Robinhood agreed to a $2 million settlement for misleading you about how it makes money.

The firm they were routing your orders to this whole time was Jane Street.
Jane Street paid Robinhood $76 million in a single quarter for the right to be on the other side of your trades. Every time you hit buy or sell, your order gets routed directly to them before it ever reaches an open market.
Your cut in the settlement to make things right: $17.60
That’s just for trades from 2016. Not a bad fee considering they can continue to do this today
There was a rule that would’ve fixed this. The SEC’s order competition rule would’ve forced your trades into open auction before any wholesaler could touch them. Estimated savings for retail would have been $1.5 billion/year.
The new SEC chair killed this in June 2025. It didn’t need a vote or public input, it was just withdrawn.

You thought you had a free trading app but everything comes at a cost