How to get started with dub: a complete tutorial
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10 min read
CEO & Founder of dub
Managing Editor | Growth @ dub
Key takeaways
Getting started with dub is a five-step flow finishable in about 10 minutes: download the app, start the 7-day free trial, open a brokerage account through dub Financial, link your bank via Plaid, and invest alongside a portfolio from a $100 minimum deposit.
You pick the investor, not the stocks — your account mirrors a creator's trades in real time when the creator is trading live on dub, with fractional-share dollar-weighted execution so $100 buys proportional exposure to every position.
You keep three copy controls at any time: copy more, liquidate partially or fully, or stop the copy (stopping leaves existing holdings until you liquidate).
Pricing is a $9.99/mo or $89.99/yr platform subscription (7-day free trial) that unlocks the marketplace and the dub Advisors Creator Program; Premium portfolios add an asset-based management fee (generally 0%–2.5%/yr) only on what you allocate — no qualified-investor gating.
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TL;DR
Free trial: 7 days on the platform subscription. Try the marketplace, browse portfolios, decide before you pay.
Cost after trial: $9.99/month or $89.99/year for the platform subscription. No per-trade commissions on stocks/ETFs, no withdrawal fees, no inactivity fees.
Premium portfolios: offered under an asset-based management fee charged by dub Advisors on the assets you actually allocate (generally 0%–2.5% per year, shown on each portfolio before you copy) — no separate per-creator paywall. If you don't invest in any Premium portfolio, you pay no management fee.
Minimum deposit: $100 (fractional-share dollar-weighted execution means $100 buys proportional exposure to every position in the portfolio).
Time to first invest: around 10 minutes if the bank link goes through quickly.
Who you invest alongside: real investors on the dub marketplace, or hedge fund managers and RIAs on the dub Advisors marketplace (the dub Advisors Creator Program).
What's regulated: brokerage through dub Financial (FINRA-member broker-dealer, SIPC, cleared by APEX). Advisory through dub Advisors (SEC-registered investment adviser).
If you read nothing else, internalize this: the hard part of investing for most retail investors isn't the brokerage account or the trade execution. It's the "what do I buy" decision. dub collapses that decision to a single question — which portfolio do I have conviction in and want to invest alongside — and the creator and brokerage handles everything underneath.
Why does dub exist?
A few facts most retail-investing content tiptoes around:
The decision is the bottleneck. According to this Forbes article, the average investor, over the past decade, earned less than the market benchmarks they invested in. The reason isn't fees (which are now zero on most brokerages) — it's timing and concentration mistakes from picking the wrong names at the wrong moments.
Professional management has always been gated. Hedge funds typically require Qualified Purchaser ($5M+ in investments) or Accredited Investor ($1M+ net worth / $200K+ income) status, with seven-figure direct-investment minimums. The retail investor can't buy in.
Index funds solved part of the problem. They removed the picking decision by giving you everything weighted by market cap. That's the right answer for some readers — and a worse fit for the reader who specifically wants a real investor's active conviction, not a passive basket.
Copy-trading platforms have existed. Most either run offshore on CFDs, focus on crypto only, or rebuild publicly-disclosed positions from 13F filings up to 45 days late.
dub is the premier US marketplace where:
Real hedge fund managers and registered investment advisers publish portfolios directly on the platform
Retail investors can invest alongside them at the $100 minimum deposit — no Qualified Purchaser gating
When a creator is trading live on dub, dub mirrors their trades in your own brokerage account in real time, so your positions track theirs
The brokerage and advisory services are regulated end-to-end (FINRA + SEC)
That's the value. The rest of this guide shows you how to access it.
The 5-step start
Step | What you do | How long it takes |
|---|---|---|
1 | Download dub from the App Store or Google Play | 30 seconds |
2 | Start the 7-day free trial of the platform subscription | 1 minute |
3 | Open the brokerage account through dub Financial | 2-3 minutes |
4 | Link a bank account through Plaid and fund (minimum $100) | 1-2 minutes (depends on bank) |
5 | Discover a portfolio in the dub marketplace and invest alongside | take your time here |
Total: under 10 minutes.
