Best ETF Brokers: Expert Picks for All Trader Levels

Benzinga readers trust Interactive Brokers and Robinhood as the best ETF brokers.

Are you looking for the best brokers for ETFs? ETF investing is a relatively new investment vehicle, and to experience the most success, you will need a broker who can help guide you through the process. Benzinga breaks down the process and provides a list of the best brokers for ETF investing below.

Quick Look at the Best ETF Brokers:

9 Best ETF Brokers

The more popular ETFs have become, the more they’ve popped up. Here’s a look at the best online brokerages for ETF investors. Investors who want to get exposure to the high returns of the stock market without risking the potential downside of individual stocks are increasingly choosing to invest in exchange-traded funds or ETFs. 

1. Best for Trading Ideas: Public.com

With no commissions and no account minimum, Public.com is a wonderful place to invest, especially for beginners. You can hold stocks, ETFs, crypto and alternative investments all in the same place, making it much easier for you to build a strong portfolio. You can educate yourself on the platform, start slow and grow at a rate that makes sense for your wallet. Plus, Public.com works well for advanced investors who need to use stop-loss and take-profit orders.

Why We Picked It: Public.com offers a user-friendly platform that allows investors to trade commission-free, making it accessible for both beginners and experienced traders. Additionally, its unique social features enable users to connect with other investors, share insights and discover new investment strategies.

2. Lowest Cost Overall: Interactive Brokers

Interactive Brokers offers a commission-free ETF program with over 150 exchange-traded funds. This program allows investors to trade these specific ETFs without incurring any commission fees.  IBKR Lite clients automatically benefit from this program, while IBKR Pro clients may receive a rebate on commissions paid for ETFs held in their accounts for at least 30 days. The program features ETFs from well-known providers like WisdomTree, GlobalX, PIMCO, and KraneShares.

Choose from 2 plans: IBKR Lite or IBKR Pro.

IBKR Lite provides retail clients with $0 commissions on US-listed stock and ETF trades, no account minimums, and no inactivity fees.

IBKR Pro is the IBKR Plan for sophisticated investors and active traders. IBKR Pro clients access the IB SmartRouting system, which helps support best price execution by searching for the best available prices for stocks, options and combinations across exchanges and dark pools.

Why We Picked It: IBKR offers access to several unique trading tools. With low commission rates, investors find it easier to reinvest profits, facilitating a more streamlined investment strategy that can capitalize on market opportunities.

3. Best for Beginners: Robinhood

Because Robinhood allows traders to buy and sell stocks without commission charges, it’s easy for you to invest in a range of basic assets that can help you build or bolster your portfolio. In addition to no-fee trading and a $0 minimum deposit, you can buy and sell ETFs from the comfort of your mobile device, with the mobile-native setup that allows you to make investment decisions on the fly. 

Yes, you don’t have some of the bells and whistles that are designed for professional traders, but the passive trader who wants to save for the future and invest in safe assets like ETFs can do so without a massive overlay or lots of wasted time. 

Buy and sell stocks with a few clicks. Move from your computer to your phone or tablet easily. You also get a free share of a major stock that Robinhood chooses for you when you sign up. While you’re saving money on fees and commissions, Robinhood also offers gold, retirement and cash account options. 

Why We Picked It: Without the bells and whistles, newer traders can learn much faster on Robinhood. Active traders benefit from the speed and simplicity of order placement, enabling you to make swift decisions and capitalize on market opportunities.

4. Best for Mixed Portfolios: eToro

eToro is well known for its crypto investing platform, allowing users to build portfolios in this emerging market. The platform, however, also allows users to invest in stocks and ETFs.

• Invest in full stocks or fractionals, including ETFs
• Explore a social investment platform where you can see the activity and holdings of other investors (direct communication might be limited).
• Review detailed price charts and technical analyses
• Pay zero commissions on stock and ETF trades (note: spreads apply to cryptocurrency trades)

Reach out to the customer service for more information, or you can simply build your portfolio on eToro today. With diversification comes greater wealth, especially as ETFs provide you with the security you need in uncertain times.

Why We Picked It: Price charts on eToro serve as a valuable tool for investors, allowing you to easily calculate your overhead costs associated with various trades. Additionally, eToro’s platform facilitates the management of mixed portfolios, making it easier for you to review all your assets in one centralized location.

5. Best for Long Term Investors: Magnifi

Magnifi is a marketplace that allows you, as the investor, to use common brokerage tools and AI to make the best decisions for your portfolio. Because you can pull up all the information you need on a given asset, you can easily invest in the assets that will give you the results you deserve and better match your investing strategy.

Search for the investment options that meet your needs, invest in specific categories or scan for assets in a price range that’s affordable for you.

Best for long-term investors and those who require a bit of client support, you can also learn more about investing from this platform, utilize the AI-powered investing assistant, enjoy commission-free investing, try the mobile app and take advantage of over 15,000 possible investment options. This makes Magnifi a good place to trade for both seasoned and novice traders.

Why We Picked It: Magnifi offers automated trading solutions that seamlessly integrate with active lifestyles. With the ability to invest within a budget, you can effectively control your cash flow and make informed financial decisions that align with your personal and professional commitments.

6. Best for Advanced Traders: TradeStation

TradeStation offers commission-free stock and ETF trades, but only up to 10,000 shares per order. Larger trades incur fees. 

Choose your platform carefully: TS Select (with a $2,000 minimum) offers free trades on web and desktop, while TS GO (no minimum) has free trades only on mobile and web, with desktop trades costing $10.

