Our promise. We provide a buying advantage with verified reviews and unbiased editorial research.
About Interactive Brokers
This profile has not been claimed by the company. See reviews below to learn more or submit your own review.
Interactive Brokers is an online broker of investment trading, including mutual funds, bonds, ETFs and other investment products. The company offers two trading plans, the IBKR Lite, which includes $0 commissions on U.S. stocks and ETF trades, and IBKR Pro, which includes access to the company’s SmartRouting system for a fee. The company allows domestic and international trading on its online platform or mobile app.
Pros & Cons
- Large investment selection
- International trading available
- Comprehensive mobile app
- Unintuitive website
- Some inactivity fees with IBKR Pro
What is Interactive Brokers?
Interactive Brokers is a brokerage that provides low-cost, direct-access trades and clearing services to professional and institutional traders. The company connects to any electronic exchange worldwide, allowing you to trade equities, options and more at any time of day. Customers can also purchase fractional shares to buy only a portion of a company’s stock instead of its full-priced share.
Traders enjoy low to no commission rates and low margin rates. There are more than 8,300 funds with no transaction fees, and customers can earn income through the Stock Yield Enhancement Program by lending fully held shares to other traders.
How Interactive Brokers works
Interactive Brokers customers can make trades from their client portal for casual trades or use the Interactive Brokers’ Desktop Trader Workstation for advanced trading. The company’s mobile app is an on-the-go version of its Trader Workstation, sporting a slew of features like trading shortcuts, order presets and more.
Customers can choose from a wide selection of offerings, such as stocks, precious metals, warrants and more. Users also have access to many news services and research providers for free, including Fundamentals Explorer, as well as paid options.
The firm’s advanced trading platform has a host of asset classes and tools, including an Impact Dashboard that lets customers make trading decisions in tune with their personal values. It also offers real-time monitoring, watchlists, alerts and a customizable dashboard.
Interactive Brokers fees
Interactive Brokers boasts they have low trading costs and the lowest financing rates. Its IBKR Lite plan for retail clients has $0 commissions on U.S.-listed stock and ETF trades, no inactivity fees and no account minimums.
IBKR Pro for experienced investors and active traders has access to the company’s IB SmartRouting system, which the company claims allows for $0.47 per 100 shares of price improvement compared to the industry.
The company’s fixed pricing for shares under IBR Pro are $0.005 per share with a minimum order of $1.00 and a maximum 1% trade value. It includes exchange and most regulatory fees.
Its tiered pricing per share depends on the volume per month and ranges from $0.0035 for 300,000 or fewer shares to $0.0005 for greater than 100,000 shares. The minimum is $0.35 per trade, and exchange and regulatory fees aren’t included.
Interactive Brokers FAQ
What is Interactive Brokers’ margin rate?
Interactive Brokers uses a blended margin rate based on tiers, such as a Tier I rate for the first $100,000 of your balance and a Tier II rate for the next $900,000 when the total balance is $1 million. You can use its calculator to calculate the interest charged on margin loans.
Does Interactive Brokers charge options fees?
Yes, Interactive Brokers charges fixed and tiered commissions for its option fees. Fixed fees are $0.65 per contract plus surcharge, regulatory and other fees. Tiered fees range from $0.15 to $0.65 per U.S. option contract.
What is Interactive Brokers’ account minimum?
The IBKR Lite plan has no account minimums or inactivity fees. IBKR Pro also has no account minimum but charges account maintenance fees anywhere from $0 to $10, based on your activity for accounts with less than $100,000. However, traders 25 and younger are only charged a minimum monthly trade commission of $3.
Is Interactive Brokers good for beginners?
Interactive Brokers’ IBKR Pro is popular with experienced traders and may be challenging for new or less active traders to navigate. The IBKR Lite plan is better for beginners, but it can be challenging to find the information you need on the website.
Is Interactive Brokers safe?
Interactive Brokers has always been a great option for active traders. The recent introduction of its IBKR Lite plan now makes it a strong choice among casual traders as well. IBKR Lite customers have the advantage of $0 commission on stocks and EFTs and no account minimums or inactivity fees. But the firm’s website can be counterintuitive for inexperienced traders and may not provide enough educational resources or guidance to help beginners succeed. Either way, it's a trusted company and a solid option for many.
