Nothing to trade US-listed stocks and ETFs online, but $0.65 per options contract and $25 for a broker-assisted trade put a floor under the cost.
Schwab charges no commission on online trades in US exchange-listed stocks and ETFs. That headline rate is limited to National Market System securities and excludes standardized options; over-the-counter securities outside NMS cost $6.95 online. Placing the same equity trade another way costs more: $5 through the automated phone system, $25 broker-assisted.
Options are where the cost story changes. There is no base commission, but every contract carries $0.65. Schwab waives that fee on buy-to-close orders executed online for $0.05 or less, and charges nothing on exercises and assignments, but the standing rate applies to everything else. At $0.65 a contract, a ten-contract position costs $6.50 each way.
That single figure is the main reason Schwab's fees dimension scores 8.6 in our audit, its joint-weakest result, and below several platforms that score lower overall. The equity side is genuinely free; the options side is standard, not cheap.
| Trade type | Online | Automated phone | Broker-assisted |
|---|
| US-listed stocks & ETFs | $0 | $5 | $25 |
| Options | $0 + $0.65/contract | $5 + $0.65/contract | $25 + $0.65/contract |
| OTC (non-NMS) securities | $6.95 | plus $5 | plus $25 |
| No-transaction-fee funds | $0 | $0 | $25 service charge |
Funds follow the same pattern. Anything in the OneSource no-transaction-fee programme trades free online; transaction-fee funds run up to $49.95 per buy and nothing per sell — or up to $74.95 per buy on funds whose families do not compensate Schwab for recordkeeping and administrative services, a distinction the guide makes in a footnote rather than in the table. An automatic investment plan reduces that to up to $10 per buy on eligible transaction-fee funds and keeps no-transaction-fee funds free, which matters if you are contributing monthly rather than in lumps.
Two limits are worth knowing because they cut in the small investor's favour. Per-trade transaction fees do not exceed 8.5% of principal, and trades below $100 in principal are exempt from the transaction fee entirely. Neither is advertised prominently, and both change the arithmetic on very small fund purchases.
The fees that catch people out are not the trading ones. Selling a no-transaction-fee fund within 90 days of buying it triggers a $49.95 short-term redemption fee. Settling late costs $25, as does a returned item or insufficient funds. Requesting a physical certificate costs $100 apiece. And leaving costs $50 for a full account transfer out, though partial transfers are free — a distinction worth remembering if you are moving one holding rather than closing up.
The account-servicing schedule rewards doing things electronically, and the gap is wide enough to be worth planning around. Holding securities in book-entry form at the transfer agent through the Direct Registration System costs nothing per issue; asking for the same holding as a physical certificate costs $100 apiece, with further charges for rush requests, though that fee can be waived for households meeting certain asset levels. Corporate actions — voluntary, mandatory and post-effective reorganisations — are free. Overnight or bulk deliveries start at $15 depending on speed and package size, and an overnight Schwab-issued cheque is $15. Sending a wire out costs $25, or $15 if you submit it online; incoming wires are free. For foreign securities, the certificate fee is variable and set by the transfer agent's location rather than by Schwab, so it cannot be quoted in advance.
The largest single charge in the guide is not a commission at all. Converting US dollars into a foreign currency, or back, carries a markup of up to 300 basis points — 3% of principal, and Schwab notes this excludes any additional fees intermediary institutions may levy. On a $10,000 conversion that is up to $300, against $0 to trade the shares themselves. Anyone holding foreign assets should read that number before the commission table, and note that a Schwab Global Account converts on a much lower tiered scale, starting at 1% and falling to 0.2% above $1 million.
Two further items belong in any honest reading of the fee schedule. Non-publicly traded securities — private placements, limited partnerships, private REITs and similar — carry an annual custody fee of $250 per position, capped at $500 per account. And the Industry Fee, which Schwab collects to offset regulatory and exchange charges, is set at Schwab's "sole and reasonable discretion" and "may differ from or exceed the actual fees properly paid by Schwab." The guide adds, in bold, that Schwab does not notify clients when it raises or lowers it. That is disclosed rather than hidden, but it means one line on your confirmation is neither fixed nor announced.
One cost sits outside every commission table. For certain securities Schwab can charge a stock borrow fee on any open short position — however it arose, including through short selling, option exercise or assignment, or an account transfer. That last route matters here, because an options trader assigned into a short stock position meets this fee without ever having placed a short order. It is calculated daily on the short market value at a quoted interest rate, accrues for as long as the position stays open, and appears on the monthly statement. The rate is not a pure market rate either: the guide states Schwab can seek to charge any rate consistent with its view of competitive necessities.
