11 Best Online Brokers to Trade Stocks

Once upon a time, a stock broker was the fashionably dressed, skyscraper-dwelling man (it was almost always a male) you called whenever you wanted to change the composition of your equity portfolio. He’d place your trades in accordance with your instructions, confirm once the transactions completed, and collect a hefty commission as his reward.

Well-compensated human stock brokers do continue to play a role in the American financial industry today, although they rarely take instructions for specific trades over the phone, and they work far more efficiently with the help of inordinately powerful financial software.

But the hardest-working stock brokers today aren’t human at all. They’re the digital platforms — online stock brokers — that have dramatically simplified, sped up, and reduced the cost of retail investing since the early days of the Internet.

Due to their low cost and simplicity, online stock brokers are the preferred portfolio management vehicles for individual investors without vast amounts of capital at their disposal. As with the human brokers they’ve supplanted, they’re not all alike, which makes choosing the right online broker for your investing strategy and goals all the more important.

This list features the top online brokers on the market today. Every one of them charges $0 commission on self-directed stock and ETF trades, so the real differences sit one layer down: what you pay per options contract, what the account costs to keep open, and what you have to deposit to start. All are worthy of your trust whether you’re a novice investor or a seasoned pro looking to give your money more room to grow.

Best Online Stock Brokers

These are among the best online stock brokers for U.S.-based retail investors. They include commission-free trading apps such as Webull and Robinhood, full-service giants like Fidelity and Charles Schwab, and platforms attached to popular online banks and lenders, such as Ally Invest and SoFi Invest.

1. Webull

Webull is a commission-free online stock broker built for self-directed investors who care what trading actually costs. Every large brokerage advertises $0 commissions, which makes the headline useless for telling them apart. Webull competes one layer down, and the number worth noticing is the options contract fee: it charges nothing per contract on stock and ETF options, where its own published comparison puts Charles Schwab and Fidelity at $0.65. That turns 20 iron condors into $52 at those brokers and $0 here.

The rest of the platform is unusually complete for a free tier. You get ladder trading, unlimited chart layouts, a full options analysis suite with probability analysis and profit-and-loss diagrams, and real-time fundamentals, none of it behind a paywall. The paperTrade simulator runs live Level 2 data and the same trading interfaces as the live platform across every asset class. Trading runs from 4:00 AM to 8:00 PM Eastern, and select stocks and ETFs trade around the clock, five days a week.

One account also holds crypto across more than 70 coins, bonds starting at $100, three money market funds, IRAs, and managed portfolios at 0.20% a year. A $100 first deposit also claims 12 free fractional shares and a month of Webull Premium, with each share worth anywhere from $3 to $300. For a fuller breakdown, see our Webull review.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on stocks, ETFs, and options, with no contract fee on stock and ETF options. Index options such as SPX, VIX, and NDX are the exception, at $0.50 per contract plus an exchange proprietary fee of $0.10 to $0.90. Margin is a flat 8.74% at every loan size. Uninvested cash earns 0.50%. Webull Premium costs $3.99 per month or $40 per year and raises the cash rate to 3.35% APY on individual and joint cash accounts, drops margin to 5.20% at the smallest tier, and lifts IRA matching from 1% to 3.5%. Crypto trades carry a 1.00% spread, and transferring your account out costs $75.
Account Opening Bonus: Make a first deposit of $100 by October 14, 2026, to claim 12 fractional shares worth $3 to $300 each, plus one month of Webull Premium. Rewards are claimable within 10 calendar days of the deposit settling. Joint, IRA, managed, entity, and event contract accounts are excluded. Referrals add 20 more shares apiece, for up to 10 friends.
Minimum Required to Invest: None. Fractional shares start at $1.00. Margin approval requires $2,000 and futures require $500.

Webull Financial LLC, Member SIPC, FINRA. Investing involves risk. More info at webull.com/disclosures. Options are not suitable for everyone. Losses can occur quickly. Review ODD at webull.com/disclosures. Subscription required. Fees may apply. More info at webull.com/disclosures

2. Robinhood

Robinhood was a pioneer of the commission-free trading movement — a movement that’s all but conquered the online investing world. Even as most other online stock brokers copied its business model, Robinhood kept moving, and it is one of only three brokers on this list charging nothing per options contract.

