Tastytrade Review

In the jungle of online trading platforms, tastytrade is the cheetah. It stalks opportunities, watches for danger, and then chases down its prey lightning-fast for the kill. Tastytrade isn’t for every investor, but its platform is ideal for frequent options and futures traders, offering efficient workflow, useful risk management tools, killer design, and online content that make you feel like you’re on a trading desk. That netted tastytrade the top award for Best Desktop Trading Platform in our 2023 Annual Review. The broker also took our top spot for options trading.

Note: Tastytrade, formerly tastyworks, rebranded in February 2023.

Overall Summary

Investment options

Traders will find more than enough to keep them busy through the trading day, but if you want to sock money away in a CD ladder or mutual funds, you won’t find those products here. Tastytrade's platforms only support listed stocks, ETFs, options, cryptocurrencies, futures, and options on futures. Some investments can be bought over the phone or held in accounts, but won’t show on the platform.

Cryptocurrency: Pricing is excellent (see below). Tastytrade offers 25 coins to trade, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Polkadot, Dogecoin, Polygon, Shiba Inu, Litecoin, Uniswap, Chainlink, Bitcoin Cash, Stellar, Tezos, Elrond, EOS, Aave, Maker, Enjin Coin, Ox, Basic Attention Token, Compound, OMG Network, Paxos Gold, and Kyber Network.

Commissions and fees

The sizzle on the tastytrade steak is its stock options pricing. Tastytrade's per-contract commission is 23% less than Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Schwab, and Fidelity, and tastytrade charges a maximum commission of $10 per leg.

Stocks and ETFs: Stocks and ETFs trade commission-free.

Options: Stock and ETF options are charged $1 per contract to open, with a maximum of $10 per leg to open and nothing is charged when the position is closed. For comparison purposes, that’s $0.50 per contract, each way, which is a shade cheaper than the $0.65 per contract charged by TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, E*TRADE, and Fidelity. But the $10 maximum charge per leg can lead to sweet savings on larger trades.

Options on futures are charged by the round trip, but there’s no maximum commission. Options on futures are $2.50 per contract. On micros, they are $1.50.

Penny stocks: Penny stocks aren’t supported at tastytrade.

Futures: Unlike the stock options and equity options pricing, these are charged on both sides of the trade and don’t have a maximum amount. Futures are $1.25 per contract, micros are $0.85, and Smalls are $0.25.

Cryptocurrency: Crypto is charged 1% of the trade for both the buy and the sell. But, as with stock options trades, the maximum charge is $10. Big-time crypto traders will appreciate the cap.

Mobile trading apps

Tastytrade’s biggest strength will be found on the desktop/laptop platform, but there’s enough tap-happy finger trading goodness on the mobile app to drum up some serious blisters. Tap. You’re long. Tap and drag. You’ve canceled and replaced an order. Tap again. UR out. It’s that sort of an experience.

Ease of use: The app is easy to use, but not intuitive. It’ll take some time before you navigate the app efficiently. Once you become familiar with the desktop platform, the app will make perfect sense. It’s super fast, and complex options orders are a snap to enter.

Watch lists: Watch lists can be scrolled both horizontally and vertically, something to keep in mind with many of tastytrade’s features. Personal watch lists sync across devices. You can pick and choose which columns are displayed.

Charting: On the mobile app, charts are crisp. Horizontal view is supported, as is zooming in and out. You can’t mark up charts with studies or annotations on the app, unlike the gazillion options available on the desktop.

Trading tools: With tastytrade's futures and options focus, risk management and order entry are front and center. Profit and loss diagrams are clear and you can adjust trades right on the graph. Dropdown option strategies populate the option chain and you can point and drag options legs until the probability of profit estimate, implied volatility and max gain/loss fit your plan.

Video content: Videos from tastylive, tastytrade's affiliated education network (which was itself formerly called tastytrade — a bit confusing, but stick with us), are available in the app. Don’t miss them. They are informal, even irreverent at times, and teach sophisticated topics while they comment on market action. They are as good a group of trading mentors as anyone could hope for.

Other trading platforms and tools

Tastytrade won our best desktop platform award this year for its efficient workflow and bold design. That’s where we expect traders will be happiest, but there’s also a very functional browser-based platform. Some other brokers have platforms that are easier to master, others will allow you to trade more instruments, and there are brokers that provide more tools, but tastytrade stands out for how well it serves its target customers.

Platforms overview: Tastytrade's user interface is designed for efficient navigation and working well on one screen. You can enjoy a leisurely coffee at Starbucks and trade from your laptop without wishing you had 12 more 27” screens behind that venti Americano. The cost for this efficient workflow is fewer widgets and less customization than, say, TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim or Interactive Brokers’ Trader Workstation.

Unlike many of the beginner-focused brokers that provide a few basic educational pieces and allow customers to buy options, tastytrade keeps risk management front and center. There are only a few tools available, but they are exactly what options traders need.

Tastytrade has gutsy graphic designers, too. Not many brokers would use red and black as their primary design colors, but it helps tastytrade stand out from the crowd. We like it. It appeals to our anything-goes trader mentality, or at least the one we like to pretend we have.

