Interactive Brokers Review

Interactive Brokers has global reach, professional-caliber tools, investment options for any objective or market, and, to top it off, is often the least expensive in many of the categories we analyze. Now it’s focused on becoming more accessible to individual investors.

Pros & Cons

Overall summary

Investment options

Interactive Brokers provides the most diverse offering in the industry and leads by a wide margin in multiple areas, including international trading. Globally, customers in over 200 countries can trade in more than 150 markets.

I ran into two frustrations with IBKR. One probably won’t affect many retail customers, and the other will affect virtually everyone. The first is its somewhat restrictive trading permissions. If you want to trade options or leveraged trading products (such as SQQQ), be aware that IBKR has unusually high standards for granting permission to trade them.

If you’re just sticking to stocks and ETFs, you’ll likely run into another small annoyance: the need to specify a trading instrument after entering a ticker symbol. For example, entering “NVDA” into the search bar yielded around two dozen ways to take a position on the company. Happily, the common stock was the first choice, but it’s something that doesn’t happen as often at domestic-only brokers. I’d appreciate an account setting that defaults searches to certain markets.

Cryptocurrency: Interactive Brokers added cryptocurrency trading to its offerings in 2021. Traders can trade bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin, and bitcoin cash through their integrated account. And, whoa man, is crypto trading cheap: Commissions are 0.12% to 0.18%, with a minimum of $1.75 per order and a maximum of 1% of trade value.

Forex: Do you want to lock in a high exchange rate before traveling overseas or diversify away from a gyrating U.S. dollar? No problem. It’s easy and inexpensive to exchange currencies at IBKR, a feature you won’t find at many other brokers. (If you’re interested in trading forex, see the IBKR review on our sister site, ForexBrokers.com.)

Other: Interactive Brokers lets U.S. investors trade spot gold in amounts as small as one ounce. There are also Micro and Small futures contracts, opening access to the futures markets to a broader audience. Small Exchange futures are only $0.08 per contract. IBKR has also recently been rolling out access to ForecastTrader, a prediction market, to eligible regions, where clients can purchase Yes or No contracts betting that certain events or forecasts will occur.

Commissions and fees

Interactive Brokers, our No. 1 pick for free stock trading, offers two pricing plans: IBKR Pro (meant for professionals) and IBKR Lite (for casual investors). IBKR Lite is a low-fee $0 commission plan (but makes money for IBKR through payment for order flow) while IBKR Pro is commission-based (but provides stellar order execution quality, important for institutions and some professionals).

IBKR Lite: With IBKR Lite, there are no market data fees and all U.S. stock and ETF trades are $0. Options trades are $0.65 per contract. The only caveat to IBKR Lite is slightly lower-quality order executions due to payment for order flow (PFOF). Like most other $0 commission brokers, under IBKR Lite, Interactive Brokers makes money from PFOF. Though we’re no fans of PFOF at StockBrokers.com, it only affects executions by a few pennies per $1,000 traded. Retail investors shouldn’t let it be a dealbreaker.

IBKR Pro stock trades: The tiered pricing plan starts at $.0035 per share ($0.35 minimum), unless you’re trading 300,000 or more shares monthly, which can drive it down to as low as $.0005. There’s also a fixed Pro plan that isn’t volume-dependent. Institutions will pay this for being able to route orders to dark pools in hopes of getting better executions on their gazillion share positions, something those of us trading 50 shares of Amazon or Apple shouldn’t worry about.

IBKR Pro options trades: On U.S. exchanges using Interactive Brokers SMART routing, commissions per options contract are tiered. Any premium greater than $0.10 equals $0.65 per contract with a $1 minimum and no maximum. For premiums between $0.05 and $0.10, the rate is $0.50 per contract. Finally, for premiums less than $0.05, the rate is $0.25 per contract.

IBKR Pro other benefits: Interactive Brokers does not accept payment for order flow in IBKR Pro, a key element in providing quality order execution.

Mutual funds: Interactive Brokers offers over 48,000 mutual funds globally, with over 11,000 in the U.S. Of the U.S. mutual funds, over 4,000 are ticket charge-free; otherwise, the standard fee is the lesser of 1.5% of the trade value or $14.95, which is still a good price compared to most other brokers.