Interactive Brokers Reviews
Filter by Rating
- (2)
- (3)
- (39)
Popular Mentions
- 4,565,917 reviews on ConsumerAffairs are verified.
- We require contact information to ensure our reviewers are real.
- We use intelligent software that helps us maintain the integrity of reviews.
- Our moderators read all reviews to verify quality and helpfulness.
A link has directed you to this review. Its location on this page may change next time you visit.
- 4,565,917 reviews on ConsumerAffairs are verified.
- We require contact information to ensure our reviewers are real.
- We use intelligent software that helps us maintain the integrity of reviews.
- Our moderators read all reviews to verify quality and helpfulness.
Reviewed Nov. 15, 2024
Signing up with Interactive Brokers Was a Big Mistake! Signing up with Interactive Brokers was the biggest mistake of my life. I sold stock and had cash in the account to invest. When I tried to transfer money out of the account the staff took days reviewing my transfer request, ask for information and even though I sent the information they did not bother reading it. They simply shockingly kept asking for the same document. This alone shows that the Interactive employees do not have the capacity to function at a financial institution of any kind.
I had bought a property in Portugal. Since I knew I had more than enough cash in my Interactive Brokers account, I had paid tens of thousands of dollars on the property and was required to pay the rest by a certain date or lose the tens of thousands I had invested. Interactive Brokerage staff thought it was hilarious that I could lose tens of thousands of dollars. They made sure I did not get my money out of my account And again Interactive Brokerage staff found this amusing. I am still writing to Interactive Brokers trying to get my money out. Someone called and kept getting disconnected then didn't bother to call back. The website apparently is only half working this week. It took hours to get into my account. The list goes on and on. This was a considerable loss of my retirement funds. This is the worst place to put any money. Try Vanguard or Fidelity.
Reviewed Nov. 1, 2024
Avoid like the plague. Virtually unusable. The interface is like something from the 60s. Finding order histories is always a complex task. Nothing is straightforward. Nothing is visual. Nothing is intuitive. Their various "forecasting" tools are not helpful.
Thanks for subscribing.
You have successfully subscribed to our newsletter! Enjoy reading our tips and recommendations.
Reviewed Oct. 26, 2024
I am new. Funded account with $6000. Started learning about their platforms and other other courses. Even logging was not easy. I received an email offering incentive for Learning certain courses commission credit up to $300. When I tried repeatedly, system prompted that I am not eligible. There was no way to contact. It was a "do not reply' email and no contact number. Everything is a frustrating experience. Thinking of closing the account.
Reviewed Sept. 16, 2024
0/10 customer experience. Made it so difficult to withdraw funds. Felt criminal like they wouldn't allow you to do it. Very difficult. Spent over 10 hrs on calls with them, uploaded many documents, kept blocking my account. Comically bad service the entire time. Please run away!
Reviewed Aug. 26, 2024
Worst service, the only one still charge commission for trading us stocks and has a data fee. Never responding to inquiry and question, same as CCP. Restricting trading for no reason. I am glad switching to other brokers.
Reviewed July 30, 2024
After reading the reviews, I agree with most of them: Customer service hold time was 30 minutes, and it took me a while to even find the phone number. The woman I spoke to could barely speak English. I was calling because I was trying to fund my account, and the site wanted me to - again - verify my identity by typing in my user name. (Seems like a stupid way to verify my identity. How else would I be in the site if I didn't know my user name.) Anyway, she reset my password, and I was able to link my bank account. BUT, to fund my account, they have to send me two "micro deposits" to verify my account. She didn't know that that would take a few days.
I asked "Is there anyway I can fund this account today, right now, within 10 minutes?" After her answering me like a person nervously testifying before Congress, I asked to be transferred back into the queue. The second person picked up in only a few minutes, spoke English better, and knew the answers to my questions. After reading the other reviews, I probably won't fund this account. I was at TD Ameritrade, but that was bought out by Schwab. I'm not a big fan of how Schwab executes my trades, and was hoping I would have better luck here. I'm an active trader with a seven figure account. Given that the other reviews were similar to my brief experience, I would be nervous about them having my money.
