Merrill Edge Review

Merrill Edge and its corporate parent Bank of America, make a strong case to be your cradle-to-grave financial services partner, taking top honors in our 2023 annual review for Overall Client Experience, Banking Services, Best Client Dashboard and High Net Worth Investors categories. Other than trigger-happy day trading, this broker does almost everything well and some tools are game changers. There are some limits on products, however. At Merrill Edge, penny stocks and crypto are left out in the cold.

Overall summary

Investment options

Merrill Edge provides a diverse offering that meets the industry standard and goes beyond it with a stellar user experience and the available services of a mega-sized bank. That said, active traders will be left wanting more. On offer are stocks, ETFs, options, mutual funds and bonds. Fractional shares, paper trading, futures, forex, and cryptos are not available.

Investment guidance: In addition to self-directed investing, Merrill Edge also offers automated (robo-advisor) portfolio management ($1,000 minimum investment) as well as fully managed advisory services with an advisor ($20,000 minimum investment) through its Guided Investing program.

Cryptocurrency: Merrill Edge does not offer cryptocurrency. You will have to sign up with a crypto exchange to trade popular tokens such as bitcoin, ethereum or dogecoin.

Retirement services: Merrill offers traditional, Roth and rollover IRAs, and placed among the best IRA accounts in our 2023 review.

Commissions and fees

Merrill Edge, like other discount brokers, provides customers unlimited free ($0) stock and exchange-traded fund (ETF) trades. Options trades cost $0.65 per contract, a common rate among top-tier brokers. Broker-assisted trades are a reasonable $19.95.

Penny stocks: Merrill Edge does not usually allow trading of securities that trade over-the-counter (OTC) and are priced below $5 per share. In practice, its restrictions mean that there is essentially no penny stock trading.

Preferred Rewards: Merrill’s rewards system makes for a top-notch combination of banking and brokerage. To qualify for the base tier, Gold, customers must maintain a three-month average combined balance in their bank and brokerage accounts of at least $20,000. Benefits through the Preferred Rewards program include money market savings interest-rate boosts, credit card bonuses, investment discounts and more.

Customers should still compare overall costs and rewards against competitors to make sure they are getting the best deal, as Merrill competes hardest in services, not always on price.

Mobile trading apps

Merrill Edge's mobile app is easy to use, great for research and exceeds the industry standard experience. For existing Bank of America customers, the universal account access and functionality makes the app an easy winner. All mobile devices are supported, including Apple Watch.

Ease of use: Apple Face ID and fingerprint login, coupled with a cleanly designed dashboard, makes it very easy to jump in and check in on your portfolio. Research is excellent for stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds, thanks to the inclusion of Stock Story and Fund Story.

The Stock, Fund and Portfolio “Stories,” as Merrill Edge calls them, are central to the mobile app and are what propelled Edge to the top of the heap for our Overall Client Experience. Along with Dynamic Insights, these features provide exactly the sort of information we wish all personal financial advisors would provide their clients: enough information to be fully informed without being drowned in detail.

The Stock Story feature on the Merrill Edge mobile app. Press play for a demo.

Charting: Charting is comprehensive and includes a variety of customizations. However, the interface itself is outdated and not HTML 5, making it difficult to read, especially when using any of the 34 optional technical indicators, which are only supported in landscape mode.

Merrill Edge Mobile app gallery

Other trading platforms and tools

Merrill Edge offers everyday investors access to everything they need (and more) to manage an investment portfolio through the Merrill Edge website. For active traders, Merrill Edge offers its MarketPro desktop trading platform, which is feature-rich but not suitable for day trading.

Dynamic Insights: Merrill Edge’s AI powered account dashboard, called Dynamic Insights, again won our industry award for No. 1 Client Dashboard. Dynamic Insights pulls all your data into one spot and uses AI to personalize it, making it the ultimate launching pad for your Merrill Edge account.

After opening Dynamic Insights, you will find a high-level summary of your brokerage and bank accounts. Below that, realized gains and losses, portfolio performance against the market, holdings insights including news events, tax events, movers, and ratings changes, are all included. A high-level market overview for the day is also present.

Trading tools: MarketPro is built for active traders and has a variety of bells and whistles. Highlights include 285 optional columns for watch lists, easy-to-use charting, automated technical analysis through Trading Central (Recognia), and numerous options tools, including the idea generation tool OptionsPlay.

On the downside, MarketPro has two drawbacks that might deter day traders. First, there are no one-click buy and sell buttons for speedy order entry, nor is there an option to disable the order confirmation window. Second, direct market routing or advanced order types, such as conditional orders, are not supported.

Research

Merrill Edge offers research for stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds that will satisfy the pickiest of investors. Merrill is also very strong in environmental, social, and governance investing, or ESG.

Stock research: Merrill Edge offers several unique research tools found nowhere else, including Stock Story, Portfolio Story and Idea Builder. Also included are excellent third-party research integrations, including Trefis (company valuations), Trading Central (Recognia) for automated technical analysis, and 43 variables from MSCI ESG ratings, among others.