Penny stocks: IBKR Pro is not a good choice for trading penny stocks, as you’ll pay a per-share commission.

Mobile trading apps

Interactive Brokers offers not just one mobile app, but three - each with its own focus. Given the flagship IBKR Mobile, Impact, and GlobalTrader apps, there’s something for everyone, unless you’re looking for a lighthearted approach or personal finance coaching. IBKR won’t hound you to quit your daily Starbucks and save $5 a day. It seeks to be a technology and price leader rather than becoming the next e-Suze Orman or e-Jean Chatzky.

There are three mobile apps available to retail investors. The two novice-focused apps, Impact and GlobalTrader, cater to different interests while sharing many elements. Clients can use any or all three apps.

IBKR Mobile: The IBKR Mobile app is the most feature-laden of IBKR’s mobile app suite. From lightning-quick streaming data to full-featured order entry and portfolio management, IBKR Mobile includes almost everything experienced investors and professionals require to trade on the go, and it’s not too heavy a lift for individual investors, either.

GlobalTrader: Beginners and foreign stock aficionados will enjoy using GlobalTrader, which allows fractional stock trades, options trading and convenient access to foreign shares. Everything is clearly laid out and easy to operate. I’d rank GlobalTrader above many apps from beginner-focused brokers.

Impact: The Impact app, which focuses on ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, prompts you to choose values that are important to you, such as clean water or opposition to animal testing. From there, you can identify companies that support those values and even “swap” positions in your portfolio with a single trade. Your Impact dashboard will display an A-F grade for your portfolio based on the values chosen.

Charting: Charting on IBKR Mobile is robust. There’s a revamped charting package that’s a notable improvement over an already very good one. There are over 90 optional indicators, 80 drawing tools, and easy customizations. One nitpick: I wasn’t able to find stock and/or index comparisons. Customizations are saved to the cloud, so chart markups can appear on any platform.

Tap for a demo of IBKR's mobile app.

IBKR mobile apps gallery

Other trading platforms and tools

Interactive Brokers’ flagship platform, the desktop-based Trader Workstation (TWS), supports trading almost everything under the sun. While TWS is not designed for new investors, it easily ranks among the best trading platforms in the industry, even if it does come across as being a bit long in the tooth. Luckily IBKR seems to be addressing that with a new desktop app. If you are a new investor, I'd recommend spinning up your web browser and accessing the Client Portal for an easier to use but still feature-rich trading platform.

IBKR Desktop: A recent addition to IBKR’s stable of platforms is the downloadable Desktop. Though it’s clearly under development (I tested version 0.04) and very skinny in features, it’s a big leap forward in design compared to Trader Workstation. I’m eagerly awaiting a fully built-out version. For now, it’s more of a feature to watch than a platform for daily use.

TWS trading tools: Tools designed for seasoned traders abound within TWS: algo trading, an Options Strategy Lab, Volatility Lab, Risk Navigator, Market Scanner, and Strategy Builder, to name a few. Watch lists can include anything from equities to individual options contracts, futures, forex, warrants – you name it. Hundreds of data points are available for column customization.

IBot: IBot, also available in IBKR Mobile, uses a foundation of artificial intelligence to quickly service customer requests via chat (or voice in the iPhone app). Portfolio information, orders, quotes, and more are all supported. Think, "What's the last price of GOOG?" or, "Chart AAPL vs. MSFT" or, "Buy 100 shares of META."

Client Portal: This platform for less-experienced traders is offered through Interactive Brokers’ website and includes all the core features necessary to trade and manage a portfolio. Portal, like IBKR Mobile, is feature-rich without trying to pack as much data as possible onto the screen, striking a good balance between utility and ease of use.

Client Portal and Trader Workstation (TWS) gallery

Research

Interactive Brokers provides excellent research resources for both novices and experts alike. For casual investors, sticking to Fundamentals Explorer within Client Portal is, hands down, the way to go for doing research. Trader Workstation is a better fit for seasoned traders and professionals.

Trader Workstation

Stock research: TWS research highlights include numerous screeners, extensive back-testing functionality, and portfolio analysis tools, which are all excellent. For traders looking to conduct specific research, Interactive Brokers offers third-party provider feeds a la carte. Any provider package purchased integrates straight into TWS.

