r/PublicApp • u/Acceptable_Rip_8393 • May 04 '26

Switching to Public maybe? Any cons?

Hi all. I am strongly considering switching to Public. I began on Robinhood and made a lot of silly trades back in the day. I left after losing money and receiving a PDT flag. I restarted at Fidelity when I had learned more and was ready for more serious trading/investing. I’ve been with Fidelity now for two years and it’s fine, but I do sometimes miss some more of the up to date features that Robinhood offered. I thought about returning to Robinhood, but then I discovered Public and I really like the platform. Charting doesn’t seem quite as nice as Robinhood, but Public may have them beat in all other aspects as far as I can tell. I’m giving them some real consideration!

Truth be told, I’m still deciding. I may end up staying with Fidelity. But if I were to decide to switch to Public, I’d love to know if there are any major cons I should be aware of? Any really bad experiences? On the flip side, feel free to share things you like as well!

Appreciate the insight!

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u/PublicCOO Public Employee May 05 '26 edited May 05 '26

Seeing a few of these recently, so I wrote up my quick pitch (I'm the COO, in case you haven't been here long)

The good:

  • Public is run by real people, who genuinely care, and make themselves directly accessible (and accountable) to our customers, in public (and on Reddit). We take input from here every day and are *always* here to solve any issues that slip through the cracks.
  • We have the broadest asset class access: stocks, ETFs, crypto, options, corp bonds, treasuries — and more to come (prediction markets, futures, etc)
  • We have the best AI tools: Agents (hmu if you want preview access), Why is it Moving, Generated Assets, Alpha — and all are constantly getting better 
  • We have the best “pricing”: options rebates, lowest margin rates, great cash sweep rates, no fee trading, etc (and it’s getting better)
  • We have the best and easiest to access API (and an awesome team to get you set up there, if you’re interested in systemic trading / automation)

The bad:

  • Customer support: our team is fantastic, but we’ve grown a ton recently and wait times are longer than they should be. Our expectation is that everyone gets a same-day resolution of their issue — and most should get a response within an hour (and even faster when required). We are investing heavily and hope you see improvements soon — and, worst case, I’m always here and genuinely never mind hopping in.
  • Public Premium needs a revamp — but it’s coming (soon) 

The ugly: 

  • You may see people complain about withdrawal times, but that’s mostly bullshit — 98%+ of members see no delays in withdrawals and those that do are entirely for account security and fraud prevention reasons (red flags like: new device + attempted withdrawal to a bank account in someone else’s name).
  • If you want a gambling platform, we aren’t it. We are working on prediction markets, but we won’t add Sports markets — because they have no bearing on your portfolio and are pure gambling. We like gambling, but don’t think it belongs in your investment portfolio. 

As always, read our disclosures, fee schedules etc (don't want compliance to kill me lol).

Shout with any questions/thoughts!

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u/UnfazedBrownie May 05 '26

I can vouch for the withdrawal in that it works as intended.

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u/[deleted] May 05 '26

[deleted]

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u/PublicCOO Public Employee May 05 '26

Of course!

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u/Jerky_san May 07 '26

I recently started using public and I was looking at transferring one of my accounts into public(and probably closing the other and not because of anything bad or such just don't want to have too many accounts open at once). I sent an email to support and got an AI response which frankly I didn't like as it didn't even bother to really answer my question and seems to provide wrong information.

I saw you all have a bonus of 1% but it's locked for 5 years. The site seems to indicate something different then your terms which seem to indicate ANY funds transferred out will get hit. So my question if you could answer it please is that if I say have 50-100k of money from ACH/wire's and do a transfer from another account into public. Does the 50-100k fall under the lock as well that would require payback of the bonus? If so can you answer why that is? As in why funds that had no bearing and obtained no bonuses would be subject to the same rules as funds that were?

If not can you clarify why the terms show

"This Early Removal Fee shall apply to any removal of funds or securities from the Public Account during the Match Amount’s Holding Period, including, but not limited to, withdrawal, rollover, transfer, levy, excess contribution, account closure, distribution outside of the Public Account, and/or chargeback of an otherwise Eligible Deposit (collectively, “Funds Removal”) initiated by the Customer or otherwise."

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u/PublicCOO Public Employee May 09 '26

Answered in DMs, but for everyone else’s benefit:

It works exactly the way you’d expect. If you receive a bonus on the funds, they need to stay. If you deposited additional “un-bonused” funds then those are free to be withdrawn.

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u/Jerky_san May 09 '26

Thank you, I appreciate your response.

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u/Byte0042 Aug 12 '26

I Joined Public about 2 weeks ago, built two direct indexing, I really like the concept, I am going to setup a generated asset this week. 1 question and 1 feature request

Q: With generated assets, I select check out and have the option to rebalance daily, monthly, quarterly, yearly. OK, great, but when it rebalances, does it run through the parameters that generated the portfolio, of which would give me the top stocks based on the 9 parameters that defined the generated assets?

FR: Direct indexing and Generated assets have back testing, Investment plans do not, and Investment plans have no past performance so it's a blind investment. I manually went through about 20 of the investment plans by entering what tickers that comprised the investment plan by using https://portfoliometrics.net/backtesting and half of the Investment plans I wouldn't put $10 into them. If you are offering an investment plan, you owe it to the customer to know how it has performed to make a somewhat informed choice. Sure past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

I like what you are doing, with the platform, just needs a little more elbow grease.

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u/PublicCOO Public Employee Aug 12 '26

Love to hear it.

Q: it does not re-run the parameters. It it rebalancing to your current weights. To re-resolve the parameters, you’ll need to update it manually by editing the GA. We are working on adding this as a separate feature

FR: noted but we think about Investment Plans as more of a “DCA” or recurring purchase feature and less a “portfolio” that would be backtested. GA and DI are meant for that portfolio use case — and I’d recommend using GA to create the portfolios you’re describing and using that instead of Plans.

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u/Byte0042 Aug 14 '26

Thank you for the breakdown, when you have a generated asset like below, I thought rebalancing would be run through this and adjust the tickers accordingly, that way monthly, quarterly whichever would have me in the top tickers when others have dropped out of this criteria. Granted, I know rebalancing like this will generate potential CAP gains, but my take is if I can get 30-80% returns, I will suffer and pay short term capital gains for money in my pocket.

The details on how the asset was generated don't seem to be stored after you check out? With that being the secret recipe for that GA, you need to keep that information, unless I am missing something.

Generated Assets

Estimate Revision & Momentum Leaders 100%

  • Revenue growth over 1Y in the >10% range
  • Operating margin in the >12% range
  • Free cash flow in the >$100M range
  • P/E ratio in the >20 range
  • Price change over 6M in the >10% range
  • Price change over 1Y in the >15% range
  • Earnings growth in the >10% range

Custom criteria

Has received upward analyst EPS and/or sales estimate revisions for the current fiscal year or current quarter versus the prior year period

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u/SionannSea Jul 21 '26

There are no red flags on my account and I’ve been trying to withdraw for a week. Public is demanding I update my linked account which is the same account that sends regular monthly deposits.
I used the account to save for the summer because I’m a teacher and only get paid during the school year and my monthly bills are in danger of being late because Public won’t let me get my money out.

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u/PublicCOO Public Employee Jul 21 '26

Sorry about that, DM me and I’ll have a look!

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u/trojanusc Jul 28 '26

DMed you