The platform has grown well past its phone-only origins. Legend, its desktop application, is built for active traders. The account also reaches futures, prediction markets, crypto, banking, and custodial investing for kids. There are no account or maintenance fees anywhere in the lineup.

Most of Robinhood’s best numbers sit inside Robinhood Gold, a $5 monthly subscription that pays 3.35% APY on eligible brokerage cash with no cap and no minimum balance, matches 3% of IRA contributions, and cuts futures contracts to $0.50. The first 30 days are free.

Margin is the other number worth knowing. Robinhood starts at 5.00% on settled balances up to $50,000, falling to 3.95% above $50 million. Fidelity, E*TRADE, SoFi, and TradeStation all charge between 9.5% and 12.5% at their entry tiers, and reserve their best rates for balances most investors will never carry.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on stocks, ETFs, and options, with no options contract fee; a combined $0.04 per contract regulatory fee is passed through. Index options cost $0.50 per contract, or $0.35 with Gold, plus exchange fees. Robinhood Gold costs $5 per month and adds a 3.35% APY rate on eligible brokerage cash, a 3% IRA match, $0.50 futures contracts, and no management fee on Robinhood Strategies balances above $100,000. Margin runs from 5.00% on settled balances up to $50,000 down to 3.95% above $50 million. No account opening, maintenance, or inactivity fees. Outgoing account transfers cost $100.
Account Opening Bonus: Robinhood Gold members receive a 3% match on IRA contributions, an ongoing benefit rather than a one-time promotion. Sign-up stock rewards vary by promotion; see terms for current details.
Minimum Required to Invest: Robinhood publishes no minimum to open a brokerage account and charges no opening, maintenance, or inactivity fees. Robinhood Strategies, the managed option, requires $50 and charges 0.25% of assets per year.

3. Fidelity

Fidelity is a full-service online stock broker with no-commission stock and ETF trades, a deep fund lineup, and wealth management for investors who eventually want a human involved. In other words, it has something for everyone, and almost nothing about the account costs money to maintain.

One of Fidelity’s biggest differentiators is a library of no-fee Fidelity ETFs that allows self-directed investors to create truly fee-free portfolios. The fixed income side is just as strong: new-issue bonds and U.S. Treasuries trade at $0 online, and secondary bonds cost $1.00 each. Account services are free across the board, including statements, transfers of assets, wires within the U.S., and streaming Level II quotes.

The one number to read carefully is margin. Fidelity advertises rates “as low as 7.50%,” and that figure is real, but it applies only to debit balances above $1 million. At the entry tier, below $25,000 borrowed, the effective rate is 11.825%.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on online U.S. stock, ETF, and options trades, with a $0.65 per options contract fee; buy-to-close orders priced at $0.65 or less are free. New-issue bonds and online U.S. Treasuries are $0, and secondary bonds are $1.00 per bond. Fidelity funds are $0, no-transaction-fee funds are $0 to buy but $49.95 if sold within 60 days, and transaction-fee funds cost $49.95 per purchase. Margin runs from 11.825% below $25,000 down to 7.50% above $1 million.
Account Opening Bonus: None.
Minimum Required to Invest: No minimums to open an account.

4. Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab (or Schwab, as it’s known for short) is a full-service online stock broker offering taxable and tax-advantaged accounts. Schwab charges no commissions on self-directed stock and ETF trades and has a robo-advisory service, Schwab Intelligent Portfolios, that charges no advisory fee and no commissions at all.

With an array of research and market analysis tools, Schwab’s self-directed arm is appropriate for novice and expert investors alike. The entry point is as unencumbered as any on this list: no account minimum, no trade minimum, and a satisfaction guarantee on the commission schedule.

Where Schwab does charge, it charges consistently. Almost every broker-assisted action adds a flat $25 service charge on top of the online price, which is easy to avoid and easy to forget.

Plans and Pricing: $0 online commission on stocks and ETFs, plus a $0.65 per options contract fee. Broker-assisted trades add a $25 service charge. Transaction-fee mutual funds cost $6.95 plus a $25 service charge when placed with a representative, and up to $74.95 per purchase for some funds. Futures cost $2.25 per contract. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios charges no advisory fee and no commissions; Schwab’s dedicated advisory services carry their own fee schedules and account minimums, starting at 0.80%.
Account Opening Bonus: None currently advertised on Schwab’s pricing schedule. Schwab periodically runs referral offers that require a code from an existing customer; see terms for current details.
Minimum Required to Invest: No account or trade minimums for self-directed investing.