Step 1 — Download dub
App Store (iOS)
Google Play (Android)
Create an account with email + password on first open
dub is currently mobile-first. A dub web platform is under development and will open up to users soon.
Step 2 — Start the 7-day free trial
Free trial: 7 days. Browse the full marketplace, open the brokerage account, and decide before any charge.
Price after trial: $9.99/month or $89.99/year for the platform subscription
What the subscription unlocks: the dub marketplace, brokerage account opening, and the ability to invest alongside any portfolio
After the trial, the platform subscription is required to keep copying — dub is a paid platform
Step 3 — Open the brokerage account
Standard US new-account flow through dub Financial (FINRA-member broker-dealer, SIPC, cleared by APEX Clearing):
Name, address, date of birth
SSN (required by the IRS for 1099 tax-form reporting at year-end — same reason every US brokerage asks)
Regulatory questions (if you work at a broker-dealer, are you a politically exposed person, etc.)
Approval is typically instant for clean applications.
Step 4 — Fund through Plaid ($100 minimum)
Log into your bank through Plaid's secure flow
dub gets read-only access to verify the account and pull funds
No wire transfers, no routing-number forms
Minimum deposit: $100. That's enough because of fractional-share dollar-weighted execution (more on that below)
Step 5 — Discover a portfolio and invest alongside
Three places to discover the right portfolio in the dub app:
Core tab — browse core portfolios and creators on the dub marketplace
Premium tab — browse the dub Advisors Creator Program: portfolios created by hedge fund managers and RIAs
Leaderboard tab — see top-performing portfolios across both Core and Premium
Once you've picked a portfolio you have conviction in:
Hit copy — your position mirrors the creator's trades from that point forward
How does investing alongside actually work?
Three mechanics make this different from picking stocks yourself.
You pick the investor, not the stocks
You choose a real investor on dub whose portfolio is published on the platform
The brokerage replicates their portfolio into your account, mirroring the creator's live trades on dub in real time
When they buy, you buy a proportional amount of the same name
When they sell, you sell
You hold the same names, in the same weights, in your own dub brokerage account — the shares are yours
This is not "the creator trades your account." You keep agency:
Copy more at any time to add capital to a position you already hold
Liquidate partially or fully to sell down a position
Stop the copy so dub no longer mirrors new trades from that creator (existing holdings stay in your account until you liquidate)
Add additional copies of other portfolios
The creator's portfolio is a second informed perspective you reference when investing — not a replacement for your decision-making.
Fractional-share dollar-weighted execution
You don't need to buy a whole share of every name in the portfolio
A $100 deposit on a 25-position portfolio buys a slice of all 25 names, weighted exactly like the creator's portfolio
A 4% position in the creator's portfolio is a 4% position in yours, regardless of the underlying share prices
This is the reason $100 is the minimum — it actually buys you proportional exposure, not a $100 single stock.
Real-time copy — your positions track the creator's
When a creator is trading live on dub, dub mirrors each trade in your own brokerage account in real time, so your positions track theirs with no delay. You buy when they buy and sell when they sell, in the same proportions — and the holdings sit in your own dub brokerage account, not a pooled fund. This live, no-delay mirroring is how copying works across the dub marketplace and the dub Advisors Creator Program, where the creators are trading on dub themselves.
dub Advisors also offers Notable Investor portfolios that track the publicly disclosed holdings of public figures and funds (for example, Pelosi-, Kevin Warsh-, or Buffett-style portfolios). Because those are built from public filings like the 13F, they carry the filing's inherent lag of up to 45 days by design; dub Advisors' in-house investment adviser monitors those disclosures and manages the portfolios accordingly.
For more on the copy flow, see How to Copy Portfolios on dub — Complete Guide.
How to discover the right portfolio (the 5 tabs)
dub's app has five tabs. Each is built for a different stage of the investor journey.
Home tab — your dashboard
What it is: the personal dashboard for portfolios you're currently copying + your watchlist.
