The Best Online Stock Brokers for Cheap Stock Trading

Finding the best online stock broker is becoming more and more difficult every day. It seems like a new online broker is launched every month and cheap stock trading has become the way of the stock trading world.

Just 20 years ago, trading online was nearly impossible. With a few start-ups in the works, E*Trade and Firstrade offered a raw and expensive way to avoid calling your local broker and making trades on your own.

As the years have progressed, trading stocks online has become easier for the consumer AND less expensive, which is a rare combination in business.

Nowadays, you can find dozens of online stock brokers, each claiming to be the best at what they do. But just how many of them can offer cheap trading, expert customer service, lightning-fast execution, and cutting-edge technology?

Let’s take a look.

The Best Online Stock Brokers

M1 Finance

M1Finance allows you to actively choose what you want in your portfolio while using a robo advisor platform–making it an excellent hybrid option for anyone who wants hands-on control with automatic contributions and rebalancing.

The program is built on the idea of “pie investing,” where each slice of the pie represents categories of investments. While M1 Finance has dozens of prebuilt pies for you choose from, each of which is geared to particular risk tolerance and investment horizon.

You can personalize your pie by making adjustments or reallocating investments or choosing the weight of each slice. Slices that outperform their target weight will grow and underperforming slices will shrink.

M1 Finance also lets you trade fractional shares. There are no fees, and you can get started with a $100 minimum investment. See our full review of M1 Finance.

To open up an M1 Finance account, visit their official website at www.M1Finance.com

Ally Invest

Ally Invest fits right at the top of our list as it seems to do everything exceptionally. It was the first to offer the low per-trade commission of $4.95, which does not change if you utilize a broker over the phone and options trading has the same $4.95 cost, plus a $0.65 fee per contract.

Those fees go down to $3.95 per trade and a $0.50 per options contract if you either execute 30 or more trades per quarter or if you maintain an average daily balance of $100,000 or more.

If you follow SmartMoney, Barron’s and other graders of online stock brokers, you’ll find Ally Invest (formerly TradeKing) winning awards almost every time they are handed out.

Ally Invest offers customer support and will reimburse you for up to $150 in transfer fees if you move at least $2,500 to Ally from another brokerage.

They are also offering a cash bonus and 90 days of free trades if you open an account with at least $10,000. You will receive $300 in cash to your account with an opening deposit of $10,000. The cash bonus goes up in tiers up to a $3,500 bonus with an opening deposit of $2 million.

Finally, Ally Invest is a leader in educating customers and you’ll find hundreds of resources to help both amateur and professional investors. See our full review of Ally Invest.

To open up an Ally Invest account, visit their official website at www.ally.com/invest/

TD Ameritrade

TD Ameritrade currently offers fee-free IRA accounts and has fantastic customer service.

In my five years of trading with TD Ameritrade, I have never encountered a single delay, problem or inconvenience. They also now offer free trades ($25 for broker-assisted trades) which is pretty amazing.

While many other brokers offer similar services for cheap stock trading, I’ve found one that has been nothing short of fantastic, and now that it’s free, TD Ameritrade is really a no-brainer.

In order to trade with TD Ameritrade, you’ll need a minimum balance of $2,000.

You can also use their iPhone or Android app to access your account and make trades.

To open up a TD Ameritrade account, visit their official website at www.TDAmeritrade.com

Disclosure: All opinions expressed are our own. We are compensated by some of the businesses that we review (e.g. TD Ameritrade).

Fidelity

Fidelity isn’t your normal online stock broker. They have a very powerful brand behind them, produce quality, low-cost funds, and over the past several years have received major credibility as a “discount broker.”

Currently, Fidelity offers online stock and ETF trades for free. To trade options online, you’ll pay only $0.65 per contract. There is no minimum deposit required to fund your brokerage account, but certain accounts may require a minimum opening balance of $2,500.

Fidelity offers live chat and 24/7 phone support. It’s free, very fast, and simple to use (I’ve tried it myself.) Most mobile devices are compatible with Fidelity. With hundreds of webinars to educate investors, Fidelity is a great place to begin your investing career.

To open up a Fidelity account, visit their official website at www.Fidelity.com

E*Trade

E*Trade is the only online stock broker I can think of that advertises on television, making them the most well known on this list. They are also one of the more expensive, as they charge $6.95 per trade and an additional $25 if you use a broker to execute the trade. This fee drops to $4.95 per trade if you make over 30 trades per quarter.

E*Trade is currently offering up to 500 free trades for the first 60 days of opening your account, but you will have to fund it with at least $10,000 (and of course other restrictions apply).

You can also get $200 in a cash credit if you deposit or transfer $25,000 to an E*Trade account. That cash bonus goes depending on your deposit amount and maxes out at $2,500 for a million dollar deposit. E*Trade’s technology and platform are like no other and for experienced investors, E*Trade by far is your best option. However, for the casual investor, it may be a better idea to go with one of the other brokers, to save money on fees.

ChoiceTrade

ChoiceTrade isn’t your everyday online stock broker and if you visit their website, you’ll know that right away.

Rated four-star broker by Barron’s for the last six years, ChoiceTrade offers $0 stock trades. For options trades, there is a $0 base plus $0.40 per contract–or you can choose a $10 and $0 per contract.

However, the main drawback to using ChoiceTrade is their platform. If you’re looking for good technology, you will have to pay for it. The ChoiceTrader platform is free, but you can upgrade to one of three online streaming platforms for a monthly fee.

Their basic online streaming platform costs $14.95 per month and their premium platform is $135 per month. ChoiceTrade does feature an in-depth investor community where you can ask thousands of fellow users your questions. Also, you can sign up for a virtual account with a $100,000 balance to try out their services.

To open up a ChoiceTrade account, visit their official website at www.ChoiceTrade.com

thinkorswim

thinkorswim has been around since 1999 and is now owned by TD Ameritrade. They are known as one of the best places to trade options because of their superior technology, as well as a hub for options educational information.

In 2017, they were ranked #1 for long-term investing by Barron’s and #1 overall broker by StockBrokers.com. You can trade stocks for free–with no account balance requirement or limit on how often you can make trades. Broker-assisted trades will cost you $25.

They offer 24/7 customer support and they don’t charge any fees for access to the trading platform or other data. TD Ameritrade and thinkorswim offer “Paper Money” accounts, to try out different strategies with no real money involved.

To open up a thinkorswim account, visit their official website at www.thinkorswim.com

SogoTrade

SogoTrade is one of the quieter online stock brokers and unless you’ve already opened an account with them, this may be the first time you’ve heard of them.

They are one of the leaders in cheap stock trading with a $2.88 rate for those who make at least 150 trades per quarter (otherwise the fee is $4.88). With their four unique trading platforms and an app (available for Apple or Android devices), SogoTrade continues to implement game-changing technology. All of their platforms provide customers with up-to-the-second data to help them make the well-informed trades.

There are no account maintenance fees and no minimum deposit. SogoTrade protects customer account funds up to $500,000.

To open up a SogoTrade account, visit their official website at www.SogoTrade.com

Not into active, online trading? Try something a little less hands-on. See our list of the best Robo Advisors.