January 23, 2024
StockBrokers.com has been the home of the most thorough and unbiased online broker reviews on the web since it was established in 2009. Our editorial principles and objective, data-driven reviews and guides have earned the trust of over 20 million readers since our inception.
An important part of our mission is shining a spotlight on industry standouts through our Annual Awards.
Based on our hands-on platform testing and meticulous, year-round data collection, the StockBrokers.com Annual Awards recognize brokerages, trading features, and trading service providers who help push the industry forward while delivering excellent value to U.S. investors. Awards fall into two areas, Category Awards and Industry Awards (further detail is below). Read more about how we test.
Leading our awards selection team are two industry veterans. Blain Reinkensmeyer, co-founder of StockBrokers.com, has more than 20 years of experience trading a variety of instruments. Lead writer Sam Levine has nearly three decades of experience in the investing industry as writer, investor and educator, and holds the Chartered Financial Analyst and Chartered Market Technician designations.
Our congratulations to this year’s winners of the StockBrokers.com Annual Awards.
Broker Industry Award Winners
Our Industry Awards recognize breakout innovations, unparalleled product offerings, and remarkable platform experiences. Industry awards are determined based on the measurable, data-driven criteria that decide our Category rankings as well as the opinion scores of our editorial team.
Industry Awards are updated annually and we continue to add new awards each year to reflect industry trends and developments. These unique awards are designed to showcase the very best in the industry.
#1 Innovation
Winner: Fidelity Youth App
Methodology: The innovation award recognizes broker achievement in pushing the industry forward. Our team tests and analyzes new tools, experiences and features that challenge industry standards and unlock new abilities for individual investors.
#1 International Trading
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Methodology: This industry award is primarily based on the reach of a broker’s international offering. Data is collected to determine how many international exchanges each broker allows clients to access for trading. In addition, the trading platforms themselves are assessed using criteria from the Platforms & Tools category.
#1 Investor App
Winner: E*TRADE Mobile
Methodology: The Investor App award recognizes the best mobile app for everyday passive and active long-term investors, which we define as Americans who place fewer than 36 trades each year or approximately three trades each month. Key criteria included portfolio reporting, data provided, tools, research availability, ease of use, design, and responsiveness.
#1 Trader App
Winner: Charles Schwab - thinkorswim
Methodology: The Trader App award recognizes the best mobile app for active, moderately experienced retail U.S. traders. Our ranking is weighted toward customers who place at least 120 trades per year or 10 trades per month. Key criteria included data provided, tools, charting, trading workflow, ease of use, design, and responsiveness.
#1 Web Trading Platform
Winner: Power E*TRADE Web
Methodology: The Web Trading Platform award recognizes the best browser-based trading platform. We prioritized the needs of active, intermediate level retail traders using a variety of instruments. Key criteria include data provided, tools, charting, trading workflow, ease of use, design, and responsiveness.
“Novice and casual traders will find Power E*TRADE to have all the necessary tools while still being easy to use. The Live Action scans make searching for new trading ideas a snap.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
#1 Platform Technology
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Methodology: The Platform Technology award recognizes the trading platform with the most sophisticated and reliable data streams and customizability. We prioritized the needs of active, highly sophisticated retail traders using a variety of instruments. Key criteria included data provided, tools, programming languages, scanners, and reliability.
#1 Client Dashboard
Winner: Merrill Edge Dynamic Insights
Methodology: The Client Dashboard award recognizes the best homepage summary for a typical U.S. retail investor. We prioritized relevancy of information, layout, design, consolidated views, and clear labeling of key data.
#1 Overall Client Experience
Winner: Merrill Edge
Methodology: The Overall Client Experience award recognizes the best user experience for typical U.S. retail investors. Our testing simulates dozens of workflows for investors and traders alike. Key criteria include satisfying user intent, design, customer support, platform responsiveness, convenience, workflow, education, marketing communications, and transparency.