ETFs and mutual funds research: Merrill Edge is unique in that it uses both Morningstar and Lipper as its primary research providers. Thanks to this dual offering, Merrill Edge's ETF and mutual funds research is extremely thorough. In addition, Fund Story provides ratings on 25,000 funds, which includes 12,000 mutual funds.

Bonds research: While the breadth of fixed income research at Merrill Edge trails its close competitor Fidelity, we found the fixed income reports from B of A Global Research to be of high quality with in-depth coverage of news and fundamental analysis of the bond markets.

Education

Learning about investing and retirement is a pleasant experience at Merrill Edge, thanks to excellent organization and quality, as well as in-house curated content.

Learning center: Resources in Merrill Edge’s Investor Education section feature an assortment of articles, videos and online courses that can be searched according to topic, format or your level of investing experience.

Investing basics: Merrill offers an excellent set of curated webinars on different themes, including ETFs, technical analysis and options trading. The on-demand videos can be searched through topic and/or difficulty level.

Life events education: Through Merrill Edge's Guidance and Retirement Center, customers can conduct goal planning for life events, use calculators to determine areas for improvement, read educational articles, watch videos, schedule one-on-one appointments, and more.

Podcasts: It’s worth mentioning that Merrill offers audio segments. The Merrill Perspective podcast discusses themes and current news topics. Though it’s driven by current events, it educates at the same time. We like it.

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 Merrill Edge.

• Average Connection Time: 2-3 minutes
• Average Net Promoter Score: 8.5 / 10
• Average Professionalism Score: 8.7 / 10
• Overall Score: 8.4 / 10
• Ranking: 4th of 14 brokers

Banking services

Merrill Edge is part of Bank of America, which offers a full suite of personal banking products, including savings accounts, checking accounts and credit cards. When it comes to banking and brokerage, Merrill Edge takes the crown thanks to seamless universal account management and its Preferred Rewards program.

Online banking services with Bank of America include $250,000 in FDIC-insured account protection. I’ve found moving back and forth between bank and brokerage accounts to be easy and efficient.

Final thoughts

Overall, Merrill Edge offers customers a superb, well-rounded offering. Investors will appreciate Merrill Edge's $0 trades, robust research and reliable customer service. Similarly, Bank of America customers will discover that Merrill Edge is an excellent extension of the Bank of America brand.

Here are our top findings on Merrill Edge for 2023:

1. With proprietary tools such as Stock Story and Portfolio Story alongside robust educational resources, Merrill Edge is among our Best in Class for Research, Beginners and IRA Accounts.
2. Merrill Edge remains our top pick for investors looking to manage banking and brokerage under one roof. Merrill Edge received our industry awards for No. 1 Overall Client Experience and No. 1 Client Dashboard, thanks to offering $0 stock and ETF trades, excellent universal account management, the best multi-account rewards and outstanding customer service.
3. While Merrill Edge offers a feature-rich trading platform, MarketPro, it didn't impress us enough to make our top picks lists for day trading.

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What's the difference between Merrill Lynch and Merrill Edge?

Merrill Lynch is not the same as Merrill Edge, but they do share many resources and both are part of Bank of America. Merrill Lynch is a traditional full-service broker with financial advisors that serve affluent and emerging affluent investors. Merrill Lynch brokers are encouraged to focus on building and retaining relationships with wealthy clients. Merrill Edge is a discount online broker that has no account minimum and $0 commission stock and ETF trades while still providing some access to Merrill Lynch’s research and tools. Both are owned by Bank of America.

Can I trust Merrill Edge?

Yes, you can trust Merrill Edge. The broker is a subsidiary of Bank of America and the assets in your account are insured against insolvency (not market losses) from the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, or SIPC; the FDIC (bank cash deposits only); and Lloyd’s of London.

Is Merrill Edge good for beginners?

Merrill Edge is a good choice for beginner investors. It placed in our top 5 brokers for this category in our 2023 annual review of online brokers. Its Stock Story, Fund Story, and Portfolio Story features make investing a piece of cake. Though it doesn’t offer fractional shares or paper portfolios, it has robust educational content. Merrill Edge is an excellent choice for novices.

Is a Merrill Edge account good?

Merrill Edge is a good choice for beginners, those interested in environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, high net worth investors, and those looking to have their banking and investing experiences under one roof. Merrill Edge’s prices aren’t the lowest, but the prices are justified in the breadth and quality of their services.

How much money do you need to open a Merrill Edge account?

There is no minimum to open a Merrill Edge account. Certain services do require a minimum account balance. The robo-advisor portfolio management requires a $1,000 investment, and fully managed advisory services with an advisor carries a $20,000 minimum.

Does Merrill Edge have hidden fees?

Merrill Edge, like most U.S. online brokers, charges nothing for stock and ETF trades and there are no account fees. There are incidental charges, which can be found on its website. Unfortunately, its margin rates are not published, as they depend on the depth of the customer’s relationship with Bank of America and Merrill.

About Merrill Edge

Launched in 2010 and headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Merrill Edge is the self-directed trading arm of Bank of America. Merrill Edge’s origins go all the way back to discount broker Quick & Reilly. Merrill Edge was originally created by Merrill Lynch, which became a subsidiary of Bank of America in 2008.

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.

Merrill Edge 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

Industry Awards

Merrill Edge 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