Web platform: The browser-based platform is similar to the desktop platform, but doesn’t have quite the laser-like legibility of desktop. If you’re on your personal computer, there’s little need to use the browser platform, since the desktop is available on both Mac OS and PC. But if you want to trade while traveling or at work (we won’t tell), the web platform is fine. The charts are great and you can maintain a journal, a nice feature we’d love to see every broker offer.

Charting: On the desktop, the charts are crisp and, unlike the mobile, highly customizable. There are hundreds of technical studies and 19 drawing tools, all anyone could possibly need. The chart window can be subdivided into four independent charts. Charting on the browser platform isn’t as rich as the desktop and comes off like a work in progress.

Tastytrade trading tools: The desktop supports clicking and dragging on several views to adjust orders. The profit/loss tool caters to options and can support multiple strategies. Watch lists sync across all platforms, and it’s easy to edit the watch lists and edit column views. Fundamental data is sorely lacking. We like how stock news is presented, in a readily available column.

Options trading: Futures and options are where tastytrade stands out, combining ease of use with advanced analysis and sophisticated profit and loss diagrams. Traders get tremendous value for that low options pricing.

Research

Tastytrade doesn’t offer research. Instead, it shares ideas through its watch lists and traders will find inspiration from the trade feeds and comments posted by affiliate tastylive's on-air talent. You won’t find a more knowledgeable and personable crew of traders anywhere else.

Tastytrade provides quotes and news, and that’s about it on the fundamental research front. So if you use tastytrade and you want to know what analysts think about Elon Musk’s latest hijinks, well, you’ll need another source. That’s true of ETFs, too. No Morningstar reports, ESG ratings or top 10 holdings.

Education

You don’t get education on tastytrade, at least not in the same way you will find at Charles Schwab or Fidelity. Instead, you get an ongoing stream of commentary and programming that feels as if you found trading mentors.

Learning center: Tastytrade’s affiliate network tastylive provides educational content on its website that covers the full gamut of beginner to expert trading.

Videos: The video feed embedded in all the platforms is where you level up your trading chops. You learn through watching traders discuss the markets and what they think is important. While doing that, they goof around, they tease each other, and maybe a few less-than-pristine words are uttered. It’s entertaining as well as informative. Our only gripe is that the video player can take a while to initially load. It’s worth the wait.

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 Tastytrade.

• Average Connection Time: <1 minute
• Average Net Promoter Score: 7.7 / 10
• Average Professionalism Score: 6.7 / 10
• Overall Score: 7.6 / 10
• Ranking: 9th of 14 brokers

Banking services

Traditional banking services aren’t currently offered at tastytrade. Given its target market of active traders, we don’t expect to see tastytrade-branded travel reward programs anytime soon.

Final thoughts

If you trade options, futures and crypto, tastytrade has a compelling value proposition, provided you can live with what it doesn’t have. Long term investors, mutual fund buyers and armchair stock analysts will find other brokers cater better to their needs.

Here are our three top takeaways for tastytrade for 2023:

1. Tastytrade's platforms are speedy, the tools are useful, and the workflow is efficient.
2. Options and crypto pricing is outstanding for larger trades.
3. Tastytrade goes its own way, and we think they’re doing it right.

Is my money safe with tastytrade?

Yes, your money is safe. Tastytrade is a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corp., or SIPC. Your account is covered against broker insolvency for up to $500,000 per customer (of which $250,000 can be in cash). This coverage doesn’t protect you against investment losses. Brokers in the U.S. are highly regulated and, though tastytrade is relatively new on the scene, the people behind tastytrade are respected industry veterans.

How much does it cost to open a tastytrade account?

Tastytrade doesn’t have an account minimum and there’s no charge to open a tastytrade account. Stocks and ETFs trade commission-free; stock and ETF options are $1 per contract to a maximum of $10 per leg to open. Options on futures are $2.50 per contract.

Does tastytrade have a monthly fee?

Tastytrade doesn’t have a monthly fee. It also does not charge annual IRA account fees or inactivity fees.

Does tastytrade have an app?

Tastytrade has an excellent mobile trading app that has much of the feel of the desktop platform. It’s available for both iOS and Android.

How do I contact tastytrade?

You can contact tastytrade via clicking on the speech bubble on the website and harassing the chatbot until it gives up and offers phone and live chat support, or you can directly dial tastytrade at (888) 247-1963.

About tastytrade

Tastytrade is the brokerage arm, launched in 2017 (and formerly called tastyworks), of investing education and insights network tastylive (originally called tastytrade) which dates to 2011. Tastytrade’s chief executive officer and chief technology officer hail from thinkorswim, the groundbreaking trading platform now owned by TD Ameritrade; as does tastytrade’s CEO. Tastytrade and tastylive were acquired in 2021 London-based fintech firm IG Group (OTC: IGGHY), which had a market capitalization of £3.37 billion as of November 2022.

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.

tastytrade results

For the StockBrokers.com 2023 Review, 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

tastytrade 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