Interactive Brokers Review

Interactive Brokers received top honors in our 2023 review of online brokers for active and professional trading, international trading, platform technology, ESG investing, futures trading, and in our newest category, sentiment investing. Interactive Brokers, or IBKR, is a go-to choice for professionals because of its institutional-grade desktop trading platform, high-quality trade executions and rock-bottom margin rates. But IBKR also has some features everyday investors will appreciate, including a suite of excellent mobile apps.

Pros & Cons

Overall summary

Investment options

Interactive Brokers provides the most diverse offering in the industry and leads by a wide margin in multiple areas, including international trading. Globally, customers can trade across more than 135 international markets in 33 countries.

Cryptocurrency: Interactive Brokers added cryptocurrency trading to its offerings in 2021. Traders can now trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash through their integrated account.

Forex: Do you want to lock in a high exchange rate before traveling overseas or to diversify away from a gyrating U.S. dollar? No problem. It’s easy and inexpensive to exchange currencies at IBKR, something you won’t find at many other brokers. We like it. (If you’re interested in trading forex, see the IBKR review on our sister site, ForexBrokers.com.)

Other: Interactive Brokers has added the ability for U.S. investors to trade spot gold in amounts as small as one ounce. They have also added a wide variety of micro and small-sized futures contracts. These contracts, like small crude oil futures, open up futures markets to more people.

Commissions and fees

Interactive Brokers offers two primary pricing plans: IBKR Pro (meant for professionals) and IBKR Lite (for casual investors). Because Interactive Brokers' core clientele are professional traders and institutional investors (e.g., hedge funds), it is crucial to provide the lowest commissions schedule available. In our rigorous assessment, there is no question Interactive Brokers delivers. In 2023, Interactive Brokers is among Best in Class for Active Trading.

IBKR Lite: With IBKR Lite, there are no market data fees and all U.S. stock and ETF trades are $0, while options trades follow the same pricing as IBKR Pro (see below). The main caveat to use of IBKR Lite is the lower-quality order executions. Like other $0 brokers, under IBKR Lite, Interactive Brokers makes money from payment for order flow, or PFOF. Overall, IBKR Lite is designed for casual traders and investors.

IBKR Pro stock trades: For small order sizes, e.g., several hundred shares, Interactive Brokers is a fantastic deal. However, trade several thousand shares or more and Interactive Brokers quickly becomes pricey, even on its tiered pricing plan, which starts at $.0035 per share ($1 minimum). Institutions are willing to pay this in exchange for being able to move large blocks of stock without disrupting the markets, something most of us trading 50 shares of Amazon or Apple shouldn’t worry about.

IBKR Pro options trades: On U.S. exchanges using Interactive Brokers SMART routing, commissions per options contract are tiered. Any premium greater than $0.10 equals $0.65 per contract with a $1 minimum and no maximum. For premiums between $0.05 and $0.10, the rate is $0.50 per contract. Finally, for premiums less than $0.05, the rate is $0.25 per contract. IBKR Pro other benefits: Interactive Brokers does not accept payment for order flow in IBKR Pro, a key element in providing quality order execution. Also, Interactive Brokers leads the industry with the lowest margin rates.

Mutual funds: Interactive Brokers offers over 46,000 mutual funds globally, with over 11,000 in the U.S. Of the U.S. mutual funds, at least 4,000 are ticket charge-free; otherwise, the standard fee is the lesser of 1.5% of the trade value or $14.95, which is a fine deal compared to most other brokers.

Penny stocks: IBKR Pro is not a good choice for trading penny stocks, as you’ll pay a per-share commission.

Mobile trading apps

There are three mobile apps available to retail investors and each has a unique focus.

IBKR Mobile: The IBKR Mobile app is the most feature-laden of IBKR’s mobile app suite. From lightning-quick streaming data to full-featured order entry and portfolio management, IBKR Mobile includes almost everything professionals require to trade on the go.

Global Trader: Beginners and investors in foreign stock will find a very friendly experience at the new-in-2022 Global Trader app, which allows fractional stock trades, options trading and convenient access to foreign shares. The layout is convenient and the design is friendly. We prefer Global Trader to many of the other beginner-focused brokers. We think Interactive Brokers has a winner here and hope this app will be fleshed out with additional features over time.

Impact: The Impact app, which focuses on ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, prompts you to choose values that are important to you, such as clean water or opposition to animal testing. From there, you can identify companies that support those values and even “swap” positions in your portfolio with a single trade. Your Impact dashboard will display an A-F grade for your portfolio based on the values chosen.