5. Interactive Brokers

Interactive Brokers is the broker serious traders graduate to, and its entry-level plan is more approachable than its reputation suggests. IBKR Lite offers commission-free trading on U.S. stocks and ETFs with no account minimum and no added spreads.

Understand which plan you’re on before you judge the price, because Lite and Pro are different products and the cheap numbers people quote for Interactive Brokers almost always belong to Pro. On Lite, options cost a flat $0.65 per contract, the same as Schwab and Fidelity. Pro’s tiered schedule is the one that reaches $0.15, and only above 10,000 contracts a month. Both plans apply a $1.00 minimum per options order.

Where Interactive Brokers is genuinely hard to match is reach and borrowing cost. The global market access is the deepest of any broker here, and margin runs a flat 6.130% on Lite and starts at 5.130% on Pro, well under most of this list. Newer investors should start on Lite and move to Pro only once the volume justifies it.

Plans and Pricing: IBKR Lite charges $0 commissions on U.S. stocks and ETFs with no added spreads. Options cost a flat $0.65 per contract on Lite; Pro runs $0.25 to $0.65 by premium below 10,000 contracts a month and reaches $0.15 above that. Both plans carry a $1.00 minimum per options order. Futures cost $0.85 per contract at 1,000 or fewer a month, falling to $0.25 above 20,000. Thousands of U.S. mutual funds carry no transaction fee; the rest cost the lesser of 3% of trade value or $14.95. Margin is 6.130% on Lite and starts at 5.130% on Pro.
Account Opening Bonus: None currently advertised.
Minimum Required to Invest: No account minimum on IBKR Lite.

6. E*TRADE

E*TRADE is a long-established online stock broker now operating under Morgan Stanley, and it currently runs one of the largest new-account cash offers on this list. It’s a strong all-rounder: commission-free stock and ETF trades, no monthly account fees, and no minimum deposit to open.

Active options traders get a real discount rather than a marketing one. The contract fee drops from $0.65 to $0.50 once you place 30 or more trades per quarter, and the Dime Buyback Program waives the contract fee entirely when you close a short option priced at 10 cents or less. Exercises and assignments are free.

E*TRADE also fronts several Morgan Stanley Private Bank products alongside the brokerage. Read those rates carefully. They belong to separate banking products, not to your brokerage cash.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on stocks, options, mutual funds, and ETFs, plus a $0.65 per options contract fee, dropping to $0.50 at 30 or more trades per quarter. Exercises and assignments are $0. Futures cost $1.50 per contract per side plus fees, online secondary bonds cost $1.00 per bond (minimum $10, maximum $250), and U.S. Treasury auction and secondary trades are $0 online. Crypto costs 0.50% of the trade value. Margin runs from 12.45% below $10,000 down to 10.45% between $250,000 and $500,000.
Account Opening Bonus: Get up to $1,500 for a limited time when you open and fund a new brokerage account with a qualifying deposit by October 31, 2026, using promo code OFFER26.
Minimum Required to Invest: No minimum deposit, and no monthly account fees.

7. J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing

J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing is a low-cost online stock broker from the massive global bank J.P. Morgan Chase. Its self-directed and managed portfolio options make it a worthy choice for passive and active investors alike, especially existing Chase customers who want everything on one login.

Like most major online stock brokers for DIYers, J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing promises commission-free stock and ETF trades with thousands of choices available. Fractional shares start at $5 on eligible stocks and ETFs, entered as a dollar value rather than a share count. Mutual funds trade at $0 online, and U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds trade free on the secondary market.

The reason to look closely is the bonus, which is among the best in the category and scales cleanly with what you deposit. For more information, check out our J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing review.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on online stock and ETF trades, plus a $0.65 per options contract fee. Mutual funds are $0 per transaction online and secondary-market U.S. Treasuries are $0, although funds themselves generally charge management fees that J.P. Morgan can’t control. Call-in trades cost $25. Margin runs from prime plus 4.75% below $25,000 down to prime plus 2.50% at $1 million.
Account Opening Bonus: Up to $1,000 in bonus cash, tiered on qualifying new money and held in the account for 90 days from enrollment: $50 for $5,000 to $24,999, $150 for $25,000 to $99,999, $325 for $100,000 to $249,999, and $1,000 for $250,000 or more.
Minimum Required to Invest: No minimum to open a self-directed account.

