Reviews

Betterment

What You Should Know:

• No minimum balance requirement
• Annual fee of 0.25% for basic service or 0.40% for premium service
• Robo-advisor with personalized investment advice and financial planning tools

Betterment Digital: This is the basic service that offers online investment advice and automated portfolio management. The annual fee is 0.25% of your account balance or $4 per month if you don’t set up recurring monthly deposits of at least $250 or reach a balance of $20,000 or more across all your Betterment accounts (betterment.com) (betterment.com).

Betterment Premium: This is an option for customers who have a balance of more than $100,000 and want access to financial advisors for guidance on life events and retirement planning. The annual fee is 0.40% of your account balance (forbes.com). However, you can get a 0.10% discount for the portion over $2 million.

Scottrade

What You Should Know:

• Commission-free trading for stocks and ETFs
• Acquired by TD Ameritrade in 2017
• No minimum balance requirement

Stocks and ETFs: The commission for trading stocks and ETFs is $0 per trade (tdameritrade.com).

• Options: The commission for trading options is $0.65 per contract (tdameritrade.com). However, if you trade more than 30 options contracts per quarter, you can get a lower rate of $0.50 per contract at Etrade.

• Mutual Funds: The commission for trading no-load mutual funds is $17 per trade. However, there are over 2,600 no-transaction-fee (NTF) mutual funds available at Scottrade that you can trade without paying any commission.

Note that Scottrade was acquired by TD Ameritrade in 2017 and now operates under its name (tdameritrade.com). You can access your Scottrade account through TD Ameritrade’s website or call 800-669-3900 to speak to a representative.

OptionsHouse

What You Should Know:

• Low commission rates
• Advanced trading platform
• Options education resources

• Stocks and ETFs: The commission for trading stocks and ETFs is $4.95 per trade.

• Options: The commission for trading options is $4.95, plus $0.50 per contract for single leg trades. For spreads, straddles, and combos – up to four legs except covered calls and puts – the commission is also $4.95, plus $0.50 per contract.

• Broker assist fee: There is a fee of $25 if broker assistance is necessary for a transaction.

• Paper statements and tax documents: There is a fee of $2.00 for paper statements and tax documents mailed to your home.

• Physical stock certificate fees: There is a minimum fee of $300 per certificate. If the certificate is returned for any reason there will also be a minimum fee of $100 per returned certificate.

Note that OptionsHouse was acquired by Etrade in 2016 and now operates under its name. You can access your OptionsHouse account through Etrade’s website or call 800-387-2331 to speak to a representative.

E-Trade

What You Should Know:

• Easy to use
• Great customer service
• High commission rates

According to (us.etrade.com), E-Trade charges $0 commission for online US-listed stock, ETF, mutual fund, and options trades. However, there are some exclusions and variable commission rates that may apply. The standard options contract fee is $0.65 per contract (or $0.50 per contract for customers who execute at least 30 stock, ETF, and options trades per quarter).

For crypto stocks like Coinbase, PayPal or Microstrategy, E-Trade also charges no fees. For futures contracts, including cryptocurrency futures, E-Trade charges $1.50 per contract per side plus additional fees. However, E-Trade also charges a stealth fee in the ‘Spread’ which is the price difference between the buy price and sell price.

Interactive Brokers

What You Should Know:

• Detailed dashboard
• Enormous product range
• Excellent research/tools

Interactive Brokers offers two price plans: fixed-rate and tiered. The fixed-rate plan charges a fixed rate per contract or share, while the tiered plan charges fees based on your monthly trading volume. The more you trade, the lower the commissions are.

However, there may be other fees such as exchange, regulatory, clearing, currency conversion, account maintenance, market data and research fees (interactivebrokers.com) (interactivebrokers.com).

TD Ameritrade

What You Should Know:

• $0 initial deposit
• No trade limits
• Reputable customer support and online education tools

TD Ameritrade’s trading experience is fairly robust and well-rounded, offering a good baseline of features for most traders. While it’s one of the pricier alternatives on this list, you get a lot for your money, particularly through desktop and mobile apps that provide top-notch market research and online education tools for the constantly-learning trader. Their Thinkorswim platform, in particular, is one of the best out there. With no minimum account deposit, they’re flexible too.

optionsXpress

What You Should Know:

• Free access to trading software
• Free broker assistance
• Complex fee structure, higher options minimums

As an online broker, optionsXpress’ main appeal is in being a basic, workhorse solution for traders who don’t need a lot of frills. When you work with them, you get a bare-bones trading platform you access for free, and its trading options deal chiefly with options, futures and stock trading. However, their free broker-assisted trading is a huge deal for traders who want a little more assistance in their trades. Overall, there are no fancy gimmicks, just solid, uncomplicated trading assistance.