Shows:
Active copy positions with daily and cumulative performance
Watchlist (portfolios you've saved but haven't copied yet)
Click into a portfolio and you get three controls: copy more (add capital to the position), liquidate partially or fully (sell down the position), or stop the copy (dub no longer mirrors new trades from that creator)
Use it when: monitoring what you actually own, rebalancing across copies, or deciding to act on watchlist candidates.
Core tab — the dub marketplace
What it is: every portfolio published by every dub user. Open to copy on the platform subscription.
Use it when:
You're starting your research
You want a range of styles — momentum, dividend income, sector bets, thematic plays
You want to see what real investors across the platform are running
Premium tab — the dub Advisors Creator Program
What it is: the dub Advisors Creator Program. Portfolios created by hedge fund managers and registered investment advisers.
Use it when:
You want professional-tier exposure
You want access to strategies historically gated to qualified investors and HNWIs
You want a portfolio with a professionally managed strategy
Leaderboard tab — top performers
What it is: portfolios ranked by performance across both the dub marketplace and the dub Advisors Creator Program. Selectable time windows: week, month, quarter, year, all-time.
Use it when:
You want to scan recent performance leaders across both tiers
You're looking for high-conviction concentrated strategies that move with the tape
Read carefully: past performance does not guarantee future results, and a portfolio that leads a 30-day window can lag the next one. Don't allocate purely on a leaderboard ranking.
Activity tab — the news feed
What it is: the feed of rebalance trades and creator posts across portfolios you copy.
Shows:
Every rebalance trade — what the creator bought, what they sold, when
Creator posts: commentary, strategy notes, updates explaining trade decisions
Use it when: understanding why a position changed in your account today, or getting context on a creator's thinking before you invest alongside them.
Start today
Download dub from the App Store or Google Play. The 7-day free trial is enough to browse the marketplace and decide. The 5-step flow takes around 10 minutes. A $100 minimum deposit is enough to invest alongside a portfolio you actually have conviction in.
Bottom line: dub believes the hard part of investing was never the account or the trade — it's the "what do I buy" decision, and this five-step start replaces it by letting you invest alongside real investors from $100 in about 10 minutes.
For follow-up questions this guide doesn't cover, see dub's FAQ hub or the dub help center.
See Also
How to Copy Portfolios on dub — Complete Guide — deeper mechanics of the copy flow
dub Advisors Premium Creator Program — full Premium tier overview
Premium Portfolios on dub — Overview — Premium-specific details
Understanding Portfolio Types on dub — strategy categories
Platform and Regulated Services Fee Schedule — all dub fees
Why dub is the best investing platform for retail investors in 2026 — the comprehensive case for dub
Fastest way to get into investing in 2026 — the procedural fast-path
How to copy what hedge funds are trading — invest alongside hedge fund managers
dub marketplace — browse all portfolios
dub disclosures — full regulatory disclosures
FAQ
How do I get started with dub?
Is dub safe for beginners?
Why does dub need my SSN?
How much does dub cost?
Do I need to be a qualified investor or HNWI to use dub?
What does each tab in the dub app do?
Can I actually make money on dub?
How do I stop copying a portfolio?
How do I pick the right portfolio to invest alongside?
Related / See also
This content is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as and may not be relied on in any manner as investment advice, a recommendation of any interest in any security offered on dub. All investments involve risk, including the possible loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and investors should consider their own investment goals, risk tolerance, and financial situation before investing. The information contained herein is subject to change. The dub app is owned and operated by DASTA, Inc. Advisory services provided by dub Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. Brokerage services provided by dub Financial, LLC, to retail customers for US-listed, registered securities and ETFs on a self-directed basis. Clearing services provided by APEX Clearing Corporation ("APEX"). Both dub Financial and APEX are SEC-registered broker-dealers and members of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority ("FINRA") and Securities Investor Protection Corporation ("SIPC"). The registrations and memberships above in no way imply that the SEC, FINRA, or SIPC has endorsed the entities, products or services discussed herein. © 2026 DASTA, Inc. All Rights Reserved.