INVESTMENT AND INSURANCE PRODUCTS ARE: NOT A DEPOSIT • NOT FDIC INSURED • NO BANK GUARANTEE • MAY LOSE VALUE

8. Ally Invest

Ally Invest is a low-cost investing platform from Ally Bank, a digital banking pioneer. It blends an affordable self-directed option with managed portfolios, and it’s a natural fit if your checking and savings already live at Ally.

On the self-directed side, Ally Invest has a surprisingly deep trove of real-time market analysis and research tools for a commission-free brokerage. Its options pricing is the quiet standout: at $0.50 per contract, Ally charges less than any other broker here that bills per contract and hands the same rate to every customer, with no volume tier or asset threshold to clear first.

Two corners of the fee schedule deserve attention before you commit. Stocks priced under $2 carry a $4.95 base commission plus a penny per share, which makes Ally a poor choice for penny stock trading. Bonds, by contrast, cost $1 each with no minimum.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on stock and ETF trades, plus a $0.50 per options contract fee, the lowest unconditional per-contract rate here. Bonds cost $1 each with no minimum. Stocks under $2 carry a $4.95 base commission plus $0.01 per share. Robo Portfolios require a $100 initial deposit, and Personal Advice requires $100,000 in assets under care.
Account Opening Bonus: Ally credits $75 toward transfer fees when you complete an account transfer of $2,500 or more from another broker.
Minimum Required to Invest: No account minimum for self-directed trading.

9. SoFi Invest

SoFi Invest is a low-cost online stock broker with two options: self-directed (Active Invest) and automated managed portfolios. Both are commission-free on stocks and ETFs, and the self-directed side charges nothing per options contract, putting it in the same rare company as Webull and Robinhood.

The appeal is how little it takes to begin. Five dollars opens a self-directed account, including a self-directed IRA, and there are no account maintenance fees. Fractional shares and IPO access round out an unusually generous entry point for a platform this cheap.

The fee schedule is where SoFi asks for something back. A $25 inactivity fee applies for every six months without a login, transferring your account out costs $100, and the automated portfolios now charge a 0.25% annual advisory fee that they did not charge in earlier years.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on stocks, ETFs, and options, with no options contract fee on self-directed trading, and $0 account maintenance fees. Robo investing charges a 0.25% annual advisory fee. Mutual funds cost 0.2% of the purchase amount, capped at $20, and interval funds cost 2%. A $25 inactivity fee applies per account for every six months of login inactivity, and outgoing account transfers cost $100. Margin is tiered from 9.50% below $50,000 down to 4.75% above $10 million, and requires a $2,000 balance to borrow.
Account Opening Bonus: Earn a 1% cash bonus, worth up to $1,000 in stock, when you transfer an existing portfolio to SoFi through the self-directed ACAT match.
Minimum Required to Invest: $5 for Active Investing and $50 for robo investing.

10. Vanguard

Vanguard is a storied online stock broker with two distinct options: a brokerage that facilitates self-directed or advisor-assisted portfolio construction and an in-house advisory service that offers comprehensive financial planning and fully customized portfolios.

In both cases, investors enjoy access to the full universe of Vanguard’s low-cost exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds. Self-directed investors can also trade individual stocks, CDs, bonds, options, and other securities. Extremely low fund management fees make Vanguard one of the most affordable places to hold a long-term portfolio.

Options are the exception, and it’s a big one. At $1.00 per contract, Vanguard is the most expensive options broker on this list. It does waive contract fees on a set number of trades each year, but only for clients who already hold at least $1 million at Vanguard. Below that threshold you pay the full dollar on every contract, with no free trades at all. The whole fee schedule works this way, tiered by what Vanguard calls Qualifying Assets, so the discounts land on people who need them least. If options are central to your strategy, look elsewhere on this list.

