Robin Hood CEO Vlad Tenev bets that by deploying a large enough portfolio of digital investment products, more consumers are hoping to pay a monthly subscription to their product suite.
Robinhood Gold subscribers will pay $5 a month or $50 a year for perks such as uninvested cash, access to professional research, and 4% interest on the initial $1,000 interest borrowed.
Currently, the company is adding an asset management feature called Robinhood Strategies. It offers curated access to the Exchange-Traded Fund portfolio and a mix of handpicked stocks. The service, available to gold subscribers, has an annual management fee of 0.25% and is capped at $250.
Robinhood said this week, with the provision of the new Robinhood Banking, Gold subscribers will get a private banking service with tax advice and real estate planning tools, access to private jet trips, a five-star hotel, tickets to Coachella and a 4% interest in savings accounts. Additionally, customers can quickly get cash to their doorsteps to save on trips to the ATMs, but little details are provided.
TENEV told CNBC in an interview that Robinhood’s subscription service could be similar to what users get. Amazon Prime or Costco Membership. The monthly fee feels justified by the quality and quantity of the perks and they continue to come back.
“My philosophy behind it is that subscriptions are about loyalty,” Tenev said. “So, if you’re a subscriber, when you think about trying something else out of that category, that service is kind of the first.”
TENEV said royalties are particularly important in financial services as they “equivalent to the share of your wallet.”
TENEV added that the number of subscribers has increased from around 1.5 million in the year to 3.2 million today, making it a “nine-figure business,” meaning at least $100 million in annual revenue.
Robinhood has gained popularity among young investors by making it easy to buy and hold company stocks using a simple mobile app and allowing them to move to Crypto. TENEV said Thursday that in the long run, Robinhood would like to be “a place where you can buy, sell, trade, hold financial assets and carry out financial transactions.”
Robinhood shares have grown 19% this year after nearly tripling in 2024, when crypto prices skyrocketed.
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