFi® does offer Bitcoin ETFs. If you're comfortable with investing in Bitcoin indirectly (and paying management fees), then you can do so on SoFi®.

2. Robinhood is dead simple

Robinhood could be better for activities like deep-dive research and purchasing mutual funds. But, wow, does the mobile app put other trading platforms to shame. Navigation is dead simple.

SoFi® is plenty usable, but not nearly as user friendly as Robinhood. Both are great apps, and SoFi® offers a lot more features than Robinhood does, so maybe the extra clutter is inevitable. But it's eye-poppingly obvious which app wins the user interface war.

Robinhood is simpler than SoFi®. In my book, that's a perk.

3. I'm not ready to go all in on SoFi®

Robinhood lets me open a taxable brokerage account and a Roth IRA. (Well, plus a Spend account, but I'm not a fan.) Because of its lack of features, I do my checking, saving, and credit card swipes on other platforms. I've been doing it for years; it's no longer a hassle.

Financially speaking, SoFi® is a tank among teddy bears. It offers (deep breath) checking and savings accounts, taxable brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, personal loans, credit cards, mortgage loans, and insurance policies. Say that three times fast. I dare you.

That's kind of amazing? Super convenient. But at this point, it'd be a lot of work to disentangle my accounts from the snarl of deposits, auto-payments, and one-off policies tied to all my other accounts. I'm not ready for that sort of undertaking -- not yet.

When is a good time to switch from Robinhood to SoFi®?

Possibly never. If Robinhood beefs up its banking services and prioritizes long-term investors like me, I'll stick with the platform for a long time. But if it continues to put short-term traders first, I'll revisit switching to a long-term investment platform like SoFi® in the future.

You may want to switch from Robinhood to SoFi® if the following is true:

• You want to move all your financial accounts to one platform.
• You want above-average banking rates for zero monthly fees.
• You want to buy stocks on a highly rated mobile app.

Just FYI, SoFi® also isn't built for day trading.

Both platforms could be better. Robinhood has been through some massive scandals. SoFi® shut down its crypto platform seemingly out of the blue last year. But they're both among the best stock investing platforms out there. Each is worth looking into, if you're shopping around for brokers.