One account covers equities, options, futures, forex and fixed income, which is what earns Schwab its 9.4 features score, the best in this field.
Breadth is what Schwab is really selling, and it is the dimension where the audit rates it highest: features scores 9.4 of 10, the best result in this field of nine.
One account reaches equities, ETFs, options, futures, forex and fixed income. Futures and futures options are $2.25 per contract. Forex carries no commission, with trade costs reflected in the bid-ask spread instead. Fixed income splits by instrument: new issues and Treasury bills, notes, bonds and TIPS are free online, while secondary-market corporate and municipal bonds cost $1 per bond, subject to a $10 minimum and a $250 maximum per trade.
The bond desk deserves more detail than a single line, because fixed income is where brokers differ most and disclose least. New issues, including certificates of deposit, carry no explicit commission — a selling concession can be included in the offering price instead, which is a cost even though it never appears as one. Treasury bills, notes, bonds and TIPS are free online in both secondary and auction markets, and $25 broker-assisted. Secondary corporate and municipal bonds, government agencies, zero-coupon Treasuries and CDs are $1 per bond with a $10 minimum and $250 maximum per trade. Preferred shares and REITs are charged as stocks rather than as bonds. Schwab also reserves the right to act as principal rather than agent on fixed income, in which case the price you see includes a markup reflecting the bid-ask spread, with no stated minimum or maximum.
Futures pricing needs one caveat that the headline rate hides. The $2.25 per contract is quoted per side, and it does not include the customary National Futures Association and exchange fees, which are set by those bodies rather than by Schwab and can rise or fall independently. Some foreign exchanges add further fees, and some add market-data charges on top. None of this is unusual, but it means the all-in cost of a futures trade is not $2.25, and anyone modelling a high-frequency futures strategy on the published rate will be modelling it too cheaply.
Canadian securities follow the over-the-counter schedule rather than the domestic one: a Canadian stock traded on the US OTC market is $6.95 online, plus $5 by automated phone or $25 broker-assisted, on the same non-NMS basis as other OTC names.
International access has two tiers, and the difference between them is large enough that quoting only one would misrepresent the platform. From a standard Schwab One account, trades placed directly on a foreign exchange are broker-assisted only, at the greater of $100 or 0.75% of principal with no maximum. Foreign ordinary shares on the US over-the-counter market carry a $50 foreign transaction fee online, $55 by phone and $75 broker-assisted, and non-US ETFs are broker-assisted only for eligible non-US residents at the same $50.
A Schwab Global Account changes that picture. It requires an existing Schwab One account, and it allows online trades placed directly on twelve foreign exchanges in local currency. Online commissions there are 9 GBP in the United Kingdom, 9 CAD in Canada, 19 EUR across Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands, 2,000 JPY in Japan, 32 AUD in Australia, 160 NOK in Norway and 250 HKD in Hong Kong. Broker-assisted rates on the same exchanges run several times higher — 30 GBP, 65 CAD, 50 EUR, 6,000 JPY, 70 AUD.
Two costs ride on top and are easy to miss. Schwab is charged a local broker fee, typically 0.1% of principal, which is passed through and shown separately as "Other fee/tax" on the confirmation. And converting currency costs 1% of principal under $100,000, tapering to 0.75%, 0.5%, 0.3% and finally 0.2% above $1 million. On a small international order the conversion charge, not the commission, is usually the larger number. Several markets add their own levies — a 0.3% French financial transaction tax, 0.1% or 0.2% in Italy, UK stamp duty of 0.5% on buys — none of which are Schwab's.
For most US investors, though, the practical consequence is simple: you are unlikely to need a second broker. That matters more than it sounds, because holding one account rather than three removes a set of transfer fees, tax-reporting seams and cash-sweep decisions that rarely appear in any commission comparison.
thinkorswim carries the platform experience, audited at 8.8, and Schwab's pricing guide lists no separate platform charge for using it.
thinkorswim is the platform Schwab is best known for among active traders. What the pricing guide establishes is narrow but useful: thinkorswim desktop, web and mobile all count as "online" channels, so trades placed there get the $0 online rate, and no separate platform fee appears anywhere in the schedule. Alongside it sit the standard web interface and the mobile apps. For a feature-by-feature account of what the platform does, Schwab's own thinkorswim pages are the authority; this review does not restate capability claims it cannot check.
The audited platform-experience score is 8.8 of 10, strong, and second only to features among Schwab's four dimensions. The gap between thinkorswim and the simpler surfaces is real, though: the tools that justify the score are not the ones a casual investor meets first.