“It’s clear that Merrill carefully thought through every pixel, mouse click, and finger tap of the online experience. The design is consistent and attractive, the site and mobile app are easy to navigate, and clients get exactly the information they need to know, no more and no less.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
#1 New Tool
Winner: J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Wealth Plan
Methodology: Our award for #1 New Tool is partly based on data collected during our testing across all primary categories, with particular attention given to Research, Education, Platforms & Tools, Mobile Trading, and Investment Options. The award for #1 New Tool recognizes a new innovative feature or product experience launched by a broker during the previous calendar year that innovates or elevates either 1) the execution of a user intention; or, 2) the presentation of valuable information.
“J.P. Morgan’s Wealth Plan should make competitors very nervous. It goes far beyond simple wealth calculators. It helps clients set budgets, set financial priorities, and progress towards multiple financial goals, with or without the help of a financial advisor.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
#1 ESG Investing
Winner: Interactive Brokers Impact App
Methodology: Our #1 Environmental, Social, and Governance, or ESG, Investing award, which is heavily informed by the testing in our Research category, highlights the broker that provides the most comprehensive experience for socially responsible investing. We consider the availability of screening tools, third-party ratings, visual data, and other research features that help to identify ESG-related investment opportunities.
Interactive Brokers includes a variety of environmental, social and governance ratings and research across its platforms, including the Impact tool, which lets you score your portfolio stock holdings for ESG-specific metrics. — StockBrokers.com Interactive Brokers review
#1 Professional Trading
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Methodology: The Professional Trading award recognizes the best broker for sophisticated U.S. traders who frequently execute large trades across a variety of financial instruments, such as day traders or those working for a professional institution such as a hedge fund. Key criteria include price, publicly available order execution data, investment options, tools, data, charting, trading workflow, platform reliability and responsiveness.
#1 Order Execution
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Methodology: The Order Execution award recognizes the broker with best stock order execution across a variety of retail-sized orders using publicly available, trailing three-month averages. We focused our evaluation primarily on payment for order flow and each broker’s process for routing orders to achieve price improvement.
With over a hundred order types and algorithms, IBKR provides professional traders with a broad palette of tools to move large blocks of stock with minimal market disruptions. — StockBrokers.com Interactive Brokers review
#1 Crypto Technology
Winner: eToro
Methodology: For this award we look at the full scope of a broker’s cryptocurrency offering, including whether crypto is offered through a third party or the broker offers an in-house solution. Additional features examined include the ability to deposit and withdraw crypto with the broker, availability of crypto wallets, and the ability to stake crypto and earn interest.
#1 Fractional Shares
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Methodology: The Fractional Shares award recognizes the broker offering the best fractional share trading. Key criteria include timeliness of execution, number of issues available, and minimum dollar order size.
#1 Phone Support
Winner: Fidelity
Methodology: This award is based on analysis of data collected by our partner Confero, a customer experience research firm that conducts phone tests from locations throughout the U.S. For our current results, 168 customer service tests were conducted over six weeks. Customer service representatives were asked for assistance or details in several areas of broker services, including account opening, trading tools, apps, rollovers, active trading, and more. Wait times were logged for each individual customer service call.
#1 Sentiment Investing
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Methodology: The Sentiment Investing award recognizes the broker that provides the most informative sentiment data. Key criteria include number of sentiment sources, quality of presentation, and ability to compare sentiment with historical investment performance.
#1 Desktop Stock Trading Platform
Winner: Charles Schwab - thinkorswim
Methodology: The Desktop Stock Trading Platform award recognizes the best downloadable trading platform ("desktop") app for stock traders. We prioritized the needs of active, intermediate level retail equity traders. Key criteria included data provided, tools, charting, trading workflow, ease of use, design, and responsiveness.
#1 Desktop Options Trading Platform
Winner: tastytrade
Methodology: The Desktop Options Trading Platform award recognizes the best downloadable trading platform ("desktop") app for options traders. We prioritized the needs of active, intermediate level retail options traders. Key criteria included data provided, tools, charting, trading workflow, ease of use, design, and responsiveness.
Tastytrade’s platforms are ideal for frequent options and futures traders, thanks to efficient workflows, useful risk management tools, killer design, and online content that make you feel like you’re on a trading desk. — StockBrokers.com tastytrade review
#1 Desktop Futures Trading Platform
Winner: tastytrade
Methodology: The Desktop Futures Trading Platform award recognizes the best downloadable trading platform ("desktop") app for futures traders. We prioritized the needs of active, intermediate level retail futures and futures options traders. Key criteria included data provided, tools, charting, trading workflow, ease of use, design, and responsiveness.
