Charles Schwab Review

As the granddaddy of discount brokers, Charles Schwab understands how to deliver value to its customers. It does so by providing a comprehensive roster of tools, advice and actionable ideas at reasonable cost. Note: Schwab purchased TD Ameritrade in October 2020 and integration between the two firms is ongoing. For now, we are reviewing both firms separately.

Pros & Cons

Overall summary

Investment options

Like other full-service brokers, Charles Schwab delivers a robust suite of products and services. Schwab offers everything from stocks (including fractional shares) and options trading to fixed income and retirement guidance. The only gaps in the offerings are cryptocurrencies and forex.

At Schwab, you can find every account type under the sun, including individual, joint, traditional, Roth, rollover, inherited and custodial IRAs; 529 plans, charitable accounts, and estate and trust accounts.

Cryptocurrency: Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin are not available to trade at Charles Schwab.

Retirement services: Schwab serves both retirees and looking-forward-to-becoming-retirees well. Here, services go beyond self-directed investing. Customers can elect to have their assets managed through Schwab's robo-advisor service, Intelligent Portfolios.

For personal advice, Intelligent Portfolios Premium offers clients with $25,000 in assets unlimited one-on-one guidance from a certified financial planner, or CFP, for $30 per month and a $300 one-time planning fee. That’s a ridiculously low price, considering that many independent CFPs routinely charge $250 per hour. Schwab also offers a free tool for retirement planning, Schwab Plan.

Commissions and fees

At Schwab, listed stock and ETF trades are $0, and options trades are $0.65 per contract, in line with other major brokers. Competitor tastytrade offers better stock options pricing and a terrific platform designed for option traders.

Schwab is the only broker alongside Fidelity to list the price improvement received on eligible orders, which is helpful in learning whether you are getting satisfactory prices on your trades, or, as it’s known in the industry, order execution quality.

Penny stocks: Schwab charges $6.95 for OTCBB trades. If that’s what you gravitate toward, take a look at our penny stock trading guide.

Fractional shares: Customers can purchase Schwab Stock Slices, which are fractional shares of any company in the S&P 500. The minimum purchase is $5. That should satisfy most investors, but some brokers offer more stock choices and in lower dollar amount increments.

Mutual funds: Mutual fund fees are complicated at Schwab. Some transaction-fee mutual funds cost as high as $79.95 to buy. However, unlike most brokers, Schwab only charges for the original purchase. There is no charge for selling, and fees are waived for transactions under $100. For investors seeking no transaction fee (NTF), no load (NL) funds, Schwab offers 195 OneSource funds.

Other fees: If using the Schwab automated phone system to place a trade, a $5 fee will be added to the order. There is a $25 additional fee for broker-assisted trades.

Mobile trading apps

Charles Schwab provides a consistent and generally enjoyable experience for mobile trading, regardless of the device. That said, for active traders, Schwab's mobile apps lack core functionality in two key areas: alerts and quotes.

Market research: Schwab does a great job with market research. There’s live video from CNBC, the Schwab Market Update, and a host of third-party updates. There’s a goodly amount of index and sector performance, too.

Active trading: The most significant area where Schwab stands to improve is with its use of market data. No stock price alerts can be set, stock quotes are in real time but require manual refreshing, and watch lists auto-refresh once every 10 seconds. Schwab's competitors, by contrast, all offer real-time streaming quotes.

Options trading: When you trade from within the Schwab mobile app, the Options tab comes with over 26 strategies, including multi-legged spreads and combinations.

Schwab Assistant: Schwab Assistant is an AI-powered tool that lets you use voice commands from within the Schwab mobile app to carry out basic operations, such as checking quotes or market news, and you can even ask to speak to a live representative. When I asked Schwab Assistant about the purchase of TD Ameritrade, it gave me some highlights and pointed me to an information page.

Other trading platforms and tools

Alongside the Charles Schwab website, Schwab offers customers access to two primary platforms: StreetSmart Edge (desktop-based; active traders), and StreetSmart Central (web-based; futures trading). While each platform has its highs and lows, Schwab will satisfy most traders.

StreetSmart Edge: Schwab's flagship downloadable trading platform, StreetSmart Edge, provides most of the bells and whistles options traders and day traders need to succeed. We find the platform easier to learn than those offered by TD Ameritrade, tastytrade, and TradeStation, although those three provide richer experiences. For options traders, Schwab's All-in-One trade ticket, alongside the proprietary Walk Limit order type, are both excellent. Note that for Mac users, StreetSmart Edge is a cloud-based web application that requires Citrix Workspace, which is a pain to install.