Charting: Charting on IBKR Mobile is robust, including 70 optional indicators and easy customizations. However, some features one would expect are not included, such as stock and/or index comparisons.

IBKR Mobile apps gallery

Other trading platforms and tools

Interactive Brokers’ flagship platform, the desktop-based Trader Workstation (TWS), supports trading almost everything under the sun, including global assets. While TWS is not designed for new investors, it easily ranks among the best trading platforms in the industry. The more time you invest into learning TWS – and there’s a ton of tutorial videos available – the more you’ll appreciate it. Less-experienced or impatient investors will prefer Client Portal, a web-based platform, which still provides extensive, but not excessive, information.

TWS trading tools: Tools designed for seasoned traders abound within TWS: algo trading, an Options Strategy Lab, Volatility Lab, Risk Navigator, Market Scanner, and Strategy Builder, to name a few. Watch lists can include anything from equities to individual options contracts, futures, forex, warrants – you name it. Hundreds of data points are available for column customization.

TWS IBot: IBot, also available in TWS mobile, uses a foundation of artificial intelligence to quickly service customer requests via chat (or voice in the iPhone app). Portfolio information, orders, quotes, and more are all supported. Think, "What's the last price of GOOG?" or, "Chart AAPL vs. MSFT" or, "Buy 100 shares of FB." TD Ameritrade’s Ask Ted bot also does a great job in this arena.

TWS drawbacks: Tasks such as pulling up a stock to trade are tricky due to the vast array of securities available to trade. For example, typing "AAPL" for Apple yields a slew of possible matches, which can be overwhelming for nonprofessionals.

Client Portal: This platform for less-experienced traders is offered through Interactive Brokers’ website and includes all the core features necessary to trade and manage a portfolio. Portal omits the complicated analytics available in Trader Workstation.

IBKR Client Portal platform + Trader Workstation (TWS) gallery

Research

For casual investors, sticking to Fundamentals Explorer within Client Portal is, hands down, the way to go for doing research. For seasoned traders and professionals, TWS includes everything necessary to be productive, such as scanning and back-testing. Interactive Brokers requires a $500 minimum balance for PDF reports from third party providers.

Fundamentals Explorer: Built for everyday investors to perform traditional fundamental research on stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds, the Fundamentals Explorer tool is solid. Available in Client Portal, TWS and the mobile app, Fundamentals Explorer does a good job with using design to visualize data. For example, the Social Sentiment analysis tab uses a slew of Twitter data to identify a social sentiment trend, overall sentiment score and other takeaways. There are also automated technical opinions from Trading Central, a welcome addition in 2021.

Stock research: TWS research highlights include numerous screeners, extensive back-testing functionality, and portfolio analysis tools, which are all excellent. For traders looking to conduct specific research, Interactive Brokers offers third-party provider feeds a la carte. Any provider package purchased integrates straight into TWS.

However, performing even basic research on stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds on TWS is nothing like the traditional full-service brokerage experience one might find at TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, or Fidelity. You must learn how to navigate TWS to find the information you want; there are only a few streamlined views.

The web-based Client Portal, in contrast, is far easier to use and, while not quite as intuitive as the offerings of leaders in this arena, it’s a much lighter lift than TWS.

ESG research: Interactive Brokers includes a variety of environmental, social and governance ratings and research across its platforms, including the abovementioned Impact tool, which lets you score your portfolio stock holdings for ESG-specific metrics.

PortfolioAnalyst: Stepping away from traditional research, PortfolioAnalyst provides traders with hedge fund-level reporting on their portfolio's performance and makeup. Interactive Brokers also offers a free version for nonclients where you can link all your accounts and run reports. It's a compelling tool for traders with assets spread across numerous institutions.

Education

Interactive Brokers offers numerous options to learn about trading and investing. From its Traders' Academy portal to content on the IBKR Quant blog, there is a wide variety of written material and accompanying video content, including quizzes. While progress tracking is not included for videos and articles, it is for quizzes, and there is at least one per lesson. There’s no talking down to investors; the presentation is a bit dry but thorough.

Learning center: Traders’ Academy courses are organized by experience level as well as by topic. Interactive Brokers also offers archived content such as from its live and recorded webinars, much of which is also available on its YouTube channel. Lastly, Interactive Brokers offers a large variety of short videos that provide tutorials on IBKR platforms.

Banking services

While Interactive Brokers does not provide traditional banking services, it does offer its version of a cash management account, which offers a debit card, bill pay and the ability to earn interest on uninvested cash.