However, performing even basic research on stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds on TWS is nothing like the traditional full-service brokerage experience one might find at Charles Schwab or Fidelity Investments. It’ll take a while to learn how to navigate TWS to find the information you want and assemble a layout that works for you. Expect some frustration.

The web-based Client Portal, in contrast, is far easier to use and, while not quite as intuitive as the offerings of leaders in this arena, is a much lighter lift than TWS, and goes far deeper than many other firms’ web offerings.

Client Portal

Fundamentals Explorer: Built to help everyday investors perform traditional fundamental research on stocks, ETFs, and mutual funds, the Fundamentals Explorer page uses charts and graphs to visualize data. For example, the Social Sentiment analysis tab uses a slew of X (formerly Twitter) data to plot sentiment over time on a chart, which helps visualize social activity around a stock. There are also automated technical opinions from Trading Central.

ESG research: Interactive Brokers includes a variety of environmental, social and governance ratings and research across its platforms, including the abovementioned Impact tool, which lets you score your portfolio stock holdings for ESG-specific metrics.

PortfolioAnalyst: One of my favorite functions on a Bloomberg terminal was its portfolio performance reporting. I could see how my portfolio stacked up against a benchmark and what was driving the differences: The function told me whether my under/outperformance was due to stock picking, sector allocations, or market timing. Unfortunately, a Bloomberg terminal costs well over $24K a year. So you can imagine how happy I am to find that IBKR offers the same thing for free. PortfolioAnalyst provides traders with hedge fund-level reporting on their portfolio's performance and makeup. Interactive Brokers also offers a free version for non-clients where you can link all your accounts and run reports. It's a compelling tool for traders with assets spread across several brokers.

Education

Interactive Brokers offers numerous options to learn about trading and investing under the Education tab on the home page. Check out IBKR Campus and the Trader's Academy if you're getting started. There is a wide variety of well-organized written material, video content, and even some quizzes with progress tracking. Unlike some brokers that want to come across as cute and cuddly (not that there’s nothing wrong with that), IBKR’s educational material takes a professional tone. Its content will inform, not entertain. That’s fine by me.

Banking services

While Interactive Brokers does not provide traditional banking services, it does offer its version of a cash management account with a debit card, bill pay, and the ability to earn interest on uninvested cash. Bill payments and ATM withdrawals are $0.50.

Your account must be denominated in a base currency that has a positive interest rate to earn interest. There are also minimum tier cutoff levels, wherein you earn a yield only on cash that exceeds those levels, which vary per currency.

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 this year's testing, 135 customer service tests were conducted over six weeks, with wait times logged for each call.

Customer service representatives were asked for assistance or details for prospective customers in several areas of broker services, including account opening, trading tools, apps, rollovers, active trading, and more. Here are the results for Interactive Brokers.

• Average Connection Time: 1-2 minutes
• Average Net Promoter Score: 4.2 / 10
• Average Professionalism Score: 3.7 / 10
• Overall Score: 7.7 / 10
• Ranking: 12th of 13 brokers

Final thoughts

With industry-leading commission rates for professional traders, more than 100 optional order types (and that’s not counting third-party offerings), trading in over 150 markets, and platforms suitable for beginners or professionals, Interactive Brokers is an excellent choice for sophisticated investors and the professionals who serve them. I also like IBKR for beginner investors looking for fractional shares, paper trading, easy mobile apps and trustworthy educational content, but some other brokers do offer a friendlier novice experience.

Here are our three top takeaways for Interactive Brokers for 2024.

1. Interactive Brokers is best known for offering traders access to global markets. Additionally, professionals can take advantage of industry-leading commissions, including the lowest margin rates across all balance tiers.
2. Interactive Brokers is an excellent choice for day trading, mobile trading, options trading, futures trading, and professional trading.
3. IBKR is also a great choice for beginners, but a bit more, well, pizzazz would go a long way.

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Is my money safe with Interactive Brokers?

Interactive Brokers is well-capitalized and is licensed and regulated in nearly a dozen major jurisdictions, making it a safe broker to hold your money. Interactive Brokers is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: IBKR) with a market capitalization of over $34 billion as of October 2023.

Money held in an investment account with Interactive Brokers in the U.S. is protected by SIPC insurance, which covers up to $500,000 in securities and up to $250,000 in cash. Interactive Brokers does not carry FDIC insurance, because it is not a bank. It can, however, sweep cash balances into FDIC-insured banks: if you hold more than $250,000 in cash, Interactive Brokers offers a Insured Bank Deposit Sweep Program, which provides up to $2.5 million in FDIC insurance in addition to the SIPC insurance. There’s additional account coverage through Lloyd’s of London. This coverage, of course, doesn’t extend to investment losses.

The degree of security may depend on the specific country you are located in and the related regulatory requirements that Interactive Brokers follows in countries where it holds client funds, such as the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Singapore, India and Japan.

Is Interactive Brokers good for beginners?

IBKR has many beginner-friendly features, such as fractional shares, paper trading, and simplified mobile apps. The broker’s investor education covers a broad range of topics and lets you test your newly acquired knowledge through quizzes. Other brokers might come across as friendlier, but IBKR delivers on substance.

How do the fees at Interactive Brokers compare to other brokers?

Interactive Brokers is cheap because it leverages technology efficiently and competes as a low-cost provider. According to CSI Markets, Interactive Brokers’ revenue per employee was recently over $3.8 million, which compares favorably to competitor Charles Schwab’s figure of $621,826.

IBKR Lite is the zero-commission tier for retail brokers at Interactive Brokers. There’s also a pro version that charges commissions. Like all brokers, IBKR has incidental charges. One of the most unusual is a fee of $1 or more per withdrawal, if you exceed one withdrawal per calendar month.

IBKR competes aggressively on price and is often among the lowest-cost brokers in several areas, especially in margin rates and cryptocurrency trading.

Does Interactive Brokers trade crypto?

Yes, Interactive Brokers customers can trade bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum, and litecoin.

What is the difference between IBKR Pro and Lite?

Interactive Brokers’ Lite tier is intended for individual investors and provides commission-free stock and ETF trades in exchange for IBKR receiving payment for order flow. IBKR Pro is for larger trades and higher volume traders and also charges lower margin rates. Most individuals will likely be better off choosing IBKR Lite, but it’s easy to switch between them as your needs evolve.

Which Interactive Brokers app should I download?

You can download and use any of the three, but which you'll use the most will depend on your specific focus while trading. The IBKR Mobile app is likely the one most users will use on a daily basis as it's the most fully featured and tailored to experienced investors and professionals, but not a heavy lift for individual investors either.

Meanwhile, GlobalTrader will appeal to both beginners and those interested in trading foreign stocks. For example, it allows fractional stock trades in an easy to use and intuitive layout. More experienced investors will also enjoy the ease of options trading and access to foreign markets through the app.

Finally, those interested in ESG investing should definitely pick up the Impact app as you will be able to select the values important to your investing philosophy and environmental or social interests and then see how aligned your portfolio is to those concerns. You will then be able to make trades and swap positions based on the outcome of those choices.

About Interactive Brokers

Headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ: IBKR) was founded in 1978 by Thomas Peterffy, who is respected as "an early innovator in computer-assisted trading." Interactive Brokers is most widely recognized for its extensive international reach. The firm places almost 2 million trades per day and services over 1.5 million client accounts with over $296 billion in customer equity.

Interactive Brokers 2024 Results

For the StockBrokers.com 2024 Annual Awards, announced on Jan. 23, 2024, all U.S. equity brokers we reviewed were assessed on over 200 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, Day Trading, IRA Accounts, Investor Community, Penny Stock Trading, Bank Brokerage, High Net Worth Investors, 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.

Category awards

Industry awards

StockBrokers.com 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 in-house experts’ deep authority in the field; brokers cannot pay for preferential treatment. Here’s more about trustworthiness at StockBrokers.com.

Our research team conducts thorough testing on a wide range of features, products, services, and tools for U.S. investors, collecting and validating thousands of data points in the process; this makes StockBrokers.com home to the largest independent database on the web covering the online broker industry. We test all available trading platforms for each broker and evaluate them based on a host of data-driven variables.

As part of our process, all brokers had the annual 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 or about StockBrokers.com.

Interactive Brokers 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

References

Interactive Brokers' Wikipedia

About the Editorial Team