Plans and Pricing: $0 commissions on online stock and ETF trades, plus a $1.00 per options contract fee, the highest here. Options exercises and assignments are commission-free. Free options trades are tiered by Qualifying Assets: none below $1 million, the first 25 trades each year from $1 million to $4,999,999, and the first 100 at $5 million or more, after which the $1.00 fee resumes. Transaction-fee mutual funds cost $20 per trade below $1 million, and $8 above the free-trade allowance at higher tiers; no-transaction-fee and Vanguard funds are $0 online. Broker-assisted trades add $25, waived at $1 million. A $25 annual account service fee applies unless you enroll in e-delivery or hold $1 million. Closing an account and transferring out costs $100, waived at $5 million.
Account Opening Bonus: None.
Minimum Required to Invest: Vanguard’s brokerage fee schedule sets no account opening minimum, but individual products do: $1,000 for CDs, agency securities, corporate bonds, and Treasuries, and $5,000 for municipal bonds. Vanguard mutual funds carry their own investment minimums.

11. TradeStation

TradeStation is a powerful trading platform for serious, active market participants, and in 2026 it means that more literally than it used to. The old TS Select and TS GO plans are gone, replaced by a volume-tiered schedule that prices each asset class separately and recalculates your tier monthly.

Read that structure carefully before you open an account, because it inverts the usual logic of this list. High-volume traders do well: above 10,000 options contracts a month, single-leg contracts cost nothing at all. Low-volume traders pay among the highest prices on this page. At 500 contracts a month or fewer, single-leg options cost $0.80 per contract, behind only Vanguard’s $1.00, and multi-leg contracts cost $0.40.

Stock trading carries the same shape. Commissions are $0 per share, but a clearing fee of $0.003 per share applies below 100,000 shares a month, falling to $0 above 10 million. On a 1,000-share trade that works out to $3.00, which is real money on a platform marketed as commission-free. TradeStation is still an excellent choice, but for active traders specifically. One of its biggest selling points remains YouCanTrade, a sister company offering education and training resources for testing new strategies in a judgment-free environment.

Plans and Pricing: Volume-tiered, recalculated monthly, with each asset class tiered separately. Stocks and ETFs carry $0 commissions plus a clearing fee of $0.003 per share below 100,000 shares a month, falling to $0.001 above 1 million and $0 above 10 million. Options carry $0 commissions plus a single-leg contract fee of $0.80 at 500 contracts a month or fewer, falling to $0.60 from 501 to 1,000, $0.50 from 1,001 to 10,000, and $0 above 10,000; multi-leg contracts run $0.40 at the entry tier down to $0 at the top. Index options add $1.00 per contract at the entry tier. Assignments and exercises cost $14.95 per position. Margin runs 11.75% below $50,000, 10.75% from $50,000 to $499,999, and 6.25% above $500,000. A $10 monthly inactivity fee applies unless the account meets minimum activity.
Account Opening Bonus: Up to $3,500 in cash rewards. New accounts also trade options at $0 per leg and futures at $0.50 per contract with no volume minimums, valid for 60 days from funding.
Minimum Required to Invest: TradeStation publishes no opening minimum for a cash equities account. Margin accounts require $2,000 in equity, and futures accounts require $5,000 ($5,500 for a futures IRA).

Final Word

Retail investing has changed a great deal over the years, mostly for the better. Costs have fallen, choice has grown, and the industry’s human workforce has become more representative of the broader population, although true parity is still a distant goal.

One thing remains more or less the same: the role played by stock brokers, whether they’re online or office-bound. If you want to buy and sell stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, or any other securities, you or your financial advisor need to use a broker. There’s a good chance your choice appears on the list above.

Pick yours by matching the broker to what you actually trade, not to the size of its advertising budget. Every account on this list charges $0 commission on stocks and ETFs, so that number tells you nothing. The figures that separate them are the options contract fee, the margin rate at the balance you’ll actually carry, and the fees that hit when you go quiet or move your money out. Find those three numbers for the two or three brokers you’re weighing, and the decision usually makes itself.

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Editorial & Advertiser Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided, commissioned, reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser. Opinions expressed here are ours alone, not those of any advertiser. The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. That compensation may influence which products we cover and where and how they appear on a page – including the order in which they appear – but it does not influence our evaluations, ratings, or opinions. We do not include every company or offer available in the marketplace.

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11 Best Online Brokers to Trade Stocks