Interactive Brokers Review

(8,848 user reviews)
3.9/5
Simon Lewis

Simon Lewis

Simon is a recognized world expert in investing. He has tested dozens of investment clubs, communities and investment research services. His research has been featured on Bloomberg, Business Insider, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNet and more.

Ranked #2 out of 5

Interactive Brokers - Best for active traders

Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is an established US firm active since the 1970s. The global brokerage company is specialized in online trading of equities and fixed income securities for retail and institutional investors worldwide. The platform is great for seasoned due to its advanced trading tools and features. IBKR doesn’t require an account minimum to start using the services.

The company's subsidiaries offer access to over 100 markets worldwide including equities; ETFs; futures; forex; options on stocks or indices; bonds; mutual funds from many different fund families.

Interactive Brokers Pros & Cons

Pros

Cons

Commissions & Fees

The brokerage firm offers two plans: IBKR Pro (professionals) and IBKR Lite (casual investors) with different commissions and fees..

IBKR Lite: an option for casual investors to trade US listed stocks and ETFs with $0 commissions, no account minimum requirements and no inactivity fees. Other investments, such as options, futures and mutual funds, follow the same IBKR Pro pricing.

IBKR Pro: plan for sophisticated investors and active trades who want access to an industry-leading trading platform (IB SmartRoutingSM) , which provides $0.47 per 100 shares of price improvement vs. the industry, allowing members to trade paying less than everyone else.

Interactive Broker’s Pro service is great for small order sizes, but big orders may become pricey due to the per-share commission. Moreover, accounts with less than $100K pay $10/month minus any trade commissions, and accounts with less than $2K pay $20/month minus commission.

Both services offer a $0 account minimum and fractional shares of stocks. IBKR Lite is a free service, while IBKR Pro charges an inactivity fee ($20 per month) if you’re not trading. We recommend IBKR Lite for casual investors and beginners.

Stock Trade
ETF Trade
Options Base
Options Per Contract
Futures Per Contract
OTC Trade
CFD's Trades
Mutual Fund Trade
Forex Trade
Crypto Trade
Inactive Account
Withdrawal
IBKR Lite: $0.00 IBKR Pro: $0.005 per share ($1 min)
$0.00
$0.00
$0.65 ($1 min)
$0.85
$0.0035 per share
0.005% to 0.010% per trade
$14.95
Variable spread + Commission (0.08 to 0.20 basis points. 0.1 pip GBP/USD)
$15.01 per Bitcoin contract.
IBKR Lite: $0.00 IBKR Pro: $20.00 per month
$0.00
Feature
Fee
Stock Trade
IBKR Lite: $0.00
IBKR Pro: $0.005 per share ($1 min)
ETF Trade
$0.00
Options Base
$0.00
Options Per Contract
$0.65 ($1 min)
Futures Per Contract
$0.85
OTC Trade
-
CFDs Trades
-
Mutual Fund Trade
$14.95
Forex Trade
-
Crypto Trade
-
Inactive Account
-
Withdrawal
-

Educational Content

If you want to deepen your knowledge while investing, you can learn from IBKR educational content - even though it is not as hand-holding as other firms' education material -. There are free education programs with more than 45 courses available, from Student Trading Lab to IBKR Quant Blog and webinars.

Most of the content is organized by experience level and topic. Quizzes and tests include progress tracking, while videos and articles don’t show their progress. Newby investors may find other brokerage’s educational content more valuable to guide them in their investing careers.

Desktop & Mobile Platforms

Interactive Brokers’s Client Portal is not the most user-friendly in the market, however it is adequate for casual traders' needs. Recently, the brokerage firm cleaned its account management website for a more clean dashboard layout and quick orders, suiting well IBKR Lite investors. The flagship platform, and the main differential of Interactive Brokers, is desktop-based Trader Workstation (TWS). It’s one of the best trading platforms available, designed especially for seasoned investors. TWS is a fully featured service that supports all types of trading, offering also real-time monitoring, alerts, watchlists, customizable charts, market data, streaming news, risk management, and much more.

Trader Workstation allows investors to access more than 100 global markets from their desktop, letting them create and submit all kinds of options orders, despite comparing five options strategies altogether. IBKR Pro members have also the support of IBot, an artificial intelligence that quickly offers customer help inside TWS platform.

For advanced investors, the Trader Workstation platform will make them feel like they’re capable of operating all kinds of investments.

Interactive Brokers offers a mobile trading platform for both IBKR Lite and Pro customers. Trade On-the-Go is an intuitive app that features a robust chart, data streams in real-time, news and a good research capability. Users can easily use the app to trade. However, Trade On-the-Go does not offer stock and index comparisons, nor the stocks alert can be sent through notification - the alerts are received via email.

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