Choose by the work you want automated
A stock screener, a fixed-rule trading bot and a portfolio agent solve different problems. A useful comparison asks what runs, where your money sits, and what you can inspect before execution.
We publish Agency. The comparison below uses official documentation checked October 3, 2026. We have not conducted a live-money performance trial of these products and are not ranking their returns.
| Tool | Consider it for | Tradeoff to inspect |
|---|---|---|
| Agency | Scheduled stock and ETF agents with separate plans and allocations. | Robinhood and Public only today; no paper trading or backtesting. |
| Robinhood Agents | Research and trading in Robinhood’s native mobile experience. | Review account eligibility, approval settings and model usage costs. |
| Public Agents | Turning a recurring instruction into a native brokerage workflow. | Inspect the generated conditions before activating the workflow. |
| Composer | Building, backtesting and executing rule-based strategies without coding. | Historical results are hypothetical; inspect the rules and current plan limits. |
| Alpaca with your own software | A programmable strategy and paper-order environment. | An API is infrastructure; you still need strategy software and a runner. |
What the product pages can establish
Composer documents AI-assisted strategy creation and backtesting. Public explains how instructions become workflows. Robinhood describes its built-in agent. Alpaca documents simulated trading.
Those pages establish features, not a reliable expectation of profit. A comparison that awards a winner from a handful of winning screenshots skips the difficult part: measuring risk and execution over time.
Before paying for a bot
Write down one task, one account and the controls you require. Ask for a proposed order, an explanation of its data, and the exact way to stop future activity. Check whether the product supports paper trading or only a hypothetical allocation preview.
Compare total costs at your intended balance. A modest monthly subscription can consume a large share of a small account. If your task is simply buying the same ETF each month, start with recurring purchases.
For anything making discretionary decisions, use the same results checklist regardless of the brand.