#1 Paper Trading
Winner: Webull
Methodology: The Paper Trading award is given to the broker that offers the best easy-to-use, but feature-rich, trading experience using virtual dollars.
Webull’s downloadable desktop and browser-based trading platforms are attractive, clear, and a joy to use. Beginners will appreciate being able to practice first with paper trading and, once they’re ready, investing in fractional shares. — StockBrokers.com Webull review
#1 Bond Trading
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Methodology: The Bond Trading award recognizes the broker that provides the best combination of fixed income pricing and access to global fixed income markets.
#1 Bond Research
Winner: Charles Schwab
Methodology: The Bond Research Award acknowledges the broker that the StockBrokers.com editorial team views as offering the best fixed income research resources at no additional charge to retail investors. Criteria include frequency, types of fixed income products covered, quality of research and market commentary.
“While some brokers include a brief comment on fixed income in their daily and weekly market updates, Charles Schwab provides a continual stream of news, commentary, education, ratings, and research for fixed income investors.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
#1 Fund Research Provider
Winner: Morningstar
Methodology: The Best Fund Research Provider award recognizes the research firm that provides the most comprehensive and insightful data and opinion on mutual funds and exchange traded funds. We prioritized the needs of intermediate level self-directed investors. Key criteria included data provided, quality of opinions, benchmark comparisons, layout, and data labeling.
#1 Charting Technology Provider
Winner: TradingView
Methodology: The Best Charting Technology Provider award recognizes the firm that provides the best charting experience. We prioritized the needs of intermediate level self-directed retail traders and investors. Key criteria include data provided, labeling, presentation, responsiveness, pattern identification, and ease of use.
#1 Automated Chart Patterns Provider
Winner: Trading Central
Methodology: The Best Automated Chart Patterns Provider award recognizes the firm that provides the best automated chart pattern recognition. We prioritized the needs of intermediate level self-directed retail traders. Key criteria include patterns recognized, customization, documentation, and ease of use.
Category Award Winners
Category Winners in the StockBrokers.com Annual Awards recognize standouts in eight key areas for which we test and score brokers’ offerings: Commissions & Fees, Investment Options, Platforms & Tools, Research, Mobile Trading, Education, Ease of Use, and Overall. These categories, developed and refined over years of testing and analysis, reflect the features and services most important to individual investors.
StockBrokers.com also presented “Best in Class” awards to brokers for additional categories Beginners, Options Trading, Futures Trading, Day Trading, IRA Accounts, Investor Community, Penny Stock Trading, Bank Brokerage, High Net Worth Investors, and Customer Service. A “Best in Class” designation means finishing in the top five brokers for that category.
Competitive commissions and fees, a wide range of investment options, stellar mobile trading apps and powerful trading tools are among the features highlighted in our Category Award Winners.
Overall
Winner: Fidelity
Best in class: E*TRADE, Charles Schwab, Merrill Edge, Interactive Brokers
Methodology: Our highest award, this selection is both data- and opinion-driven and recognizes the broker that scored the most total points across all categories: Commissions & Fees, Investment Options, Platforms & Tools, Research, Mobile Trading, Education and Ease of Use. This broker demonstrates the highest level of client service.
“Once again, Fidelity takes the crown. Its winning combination of features, ease of use, education, investment options, and extensive research earned it its third year as StockBrokers.com’s Best Overall Broker.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
Commissions & Fees
Winner: Fidelity
Best in class: Interactive Brokers, E*TRADE, SoFi Invest, tastytrade
Methodology: With zero-commission trades the norm among U.S. brokerages, we examine various other client costs, such as payment for order flow (PFOF) practices, account maintenance fees, service fees (including subscriptions to premium services), and termination fees.
Platforms & Tools
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Best in class: Charles Schwab, Fidelity, E*TRADE, Merrill Edge
Methodology: This data- and opinion-driven award recognizes the broker that the StockBrokers.com editorial team regards as providing the best suite of platforms and tools for U.S. retail clients.