Trade Source: For casual investors seeking a simple tool that includes clean charting and streaming quotes and purposely excludes all the bells and whistles desired by active traders, Trade Source is a good possible solution. Trade Source is available through the Schwab website and is essentially a stand-alone platform in its own right.

Futures trading: While futures trading is offered, trading must be conducted on the StreetSmart Central platform. There’s ample content and commentary available for futures traders, but Schwab also suggests futures traders shift over to TD Ameritrade for a comprehensive futures experience.

StreetSmart Edge gallery

Research

The research pages were recently redesigned, and we prefer the idea-generating power of the older Research Tools classic view. (OK, now get off our lawn.)

Stock research: Beyond offering traditional third-party ratings, Schwab offers a proprietary research report that includes summary ratings from other providers. Many investors will find that sufficient, and Schwab's ratings can be found throughout its platforms.

ETFs and mutual funds research: If you’re researching ETFs and mutual funds, there’s a lot to like at Charles Schwab. Schwab covers all the bases, including ratings, reports and in-depth screening.

Market commentary: Schwab's in-house research is thorough, thanks to its staff of experts, including Liz Ann Sonders, Jeffrey Kleintop and Kathy Jones, among others. Schwab delivers live daily broadcasting across multiple shows, a feat matched only by TD Ameritrade.

Education

Charles Schwab delivers a thorough educational experience that will satisfy beginners, with a mix of articles and webinars. What’s lacking is engagement; the material, like almost all content we reviewed at Schwab, is as humorless and warm as a landlord collecting back rent. Learning about investing and reading about the markets should be fun. There is one superb exception: Schwab’s Choiceology podcasts.

Learning center: The article library in Schwab's Knowledge Center covers all key investing topics, from stock trading to retirement. Additionally, free webinars are offered each month to current customers, and PDFs of webinars are archived for reviewing on demand.

Compared to education leader TD Ameritrade, the primary downside of Schwab's educational offering is a lack of enhanced learning functionality. Paper trading is not offered. There is no progress tracking available to track what educational content you've completed or where you last left off. Also, no interactive learning tools, such as quizzes, are on offer.

Customer service

To score Customer Service, StockBrokers.com partners with customer experience research firm Confero to conduct phone tests from locations throughout the United States. For our 2023 Broker Review, 168 customer service tests were conducted over six weeks, with wait times logged for each call.

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. Here are the results for Charles Schwab.

• Average Connection Time: <1 minute
• Average Net Promoter Score: 9 / 10
• Average Professionalism Score: 8.7 / 10
• Overall Score: 8.9 / 10
• Ranking: 2nd of 14 brokers

Banking services

Among the bank and brokerage combinations in our annual review, Charles Schwab offers a full suite of services that competes with the best in the industry, and ranked among our Best in Class for this category. With over 360 service locations, Charles Schwab is a registered member of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which insures bank deposits up to $250,000.

Loyalty rewards: The downside to banking with Charles Schwab is that the online brokerage offers no loyalty rewards for using multiple products. Loyalty rewards are where Bank of America - Merrill Edge reigns supreme.

Final thoughts

Charles Schwab clearly understands what self-directed investors require to navigate markets. While sophisticated traders might find other brokers cater more specifically to their needs, investors interested in life planning, long-term investing, and making the most out of retirement will find Schwab a great fit.

Here are our top takeaways for Charles Schwab for 2023.

1. As a full-service brokerage, Schwab has a diverse offering of investments that will satisfy any investor. In our nationwide testing, we also found Schwab's phone service to be terrific.
2. Alongside solid retirement planning, Schwab's shining star is its offering of stock market research.
3. Schwab trading platforms and tools are robust and will satisfy most traders, making it a respectable choice for day trading and futures trading. That said, Schwab's stock trading app lacks real-time streaming quotes.

Is Charles Schwab good for beginners?

Charles Schwab is a good choice for beginning investors, who will benefit from excellent research and support. Unfortunately, Schwab does not offer paper trading, a handy tool for beginners; and we wish its educational content took a lighter, more engaging tone.

Does Schwab have hidden fees?