Reviewed July 24, 2024
IBKR REALLY SUCKS!! Their customer service is awful and unhelpful. They have unintuitive rules and they intentionally manipulate notifications to keep customers unaware and hanging in the dark. They do not allow use of your transferred funds to invest until 5 business days. Other brokerage allow immediate use of funds for investing. They do not allow transfer out of your funds back to your bank until 8 days AFTER the funds clear with them. So in effect they just withdraw and hold your cash for 13-15 days.
I have initiated transfer out of IBKR to Fidelity and they have rejected my request multiple times cause they have put a hold of $.03 three cents on my account. And I was never informed of these rejections or these holds. I only found that from Fidelity's site. When called customer service, one agent said, "Oh we rejected for $0.03 hold but I will have that cleared." He obviously didn’t have it cleared and my second request was rejected too. I have NO CLUE WHY IBKR just holds customers' funds. So SCARY THAT I CAN'T ACCESS MY MONEY.
Reviewed May 3, 2024
Hi folks, I set up an account with Interactive Brokers just a few weeks ago. I've been using Charles Schwab for some time now and was drawn by the margin rates that IKBR offers. After joining, I moved my money temporarily into a Money Market Fund with symbol SPRXX. When I made that purchase there was no mention of any commission fees. However, when I attempted to get my money back out of that fund I was charged a $14.95 fee. This was surprising to me, coming from Charles Schwab, where they offer a Money Market fund, SWVXX, without any fees or commissions. On my own, I was able to find a webpage that tells me how I can find "No Transaction Fee (free)" mutual funds for IBKR. That would have been great to know about beforehand (https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/pricing/commissions-mutual-funds.php).
I deposited exactly 2k because that is the minimum amount for a margin account, and I wanted to try out IKBR before committing to a switch from Charles Schwab. The $14.95 commission fee lowered my balance so that I couldn't actually use my margin. IE, I wasn't able to get started investing with options because of the fee and I didn't have more money to invest. I reached out to support using three different methods in order to try to get the commission fee waived.
1) Via chat. Be aware that you will wait a very long time, maybe forever. Also, if you don't interact with the chat window every 30 seconds or so while you are waiting (like if you start checking your email), it will timeout and your chat message session will end without you being able to communicate with anyone. I gave up after several attempts trying without being able to connect to a support representative.
2) Via phone. You will sit on hold for 20-30 min. When someone finally answers, don't be surprised if you speak to the same exact individual every time. They will tell you that they cannot help you and that you should file a web ticket. The people (single person?) manning the phone(s) hate their jobs, and they don't particularly like you either.
3) Via web ticket. I was informed that they would respond to my request within 4 weeks. I'm sorry, but that's outrageous.
I'd like to contrast that with my experience with Charles Schwab. I've both called them and used their chat to interact with their support team. I've been amazed at how awesome they are. When I called them they were happy to resolve any concerns that I had and demonstrated extraordinary patience and genuine interest in my desire to learn more about investing. I chatted with one representative for more than 30 minutes because I had so many questions and he never once made me feel like I was wasting his time.
The quality of service I've gotten from both companies is enough reason for me to close my IBKR account and that's what I plan on doing. I will also say that the screeners/tools that are built into the Charles Schwab website that allow you to find the investments you're looking for are a thousand times better then what I could find in IBKR. The other negative reviews on this site are causing alarm bells to go off for me as well, so I plan on getting my money out ASAP. It's pretty much a no brainer for me to stick with Charles Schwab. Disclaimer: I've only tried Charles Schwab and IBKR so I can't speak for any of the other competition. I'm not affiliated with Charles Schwab in any way except being a customer for less than a year.
Reviewed April 5, 2024
It is a wonder that they are still in business. I have closed my account with over 100K. Even though I have been investing for over 45 years I was told I could not buy OTC and other stocks, Really? You are restricting and limiting what I can buy? I have never had a brokerage firm tell me that before. Once you do run into issues, good luck trying to get your money out of their hands. Customer service is a joke, I have spent hours a day on hold with them and they were never able to answer a single question. Pathetic!
Reviewed March 28, 2024
Interactive Brokers has locked my withdrawal for no reason. All the document requests, ID and selfie verification have been completed however, now 15 days later, they are unable to provide me with a reason for the delay. Engaged.
Interactive Brokers Company Information
- Company Name:
- Interactive Brokers
- Website:
- www.interactivebrokers.com