Mobile Trading Apps
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Best in class: E*TRADE, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Merrill Edge
Methodology: This data- and opinion-driven award recognizes the broker that scored the most points in our Mobile Trading Apps category. It takes into consideration the availability and quality of watch lists, charting, real-time and streaming quotes, stock alerts, and educational resources, among other variables. We also look for a fluid user experience moving between mobile and desktop platforms, where offered.
“Interactive Brokers’ flagship IBKR Mobile comes the closest to putting a desktop platform in your hand, while its Global Trader and Impact apps keep it simple for beginners.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
Ease of Use
Winner: Robinhood
Best in class: Fidelity, E*TRADE, Charles Schwab, Merrill Edge
Methodology: This opinion-driven award recognizes the broker that scored the most points in our analysis for Ease of Use.
Investment Options
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Best in class: Charles Schwab, Fidelity, E*TRADE, TradeStation
Methodology: This data-driven award recognizes the broker that scored the most points for the Investment Options category, which considers availability of instruments such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, futures, options and cryptocurrency.
Research
Winner: Charles Schwab
Best in class: Interactive Brokers, E*TRADE, Merrill Edge, Fidelity
Methodology: This data- and opinion-driven award recognizes the broker that the StockBrokers.com editorial team regards as providing the best research and market commentary experience. Elements considered include quality and quantity of research and ease of use.
There’s Argus and Morningstar research, which is great, but I prefer Schwab’s extensive in-house research from its all-star cast of experts, including Liz Ann Sonders, Jeffrey Kleintop and Kathy Jones. — StockBrokers.com Charles Schwab review
Education
Winner: Fidelity
Best in class: Merrill Edge, E*TRADE, Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers
Methodology: This data- and opinion-driven award recognizes the broker that scored the most points for the Education category, which factors in the availability and quality of articles, webinars and videos surrounding various aspects of trading and investing.
There’s something for everyone in Fidelity’s educational offerings. Fidelity does a great job of organizing content into roadmaps with progress tracking, as well as sorting by experience level, category and content type. Articles, videos, webinars, infographics, courses, and even podcasts are made available to customers. — StockBrokers.com Fidelity review
Beginners
Winner: Fidelity
Best in class: Merrill Edge, E*TRADE, Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers
Methodology: This opinion-based award recognizes the broker that the editorial team believes provides the best investing experience for novice U.S. investors. Key criteria include educational content, ease of use, product marketing, transparency, products and features, cost, and the client dashboard.
High Net Worth Investors
Winner: Charles Schwab
Best in class: Merrill Edge, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers, E*TRADE
Methodology: The High Net Worth Investors award recognizes the best broker for self-directed U.S. retail investors with investable assets of $1 million to $10 million. We prioritized the needs of intermediate level, long-term-oriented investors with portfolios that include a variety of instruments. Key criteria include consolidated reporting, integrated service model, specialist support, high net worth enhancements, financial planning tools and education, ease of use, and design.
Options Trading
Winner: tastytrade
Best in class: Charles Schwab, Interactive Brokers, E*TRADE, Merrill Edge
Methodology: This opinion-based award recognizes the broker that the editorial team believes provides the best value and experience for intermediate level U.S. retail options investors. Key criteria include features, cost, layout, trading workflow, platform design, and platform responsiveness.
Day Trading
Winner: Interactive Brokers
Best in class: Charles Schwab, tastytrade, TradeStation, Fidelity
Methodology: This opinion-based award recognizes the broker that the editorial team believes provides the best value and experience for intermediate level U.S. retail traders using a variety of trading vehicles. Key criteria include features, investment options, cost, layout, trading workflow, platform design, and platform responsiveness.
Penny Stock Trading
Winner: Fidelity
Best in class: Firstrade, Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, TradeStation
Methodology: This opinion-based award recognizes the broker that the editorial team finds to provide the best value and experience for U.S. retail penny stock investors, which we define as OTC stocks trading for less than $5 per share. The key criteria are the list of stocks available for trading and cost, with some consideration given for overall experience and education.
