Public.com Review: Options Rebates, Cheap Margin
Public pays you $0.06 to $0.18 for every stock or ETF options contract you trade. No other US broker does this. At Tier 4 volume, an active trader executing 10,000 contracts monthly earns $1,800 back — Fidelity would charge $8,400 for the same trades. The options rebate gets the headlines, but the rest of the platform has quietly become competitive. A 4.90% base margin rate undercuts every major broker by half — it sits 26 basis points above the Fed funds rate of 3.64%, while Fidelity and Schwab charge 11.83%. The Bond Account yields 5.73% (down from 6.05% as Public rebalanced into shorter-duration paper as the 10Y dropped to 4.34%). Fractional bonds start at $100 — unique to Public. And on March 31, 2026, Public became the first US broker to launch AI Agents that execute trades on your behalf, formalising what it now calls the "agentic brokerage." Public is the right broker for active options traders, yield-focused investors, and anyone who wants to test agentic automation inside a regulated US brokerage. It's the wrong one for families needing joint or custodial accounts, mutual fund buyers, or anyone who values phone support, a 40-year track record, or a high-yield cash account that beats Marcus.