I am pretty sure it does not mean that you get a price that’s “far” worse. You would need to quantify such a claim — a number I see from the SEC comes down to $1 per user (as a _lower_ bound on total extra cost, weakening my argument).

I’m not a day trader — almost all my money is in long term held stocks and crypto — so margin interest rate is all that matters. (For options, I don’t think I suffered any execution issues, because it almost always has involved a limit order in a low volume option.)

IMO the main disadvantage of Robinhood is not their execution quality (which is relatively low) but complete absence of any helpful tools to make a well-informed decision.

You cannot easily see what options are over or under-priced IV-wise. It also does not notify of any important events that might affect your options positions.

For example, when someone owns a deep ITM call and ex-dividend date is approaching, it might make sense to exercise that call and buy an identical OTM put. But most retail traders are unaware of such technicalities and therefore in the long run sustain losses caused primarily by such basic mistakes..

I totally agree with this, though I have to wonder how many retail options traders with advanced features are really making money.