Customer Service
Winner: Fidelity
Best in class: Merrill Edge, Charles Schwab, Ally Invest, SoFi Invest
Methodology: For customer service testing, StockBrokers.com partners with customer experience research group Confero to conduct phone tests from locations across the United States. Confero agents used one of 10 unique scenario templates provided by StockBrokers.com (on average, three questions are asked) to assess each broker. To ensure fairness as well as to gather the highest quality data, each agent used a single template to test all brokers.
To score each test, three separate buckets are assessed: 1. Time to connect 2. The ability of each broker representative to professionally (and thoroughly) answer each question and 3. A Net Promoter Score for the overall support experience. Response times are 15% of each test score, representative assessments are 35%, and Net Promoter Scores make up the remaining 50%.
Once all individual test scores were compiled, they were combined to determine an overall score for Customer Service.
In six weeks of customer service testing, Fidelity finished first overall with an average connection time of less than one minute, an average net promoter score of 9.4/10, an average professionalism score of 9.2/10, and an Overall score of 9.31/10. — StockBrokers.com Fidelity review
IRA Accounts
Winner: Fidelity
Best in class: Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, Merrill Edge, Interactive Brokers
Methodology: This opinion-based award recognizes the broker that the editorial team finds to provide the best value and experience for everyday U.S. retail retirement-focused investors. This award combines features important to other categories, but emphasizes IRA account availability and costs.
Bank Brokerage
Winner: Merrill Edge
Best in class: J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing, Ally Invest, SoFi Invest, E*TRADE
Methodology: This award recognizes the broker that the editorial team believes provides the best value and experience for intermediate-level U.S. retail investors who want to consolidate their financial activities with one company. We take into consideration the breadth of banking services on offer and how well they are integrated with self-directed investing.
Futures Trading
Winner: tastytrade
Best in class: Interactive Brokers, TradeStation, E*TRADE, Charles Schwab
Methodology: This opinion-based award recognizes the broker that the editorial team believes provides the best value and experience for intermediate level U.S. retail futures traders. Key criteria include features, cost, layout, trading workflow, platform design, and platform responsiveness.
“Tastytrade is my go-to broker for futures trading, thanks to its low futures options commissions, great analytics, and silky smooth mobile and desktop platforms.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
Investor Community
Winner: eToro
Best in class: tastytrade, Webull, SoFi, Public.com
Methodology: This opinion-based award recognizes the broker that the editorial team believes provides the best investor community experience for U.S. retail investors. Included in the analysis are the quality and quantity of user posts and how well they are presented.
“By paying users for developing a following, eToro’s Popular Investor Program encourages thoughtful posts and out-of-the-box commentary.” — Sam Levine, Senior Writer, StockBrokers.com
2024 Overall Rankings Table
Company | Overall | Commissions & Fees | Research | Platforms & Tools | Mobile Trading Apps | Investment Options | Education | Ease of Use |
Fidelity | ||||||||
E*TRADE | ||||||||
Charles Schwab | ||||||||
Merrill Edge | ||||||||
Interactive Brokers | ||||||||
Firstrade | ||||||||
tastytrade | ||||||||
Ally Invest | ||||||||
Webull | ||||||||
Robinhood | ||||||||
TradeStation | ||||||||
J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing | ||||||||
Vanguard | ||||||||
Tradier | ||||||||
eToro | ||||||||
SoFi Invest | ||||||||
Public.com |
Methodology
Our mission at StockBrokers.com is simple: to provide thorough and unbiased reviews of online brokers, based on an extraordinary level of hands-on testing and data collection. Our ratings and awards are based on this data and our in-house experts’ deep authority in the field; brokers cannot pay for preferential treatment. Here’s more about trustworthiness at StockBrokers.com.
Our research team conducts thorough testing on a wide range of features, products, services, and tools for U.S. investors, collecting and validating thousands of data points in the process; this makes StockBrokers.com home to the largest independent database on the web covering the online broker industry. We test all available trading platforms for each broker and evaluate them based on a host of data-driven variables. All research, writing and data collection at StockBrokers.com is done by humans, for humans. Read our generative AI policy here.
As part of our process, all brokers had the annual opportunity to provide updates and key milestones and complete an in-depth data profile, which we hand-checked for accuracy. Brokers also were offered the opportunity to provide executive time for an annual update meeting.
Our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .001% each year, providing site visitors quality data they can trust. Learn more about how we test.
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