TradeStation fees explained

It's safe to say that TradeStation's fees are low in general. They either don't charge a brokerage fee for things other brokers do charge for, or they only charge a small amount. This means that you can use TradeStation even in case you trade frequently like multiple times a week or daily.

Here's a high level overview of TradeStation's fees

Online brokerages in general charge much lower brokerage fees than traditional brokerages do - this is largely due to the fact that online brokerages' businesses can be much better scaled: From a purely technical standpoint it doesn't make that much of a difference for them if they have 100 or 5000 clients.

This is not to say however that they don't have any fees at all. They make money by charging you at various events for various rates. Usually you need to keep an eye on these 3 types of fees:

• Trading fees - these are brokerage fees that you pay when you actually do a trade. What you pay is either a commission, a spread or financing rate. Some brokers apply all of these.
  • A commission is either based on the traded volume or it is fixed.
  • A spread is the difference between the buy price and the sell price
  • Financing rate or overnight rate is charged when you hold your leveraged positions for more than one day.
• Non-trading fees. These occur related to some operations you make in your account, i.e. depositing money to your account, withdrawing money from it or not trading for an extended amount of time.

We compare TradeStation fees with its closest competitors, tastyworks and Interactive Brokers.

TradeStation's trading fees are low which makes it suitable for you even if you trade often (i.e. multiple times a week).

Let's break down the trading fees into the different asset classes available at TradeStation.

Trading fees

TradeStation's trading fees are low.

Stock fees and ETF fees

TradeStation has low stock trading fees.

Fund fees

TradeStation fund fees are average.

Bond fees

TradeStation has low bond fees.

Options fees

TradeStation's options fees are average.

Futures fees

TradeStation's futures fees are low.

Financing rates

TradeStation financing rates are .

If you want to trade on margin and prefer to hold your positions long, financing costs can be significant.

Leverage is a double-edged sword and can dramatically amplify your profits. It can also just as dramatically amplify your losses. Trading foreign exchange/CFDs with any level of leverage may not be suitable for all investors.

When it comes to looking at all the non-trading fees TradeStation is an average broker. This means that some of the non-trading fees are high, but the others are low or not charged at all.

Non-trading fees include various brokerage fees and charges at TradeStation that you pay not related to buying and selling assets. Among some others, typical non trading fees are withdrawal fee, deposit fee, inactivity fee and account fee.

Deposit fees are applied when you send money to your trading account from your bank account. Usually brokers don't charge money for that and TradeStation is not different: you will see the exact same amount on your brokerage account that you sent by any of the deposit methods TradeStation offers.

Unlike some online brokers we have reviewed TradeStation does not charge a withdrawal fee. This means that you'll see the same amount of money on your bank account that you transferred from your brokerage account.

TradeStation does apply an inactivity fee and it is $50 per year if balance <$2,000 or if less than 5 trades per year. This means that you need to be strategic about your trading activity to avoid getting charged after a longer time of no trade. The fact that TradeStation charges an inactivity fee makes it less ideal for you if you are a buy and hold investor.

TradeStation has low inactivity fee.

Read more about TradeStation inactivity fee on their own site.