Best-Of Awards 2025 Methodology - Best Broker for IRA Investors

Best-Of Awards 2025 Methodologies

Best Broker for IRA Investors

How we picked the companies to evaluate:

NerdWallet reviewed 19 online brokerages that offer self-directed accounts. These brokerages constitute the majority of that market based on their assets under management. Some of the providers are NerdWallet partners, but this did not influence our selection of the winner.

How we chose the winner:

NerdWallet evaluated each provider across the weighted criteria below to determine the winner for individual retirement account (IRA) investing:

• Retirement planning tools (30%).
• Customer service, including hours of availability, ease of finding key information on the provider’s website and educational support offerings (20%).
• Number of low-expense-ratio funds (20%).
• Number of no-transaction-fee mutual funds (10%).
• Number of low-minimum mutual/index funds (10%).
• Account fees (partial transfer, full transfer or closing) (5%).
• Research and data, including number of third-party providers and quality of research tools (5%).

How we verified our data:

NerdWallet writers sent detailed questions to all reviewed companies. NerdWallet writers and editors also confirmed fees, rates, policies and other key features on each company's website.

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