TradeStation also boasts a spectacular mobile platform that investors on the go can access on their iOS or Android devices. Your mobile brokerage account automatically synchronizes with your online accounts in real-time.

Why We Picked It: TradeStation offers innovative technology that simplifies the process of customizing your investment portfolio to better align with your financial goals. With its user-friendly mobile app, you can easily manage and execute your trading strategies while on the go.

7. Best for Active Traders: E*TRADE

Like its competitors, E*TRADE offers over 250 commission-free ETFs, including some of the most popular ETFs among traders. E*TRADE makes doing ETF research easy, too. Their comprehensive list of ETFs tracks historical data from ETFs in a variety of asset classes in one easy-to-use webpage.

Quotes are only delayed by about 15 minutes, too, making the data truly actionable.

If you’re looking to trade outside of the commission-free ETFs, E*TRADE charges $6.95 per ETF trade. This rate is a few dollars higher than their competitors, so if you’re looking to trade outside of the free ETFs, keep this in mind.

Why We Picked It: E*TRADE provides historical data that is instrumental in helping investors identify longstanding trends within the financial markets. E*TRADE also ensures that quotes are delayed for a short time, offering you a level of transparency and consistency.

8. Best for All Trading Levels: Charles Schwab

No matter how many ways you look at it, 245 commission-free ETFs is tough to beat. But if you add low expense ratios, Schwab’s ETF Portfolio Builder tool, its quarterly list of prescreened ETFs and its world-class customer service team, Schwab becomes the top online destination for ETF investors.

Investors can customize a portfolio of ETFs based on their personal risk tolerance and financial goals. They can also browse through the categorized prescreened ETF lists and make sure their portfolio covers all the bases.

Schwab is still actively adding offerings to its commission-free ETF OneSource program, and investors never have to worry about early redemption fees.

Outside of the program, commissions are free, expense ratios are low, and face-to-face feedback is as easy as going down to the local branch. Schwab has everything an ETF investor could ever want and offers a great starting point for retirement investors.

Why We Picked It: Charles Schwab offers commission-free ETFs. The absence of early redemption fees means that if you decide to sell your ETFs, you won’t incur extra costs that could diminish your returns. This enables you to reinvest those funds back into the market more efficiently.

9. Best for Traders of All Levels: moomoo

Moomoo is an intuitive investment and trading platform with pro-grade, easy-to-use tools, data, and insights that create a pro-level trading experience for traders of all levels.

Features include:

• Real-time Level 2 stock and options market data for funded accounts
• Advanced technical indicators and charting tools
• Advanced order types
• Full extended trading hours from 4 AM to 8 PM EST
• Multi-market quotes
• Low fees, including $0 commission on U.S. Stocks and ETFs and $0 equity options contract fees
• 5.1% APY in the Cash sweep program for new customers and a 3.0% boost to 8.1% APY for qualified customers

Users can reach out to the moomoo customer support team either by phone during the trading day or via email. There are also FAQs in the Help Center if you have specific questions.

The site also provides you with extensive educational options, research tools, and a community with 20M+ users worldwide.

Why We Picked It: Moomoo stands out as an ETF broker due to its commission-free trading and robust research tools, empowering investors with in-depth analysis and real-time market data. Additionally, its user-friendly mobile and desktop platforms offer seamless trading experiences, catering to both novice and experienced investors.

What is an ETF?

While mutual funds are priced just once a day based on their net asset value, ETFs trade on public exchanges just like stocks, making them extremely liquid and tradable. But instead of a single stock, ETFs are funds that invest in dozens or hundreds of stocks, commodities and/or other securities all at once, allowing investors to achieve major diversity all in one swoop.  There are two types of ETFs: index-based ETFs and actively managed funds. 

Why Buy ETFs?

For some, ETFs are the right choice. Here’s why you may want to invest in them: 

• Limit risk: Investing in a basket of stocks versus an individual stocks spreads the risk around.
• Save time: You don’t have to research each company’s stock.
• Have lower fees: For the most part, ETFs have low fees, but pay attention to the expense ratio.
• Bought and sold during market hours: Unlike mutual funds, you don’t have to wait until the market closes to trade ETFs.

Here’s what you’ll have to watch out for. You can check the ETF’s prospectus via a Google search or the SEC’s EDGAR for this information:

• Objective: What is the fund trying to achieve?
• Historical performance: Not all ETFs are created equal. Check out the ETFs’ performance over time before you invest.
• Investment strategy: How will the funds be managed and achieve its objective?
• Risks involved: Specific risks should be outlined in the prospectus.

How to Choose

If you decide that you want to engage in ETF investing, you’ll have to open a brokerage account. Both the big and small name brokerages offer ETF investing and the number of options can be a little overwhelming. Here’s what to look for before you open an account to invest in ETFs:

Low Commissions

Most ETF brokers offer some form of free trading or commissions for new clients. If the brokerage does charge commission it usually hovers around $5 per trade. Commissions and fees can quickly add up, so traders should look for brokers that offer lower than average trading costs. Many online brokers now offer commission-free ETFs, meaning that there is no charge for buying or selling a particular fund.

Selection of ETFs

The bigger the selection, the better – as this means you have more options for diversifying your portfolio. A larger selection also allows you to choose from a wider variety of funds in different categories, such as domestic stocks, international stocks, bonds, commodities and alternative investments. Some brokerages offer over 200 ETFs to choose from.

Available Research

When choosing the best ETF brokers, it is important to consider the wealth of knowledge and information that brokerage provides about the ETFs they offer. The brokerages should make it easy to look up data about the ETFs they offer. This includes the origin, objective, strategy, and historical performance. This will help investors make informed decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions