11 Best Discount Brokers of November 2024

There’s good news for investors — the primary fees charged by brokers, known as trading fees or commissions, have gotten much lower in recent years. As you can see in our table above, all of the brokers we've included here charge no trading commissions.

In the table above, click on the review for each of our top-rated discount brokers to find out about any fees they may charge. You'll find most offer low or no account fees, which is part of how they made our list.

With a discount broker, you pay far less to trade investments, but generally, you’re in charge of managing your trades, and you’re likely to pay an extra fee if you want help from a person.

If you’re looking to sidestep a broker entirely, you can try investing directly through a company’s direct investment plan (aka DRIPs). Keep in mind, though, that generally it’s not as easy as trading with a broker — and only some publicly traded companies offer such plans.

It’s easier than ever to invest in stocks with very little money, in large part because a growing number of brokerages and robo-advisors offer fractional shares. These allow you to buy a small piece of a stock share, instead of the entire share. That means rather than needing hundreds of dollars to buy a pricey stock, you can invest in many companies at amounts as low as, say, $5.

This is easier than ever, now that many brokers have eliminated commissions: All the options above provide free stock trades.

Investing in the stock market usually means investing with a broker, because most banks don’t offer access to stock market investments; if they do, those investments tend to be offered through an investment advisory that likely charges higher fees than a discount broker.