Your account must be denominated in a base currency that has a positive interest rate to earn interest. There are also minimum tier cutoff levels, wherein you earn a yield only on cash that exceeds those levels, which vary per currency.

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 Interactive Brokers.

• Average Connection Time: <1 minute
• Average Net Promoter Score: 7.4 / 10
• Average Professionalism Score: 7.4 / 10
• Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
• Ranking: 8th of 14 brokers

Final thoughts

With industry-leading commission rates for professional traders, more than 60 optional order types (and that’s not counting third-party offerings), trading in 135 international markets, and a robust trade platform suitable for any professional, Interactive Brokers is an excellent choice for investors who fit into its target mold.

Meanwhile, for casual investors, Interactive Brokers has assembled a competitive offering by providing $0 stock and ETF trades through IBKR Lite alongside thorough research in the Global Trader and Impact apps, and in a browser through the Client Portal web platform.

Here are our three top takeaways for Interactive Broker for 2023.

1. Interactive Brokers is best known for offering traders access to global markets. Additionally, professionals can take advantage of industry-leading commissions, including the lowest margin rates across all balance tiers.
2. Interactive Brokers is a winner for day trading, mobile trading, options trading, futures trading and professional trading.
3. Despite clear progress made in simplifying its website for casual investors, including more robust fundamental research and education, Interactive Brokers underperforms the best brokers for beginners.

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Is my money safe with Interactive Brokers?

Interactive Brokers is well-capitalized and is licensed and regulated in nearly a dozen major jurisdictions, making it a safe broker to hold your money. Interactive Brokers is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: IBKR) that has a market capitalization of over $33 billion as of November 2022.

Money held in an investment account with Interactive Brokers in the U.S. is protected by SIPC insurance, which covers up to $500,000 in securities and up to $250,000 in cash. If you hold more than $250,000 in cash, Interactive Brokers offers a Insured Bank Deposit Sweep Program, which provides up to $2.5 million in FDIC insurance in addition to the SIPC insurance. There’s additional account coverage through Lloyd’s of London. This coverage, of course, doesn’t extend to investment losses.

The degree of security may depend on the specific country you are located in and the related regulatory requirements that Interactive Brokers follows in countries where it holds client funds, such as the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Singapore, India and Japan.

Is Interactive Brokers good for beginners?

IBKR did not rank in our top picks for beginners for 2023, as its Trader Workstation platform, though outstanding, has a steep learning curve. However, IBKR does offer certain beginner-friendly features, including fractional shares and paper trading. The Global Trader and Impact mobile apps are beginner-friendly, and the IBKR Mobile app is also quite good.

The broker’s investor education covers a broad range of topics and lets you test your newly acquired knowledge through quizzes. The presentation style is formal, compared to competitors Robinhood and Fidelity, which take a friendlier approach.

Why is Interactive Brokers so cheap?

Interactive Brokers is cheap because it unbundles its services the same way airlines did to lower ticket prices. Individual investors don’t need many of the services IBKR offers its institutional clients, and additional revenue is brought in through payment for order flow, or PFOF, a common (though not universal) practice among brokers.

Does IBKR have fees?

IBKR Lite is the zero-commission tier for retail brokers at Interactive Brokers. There’s also a pro version that charges commissions. Like all brokers, IBKR has incidental charges. One of the most unusual is a fee of $1 or more per withdrawal, if you exceed one withdrawal per calendar month.

Does Interactive Brokers trade crypto?

Yes, Interactive Brokers customers can trade Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin, and IBKR has a partnership with Paxos Trust Company that allows you to trade additional coins.

What is the difference between IBKR Pro and Lite?

Interactive Brokers’ Lite tier is intended for individual investors and provides commission-free stock and ETF trades in exchange for IBKR receiving payment for order flow. IBKR Pro is for larger trades and higher volume traders and also charges lower margin rates. Most individuals are likely to be better off choosing IBKR Lite, but it’s easy to switch between them as your needs evolve.

About Interactive Brokers

Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR) was founded in 1977 by Thomas Peterffy, who is respected as "an early innovator in computer-assisted trading." Interactive Brokers is most widely recognized for its extensive international reach. The firm places almost 2 million trades per day and services over 1.5 million client accounts with over $296 billion in customer equity.

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. 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 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.

Interactive Brokers 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. New to investing? Check out the 5 step guide on how to invest on our sister site, investor.com.

Primary categories

Secondary categories

Industry Awards

Interactive Brokers 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

References

Interactive Brokers' Wikipedia

About the Editorial Team