Alpaca Trading customer service

When using an online broker, you may sometimes need assistance to locate a feature or sort out a problem. In such situations, it's good to have prompt and helpful customer service on hand.

Alpaca Trading offers OK customer support across multiple channels, but occasionally you can run into long waits or less-than-helpful responses. Read on for details and comparisons.

Alpaca Trading customer service is so-so

[Broker name] customer service is so-so

Adam Nasli

Regulation • Fighting Scams • Market Analysis

I am an expert in brokerage safety, adept at spotting scam brokers in mere seconds. My guidance, rooted in my firsthand experience with brokers and an in-depth understanding of the regulatory framework, has safeguarded hundreds of users from fraudulent brokerage activities.

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Adam Nasli

Regulation • Fighting Scams • Market Analysis

I've tested dozens of brokers over the years, which often included contacting their help desks over various issues. Alpaca Trading has decent customer service but I saw room for improvement:

• You can reach Alpaca Trading customer service via several channels.
• Alpaca Trading's help desk responds quickly to nearly all queries.
• Alpaca Trading customer support is sometimes helpful, sometimes less so.
• Looking for better treatment? See how Alpaca Trading compares to its rivals.

Before we begin, let's see if Alpaca Trading is available in your country

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Like most companies, online brokers typically offer customer service via several channels. Phone support is usually best if you need to quickly sort out a complicated problem or emergency, while more and more users prefer live chat for simple queries. Meanwhile, email support remains your best friend if you're an introvert, or for more complex questions that aren't so time sensitive.

You will likely face many types of issues during trading, so choose a broker where you can reach all three modes of support. Here's how you can get in touch with Alpaca Trading:

• Live chat
• Email

The good news is that Alpaca Trading offers round-the-clock customer support, so you can reach out to them even if you're a night owl or if you live half a world away.

Our first-hand customer service experience at Alpaca Trading

In addition, you can use Alpaca's Slack or other community forums, where users can easily get help from one another.

On email, we got quick and OK answers. If you are looking for detailed responses, this is not the best channel for you, as it is mostly limited to sorting out technical issues.

When we asked for more general investing help and questions about their service, responses were short and not always useful. We were pointed to general links like Alpaca's FAQ page and the API Documentation page, which didn't necessarily have the relevant information.

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User forums as an alternative to customer service

Whatever your question or problem is, you're probably not alone. This makes online forums of traders a great source of info about brokers in addition to (or even instead of) official customer service. RandomUser1234 won't be able to help you restore your account, but they can probably offer good tips on platform usage or tell you whether a certain stock is available at a broker.

Some brokers have their own community forums on their trading platforms or websites; alternatively, you can always turn to well-known forum aggregators such as Reddit. Many popular brokers have their own dedicated subreddits. Just post your question, or browse previous threads to see if it's been already answered.

Always exercise caution when taking advice from other forum users. Some information may be incorrect, outdated, or reflect the subjective judgment of a user. Also, do not share sensitive data or other material, such as screenshots that reveal your personal or financial information.

When testing the overall quality of customer support at Alpaca Trading and its competitors, we paid special attention to response speed. Because let's face it, we're all very busy; so when faced with a ten-minute wait to get connected to an operator, most of us would rather jump on a Reddit forum for answers or figure out a solution to our problems on our own. So this is how we rated brokers:

• In the case of phone and live chat support, we considered waiting times of less than one minute as great, and waiting times exceeding five minutes as poor. We scored anything in between as mid-range; including brokers where responses were sometimes swift but sometimes too slow.
• When it comes to email support, a response within 24 hours is considered great in our book; while we believe it is poor service to keep you waiting for more than two or three days for a reply.

So why all the hurry? A little hold music won't hurt anyone, right? Perhaps not, but there may be situations where customer service speed can make a huge difference. Imagine you noticed that someone has broken into your account and started to withdraw your money from it. Or maybe you want to sell a free-falling stock but the order panel won't display properly. In such cases, swift customer support can potentially save you hundreds or thousands of dollars.

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Promptly picking up the phone is one thing, but it's just as important to give answers that are clear, comprehensible, sufficiently detailed and relevant to your problem. In addition to response speed, we also rated brokers based on the quality of replies and assistance we received.

• Brokers we rated as 'great' here gave us all the necessary information and assistance.
• Those we rated 'poor' left us scratching our heads and looking for alternative sources of information.
• We gave a 'mid-range' score to brokers where the quality of support was inconsistent or where assistance was often less than useful.

Here's how Alpaca Trading compares to its main competitors when it comes to the helpfulness of live chat, phone and email support.

Do you fancy using Alpaca Trading's services but not sure you'd get the level of customer service you deserve? Try our broker comparison tool, where you can size up 100+ brokers side by side and filter for many criteria including high-quality customer support.

Want to see how Alpaca Trading fares in other respects such as trading fees, funding options or platform quality? Read our full review of Alpaca Trading for 2024.

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