Wealthfront

What You Should Know:

• Caps on maintenance fees
• Direct indexing for high-balance accounts
• Tax-loss harvesting options

Wealthfront, by all accounts, is a perfectly reasonable and well-rounded investment solution for a lot of different investors. What stands out, though, is their Portfolio Review tool, which scans your portfolio and discerns the best way to redistribute your investments to cut down on fees. This makes Wealthfront one of the best resources to have in terms of discovering your ideal asset allocation. Not only that, Wealthfront sports affordable management fees – if you have less than $10,000, you pay none.

TradeKing

What You Should Know:

• No minimum balance
• $4.95 trade commissions
• TradeKing LIVE trading platform

If you want some of the best savings for your brokerage solutions, look no further than TradeKing. Their $4.95 commission on stocks and ETFs are some of the lowest in the industry, making it a great solution for traders looking to save money. What’s more, you don’t even have to compromise on features – their TradeKing LIVE trading platform is incredibly robust for the price. Between their low rates and incredible features, TradeKing is almost too good to be true.

Vanguard

What You Should Know:

• Personal brokerage advisory service
• No dedicated trading platform
• High minimum balance for mutual funds

While most of the brokers on this list rely chiefly on automated systems and a robust online presence, Vanguard’s major appeal is its personal advisor service which is available to traders with a sufficiently high balance. With this, your account is maintained and supervised by teams of human advisors who will offer trade advice and monitor markets for opportunities to grow your accounts even further. Between this and their innovative selection of index funds, Vanguard is a force to be reckoned with.

Fidelity Investments

What You Should Know:

• Excellent research tools
• Active Trader Services
• Mid-range, reasonable fees and commissions

Fidelity Investments is one of the biggest names in the stock trader business, so you’ve already got a nice infrastructure and decent trading platforms to work with. With their commissions at $7.95 for stocks and ETFs, Fidelity is decently affordable, though far from the cheapest solution for most traders. What’s more, Fidelity asks for a rather high account balance minimum of $2,500, which many beginners can have trouble getting together. However, there are ways to get around it, and the platforms and research tools they offer make up for it.

Acorns

What You Should Know:

• Mobile-only app
• Automatically deposits change into a brokerage account
• Low fees

With the advent of mobile apps and smartphones, apps like Acorns are starting to replace traditional brokers as modern traders’ solutions for their investment. Rounding up your credit card purchases and depositing the change in a brokerage account allows you to slowly but surely accumulate a sizable investment portfolio, giving you a passive head start on your portfolio. It is by no means a full trading solution, but a nice way for millennials to get their trading careers started.

Merrill Edge

What You Should Know:

• $6.95 commissions on stock and ETF trades
• No commission-free ETFs
• Robust education and research options

Bank of America’s trading solution, Merrill Edge, allows B of A customers who already have accounts to streamline their banking and investment solutions with a solid, if unremarkable, trading platform. Merrill Edge’s $6.95 trades are affordable but far from innovative, and their Merrill Edge MarketPro software offers a lot of functionality for the price. For B of A customers, this may be your ideal solution to start investing.

Sharebuilder (Capital One Investing)

What You Should Know:

• Low commissions for automatic investments
• Portfolio Builder Tools
• No desktop trading platform

Now known as Capital One Investing, Sharebuilder innovates by providing automatic investing plans, which are perfect for casual traders who just want to select some stocks to buy and hold onto. However, this comes at the expense of having no advanced trading platform, less than idea commission fees, and no commission-free ETFs. That being said, Capital One customers would benefit greatly from streamlining their banking services with Sharebuilder.

USAA Mutual Funds

What You Should Know:

• Military-centric trading solution for members and families
• No commission-free ETFs
• Low account minimums

While USAA is usually known for providing banking and insurance for military members and their families, they have brokerage solutions for those customers as well. They’ve got award-winning mutual funds, which is a bonus for qualifying members, but they lack a robust advanced trading platform. That being said, USAA mutual funds are easily customizable by their members, giving them the choice of a number of different funds that can get their retirement savings started easily.

Just2Trade

What You Should Know:

• No minimum balance
• Flat commission fees
• RetireGuide investment planning

eOption

What You Should Know:

• Industry-low margin rates
• Low commissions
• High learning curve

If you’re a trader looking for nothing more than the absolute lowest fees available, eOption is the choice for you. With $3 commissions for stocks and ETFs, eOption has the lowest prices around, but that comes at a cost: their trading platform is quite basic, with few of the features you’d find elsewhere. What’s more, they have limited research and education tools, leaving most traders out in the lurch. Try eOption out only if you’re concerned with the lowest possible commissions.

Wellstrade

What You Should Know:

• No commission-free ETFs
• No account minimums
• Personal Advisory Group for high-balance traders

Wells Fargo’s online brokerage solutions are perfect for those traders who already have Wells Fargo accounts and want to integrate their banking solutions with their investments. Otherwise, however, there are far too few advantages for those who can’t benefit from that streamlining. They’ve got slightly higher fees than most other brokers, with lackluster features that make those prices less than ideal. Only consider Wellstrade if you already bank with Wells Fargo, and you want that ease of use by sticking with the same institution.