Public.com earns its report slot for a structural reason: in 2021 it publicly dropped payment for order flow — the revenue engine of the free-trading era — and replaced it with optional tipping and other streams. That makes it the natural companion piece to our PFOF explainer, and a live test of whether “free” can be financed transparently. Scan below.
public.com
Name-based registry matches exist. Registration is not an endorsement; confirm the CRD/SEC number the platform itself discloses matches the record.
Domain age
Earliest snapshot
Mail (MX) configured
Investment adviser records
Broker-dealer records
Filings mentioning name
UK authorization
Reading the registry results
Core entity: a FINRA-member, SIPC-covered broker-dealer for self-directed trading in stocks and ETFs (fractional shares included), with additional products — treasuries, yield accounts, alternatives — that have arrived over time, some through affiliated entities. Same rule as every multi-product platform: the protection follows the entity and the product, not the app icon. A treasury product and a stock account under one login can sit under different frameworks.
The business model read
With PFOF off the table for equities, the disclosed streams are: optional tips, subscription/premium features, interest on cash, securities lending, and spreads or fees on newer products. None of this is hidden — Public made the no-PFOF stance a marketing identity, which cuts both ways: it’s verifiable in disclosures, and it means the company must earn elsewhere, so read fee schedules on the newer products with the same attention the free trades don’t require.
Verdict
Fully verifiable; the transparency experiment is real but evolving. Registrations and SIPC coverage check out; the no-PFOF model is documented; product breadth means per-product fee reading is the user’s homework. Current status: brokercheck.finra.org or a Verifier scan; methodology at How We Verify.