Schwab does not have hidden fees, but other firms, such as Fidelity, for example, do state their fees more clearly. Schwab’s pricing page is filled with footnotes. The broker also makes money from payment for order flow, or PFOF, as do almost all online brokers.

Is Schwab trustworthy?

Founded in 1971, Charles Schwab has a great history of reliability in the investment industry. It’s regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Financial Industry Regulation Authority (FINRA), and, for its banking services, the FDIC.

How much money do you need to open a Charles Schwab account?

Schwab does not have a minimum deposit requirement to open an account. It also offers Stock Slices, which allow you to buy fractions of shares with as little as $5; and it offers mutual funds with minimum investments of $100.

Are Schwab Stock Slices worth it?

Yes, Stock Slices are worth considering, as they allow small investors to diversify their risks across different companies and industries. With over 500 stocks available, Stock Slices provide more than enough choices for individual stock investors. Some other brokers allow fractional share purchases of exchange-traded funds, which can offer even more diversification.

Is Charles Schwab good for day trading?

Charles Schwab is a good choice of broker for day trading, thanks to its downloadable trading platform StreetSmart Edge and the web-based Trading Source. With Schwab’s acquisition of TD Ameritrade, Schwab is likely to get even better as TD Ameritrade’s impressive tools become available to Schwab clients.

Is StreetSmart Edge free?

StreetSmart Edge, Charles Schwab’s flagship downloadable trading platform, is a solid choice for frequent traders. It’s free to all nonprofessional clients, and Schwab does not charge inactivity fees or have investment minimum requirements.

How do I get StreetSmart Edge?

Charles Schwab clients will find StreetSmart Edge, its downloadable trading platform, under the Trade tab via the main menu. It’s easily installed on Windows computers, but requires Citrix for Mac OS users. It’s free to Schwab retail customers.

Does StreetSmart Edge have a simulator?

StreetSmart Edge, Charles Schwab's flagship trading platform, does not have a simulator. It does have the ability to do basic backtests of ideas, but there is no paper trading. Sources tell us Schwab plans to offer TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim platform, which does have simulated trading, as part of its integration with TDA, which Schwab purchased in 2020.

About Charles Schwab

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Charles Schwab was founded in 1971 and is one of the largest brokerage firms in the United States with more than 33 million active brokerage accounts and $7.3 trillion in total client assets. Charles Schwab is also a significant player in the retirement space. In October 2020 Schwab acquired fellow online broker TD Ameritrade, now a Schwab subsidiary, and integration is ongoing.

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2023 Review methodology

Our mission at StockBrokers.com is simple: 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 experts’ deep authority in the field; brokers cannot pay for preferential treatment. Here’s more about trustworthiness at StockBrokers.com.

For the StockBrokers.com 13th Annual Review published in January 2023, a total of 3,332 data points were collected over three months and used to score 17 top brokers. This makes StockBrokers.com home to the largest independent database on the web covering the online broker industry.

As part of our annual review process, all brokers had the 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.

Charles Schwab 2023 results

For the StockBrokers.com 2023 Annual Awards, published on Jan. 24, 2023, all U.S. equity brokers we reviewed were assessed on 196 different variables across eight areas: Commissions & Fees, Investment Options, Platforms & Tools, Research, Mobile Trading, Education, Ease of Use, and Overall.

StockBrokers.com also presented “Best in Class” awards to brokers for additional categories Beginners, Options Trading, Futures Trading, Active Trading, IRA Accounts, Investor Community, Penny Stock Trading, Banking Services and Customer Service. A “Best in Class” designation means finishing in the top five brokers for that category.

For more information, see how we test.

Primary categories

Secondary categories

Charles Schwab fees and features data

The data collection efforts at StockBrokers.com are unmatched in the industry. The following tables show a deeper dive into the offerings available at this broker. You can also compare its offerings side-by-side with those of other brokers using our Comparison Tool.

In addition to meticulous annual data collection by our in-house analyst, every broker that participates in our review is afforded the opportunity to complete an in-depth data profile. We then audit each data point to ensure its accuracy.

Trading fees

Account fees

Margin rates

Investment options

Order types

Beginners

Stock trading apps

Stock app features

Stock app charting

Trading platforms overview

Trading platform stock chart features

Day trading features

Investment research overview

Stock research features

ETF research features

Mutual fund research features

Options trading overview

Banking features

Customer service options

About the Editorial Team