Interactive Brokers Review

Interactive Brokers is built for people who trade, borrow and move money across markets, and the headline price is only part of the bill. IBKR's free plan gets the attention, but what an account really costs is the commission, the margin rate and the currency charge taken together.

This review is for finance professionals who want that full cost in one place. Every rate below was read on the vendors' own pricing pages in October 2026. We set IBKR beside Schwab, Webull, TradeStation and Robinhood Gold, the four alternatives in the table.

Toolradar data: our investment apps ranking evaluates 9 tools, and 3 of them offer a free plan. Interactive Brokers is not one of the 9, so every IBKR figure here comes from its own site. For the wider field, see our investing apps ranking.

Interactive Brokers LLC is a US broker that offers stocks, ETFs, options, futures, bonds, mutual funds and spot currencies to clients in global markets. IBKR says it is a member of NYSE, FINRA and SIPC. Its pricing pages cover each product separately, so one account can carry several fee schedules at once.

For US stocks and ETFs there are two plans. IBKR Pro is the original, with a Tiered structure that falls from $0.0035 to $0.0005 a share as monthly volume rises, and a Fixed structure at $0.005 a share with a per-order minimum. Fixed is all-inclusive, covering exchange, clearing and regulatory fees, while Tiered adds venue fees on top of its commission.

IBKR Lite is the no-commission plan, open to US residents with Individual, Joint, IRA and Trust accounts. Both plans price margin as a benchmark rate plus a spread, but the spreads differ sharply. For the same firm seen through a day trader's lens, see our day trading platforms ranking.

Opening an account means choosing a plan during setup, and that choice decides what each order costs. IBKR says Lite has no account minimums and no inactivity fees, and its stock pricing page says IBKR's commissions carry no account minimums either. The first decision is the plan, not the deposit.

Lite has exceptions that matter. Non-exchange-listed US stocks, such as pink sheet OTC names, de-listed ETPs, warrants, overnight trades and recurring investment orders, run on Fixed Pricing.

Orders placed at the open or close, outside regular trading hours or on stocks under $1.00 are commission-free only while they stay within 10% of your monthly US stock volume. Above that line, the lesser of $0.005 a share or 1% of trade value applies.

A trader who uses the auctions often should count those shares each month, because the threshold is reached by volume, not by a single order.

Currency works on its own terms. Spot currency commissions start at 0.20 basis points of trade value on the first $1 billion a month, with a $2.00 minimum per order at that volume. Trades made through IBKR's auto currency conversion carry no separate commission, but IBKR typically adds or subtracts 0.03% to the exchange rate at its discretion.

For a finance team that converts cash every month, that 0.03% belongs in the cost calculation.

IBKR's pricing has three parts for most readers: a stock commission, a margin rate and a currency charge. We checked each one on IBKR's own pages in October 2026.

On stocks, a 100-share order worth $5,000 costs nothing on Lite, $1.00 on Pro Fixed and $0.35 on Pro Tiered. At 1,000 shares it costs nothing on Lite, $5.00 on Fixed and $3.50 on Tiered. At 10,000 shares it costs nothing on Lite, $50.00 on Fixed and $35.00 on Tiered.

The Tiered figures use the first monthly volume tier, and they leave out the venue fees that Tiered passes through on top of its commission.

On options, Lite charges $0.65 a contract with a minimum per order, so ten contracts cost $6.50. Pro's options rate depends on the premium and on monthly volume, and it falls to $0.15 a contract above 100,000 contracts a month.

On margin, the gap is steady. A $50,000 loan held for a full year costs $2,690 at Pro's rate and $3,190 at Lite's. Pro's rate drops to 4.630% for balances from $1 million to $50 million and to its lowest tier above that. Interest accrues daily and posts monthly, and IBKR says it adds a 1% surcharge on very large balances.

Currency is the third line. Spot trades cost 0.20 basis points of trade value on the first $1 billion a month, with a $2.00 minimum per order, and auto conversion typically adds or subtracts 0.03% to the exchange rate.

Methodology: each figure is the rate printed on the vendor's page when we read it in October 2026. Scenarios use one order or one balance, exclude taxes and assume the benchmark does not move. IBKR says it may change its rates at any time, so check the pages on the day you trade.

The pages are IBKR stocks, IBKR options, IBKR margin rates and IBKR spot currencies, plus Webull, Schwab, Robinhood Gold and TradeStation.

IBKR fits three readers. The first is the margin borrower who places more than 100,000 shares a year at Fixed rates. For that reader, Lite's free commissions outweigh its higher margin rate, so Lite is the cheaper IBKR plan. The second is the margin borrower who places fewer shares than that.

Pro's lower rate saves $500 a year on a $50,000 loan, and Pro stays cheaper until its per-share charges pass that saving. The third is the finance team that holds accounts in several currencies or trades in global markets. There, spot commissions and the 0.03% auto-conversion markup matter more than the stock fee.

It fits poorly for a beginner who buys one ETF a month. That reader pays nothing on Lite and never touches margin, but Schwab and Webull also charge nothing on US-listed stocks and ETFs, and Webull charges nothing on options either.

Readers comparing the big names can start with our Fidelity vs Vanguard page or the Webull vs Robinhood comparison.

Toolradar profiles for TradeStation, Robinhood and Webull sit alongside this review for readers who want the app-level view.