Two structural details shape how the platform behaves in practice, and both come from the pricing schedule rather than the marketing. Large block transactions — orders of 10,000 or more shares, or orders over $500,000 — may be eligible for special handling and pricing, which means the displayed rate is not necessarily the rate a large order pays. And restricted stock transactions are charged at the broker-assisted rate regardless of how they are entered, with a single order covering both restricted and unrestricted shares charged at that higher rate throughout. Vested equity awards issued through an employer or corporate stock plan are explicitly exempted from that rule and follow the standard schedule, which is the outcome most employees with vesting grants will actually get.
This review does not rate the platform from our own trading sessions. Every number here comes from our scoring of audited, published product data across all nine platforms in the field, not from an internal test we cannot show you. That is a deliberate limit on what this review claims: a screenshot of a chart proves that a chart exists, not that the platform is good, and we would rather state the audited score and its basis than describe an experience you cannot check.
An SEC-registered broker-dealer and FINRA member under CRD 5393, verifiable independently on BrokerCheck rather than taken on the firm's own word.
Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. is registered with the SEC as a broker-dealer under number 8-16514 and is a FINRA member. FINRA's BrokerCheck lists the firm under CRD 5393, with its broker-dealer and investment-adviser registrations both showing as active.
BrokerCheck is worth using directly rather than accepting any broker's summary of its own standing. It is free, independent of the firm, and shows registration status, regulatory history and disclosures in one place. Three things are worth looking at while you are there: whether the registrations are current rather than lapsed, what the disclosure history contains and how recent it is, and which entity actually holds your account. That last point catches people out at large firms, where the brokerage, the bank and the advisory business are separate legal entities with different protections, and the name on the app is not necessarily the name on the registration.
Schwab is a SIPC member, stated on the back cover of the same April 2026 pricing guide the fee figures come from. SIPC protection is capped at $500,000 per customer, including a $250,000 limit for cash — a statutory limit published by SIPC itself rather than a figure the broker sets.
What that protection is for matters more than the number. SIPC covers the failure of the custodian: it steps in when a member firm collapses and customer assets are missing. It does not cover the decline in value of your securities, bad investment advice, or unsuitable recommendations, and it does not extend to commodity futures, forex trades or crypto assets that are not registered securities. If a stock you hold at Schwab halves, SIPC is irrelevant. It also is not FDIC insurance, which is a different scheme covering bank deposits rather than securities.
Both distinctions are worth internalising before treating any protection figure as reassurance, because the risk most investors actually face is the one it does not cover.
Support scores 8.6, tied with fees as Schwab's weakest dimension, and reaching a human for a trade carries a $25 broker-assisted charge.
Support scores 8.6 of 10 in our audit, tied with fees as Schwab's weakest dimension, though still mid-field rather than poor.
There is a cost dimension to support that a service rating does not capture. Reaching a person to place a trade is a $25 broker-assisted charge, and the automated phone route is $5. Both are ordinary industry practice, but they mean a customer who prefers to transact by phone pays a materially different price than the $0 headline suggests.
That charge is not uniform, either. Broker-assisted pricing is the standard rate on restricted stock, on foreign shares traded directly on an overseas exchange, and on non-US ETFs for eligible non-US residents — cases where there is no online route at all, so the fee is unavoidable rather than a matter of preference. Mutual fund trades placed with a representative carry a $25 service charge on top of any transaction fee, including on funds that would have been free online.
The practical reading is that Schwab's support is priced for people who rarely need it. If you are comfortable online, you will not meet the phone and broker-assisted charges — though the $6.95 OTC rate, the $50 foreign transaction fee, redemption fees and currency conversion still apply. If you value talking to someone, or your holdings fall into one of the categories above, budget for them.
The automated phone system is the middle option most readers overlook: at $5 it covers ordinary equity and options business for a fifth of a broker-assisted order.
Schwab reserves the right to change or waive fees at its discretion. Every figure here carries the verification date at the top; check the current guide before acting on it.
- Online US-listed stock and ETF trades: $0; broker-assisted: $25 (Schwab Pricing Guide, April 2026)
- Options: $0 base commission plus $0.65 per contract, waived on buy-to-close online at $0.05 or less
- SEC-registered broker-dealer 8-16514, FINRA member, CRD 5393 (FINRA BrokerCheck)
Schwab is the broker to hold if you want one account covering everything and you trade options now and then. If options are your main activity, the $0.65 per contract is the number to compare before you commit.