- Good Money Guide experts commend Interactive Brokers for its low trading fees, advanced platforms, and exceptional global market access, highlighting that it allows trading on over 90 international exchanges with $0 commissions on US-listed stocks. However, they note that the platform may be complex for beginners and that customer support can be limited for smaller clients.
- Across 1375 user reviews on Good Money Guide, averaging 4.6/5, customers frequently praise the platform's low costs, extensive market access, and advanced trading tools. Many users appreciate the user-friendly interface and efficient execution of trades, while some express concerns about the complexity of the platform and the responsiveness of customer support.
Interactive Brokers US Stock Trading Expert rating
Our expert rating is the average of the areas listed here, each scored out of 5 by our team.Our experts have rated Interactive Brokers US Stock Trading across five key areas of our review framework.
- Pricing5.0
- Market Access5.0
- App & Platform5.0
- Customer Service4.0
- Research & Analysis5.0
Pros
- Low trading fees
- Advanced platforms
- Global market access
Cons
- Potentially complex for beginners
- High cash balance requirement
- Limited customer support
See full expert review
Our verdict
Amazing technology, and always first to market with innovative trading tools. Interactive Brokers lets you trade stock on 90+ international exchanges, with $0 commission and some of the lowest financing rates in the industry.
Is Interactive Brokers a good stock broker?
Yes, IBKR is an excellent US stock broker, low costs, excellent market access and superb apps and platforms.
Pricing: Interactive Brokers is very cheap for trading stocks, especially in the IBKR Lite account, where commissions are $0 on US-listed stocks and fractional stocks. For more advanced traders, IBKR Pro commissions are USD 0.0005 to USD 0.0035 per share, but you get significant price improvements from IB SmartRouting.
If you are trading stocks on margin, Interactive Brokers have some of the lowest margin loan financing rates in the industry from USD 4.83% to USD 5.83%.
You can also actually get IBKR to pay you by letting them borrow your fully paid up stocks and letting them lend them out to short sellers, through their stock yield enhancement program.
Market Access: IBKR probably has the best market access of all the stock brokers we compare. You can trade a huge range of international stocks and IBKR has local access to over 90 stock exchanges. There are very few stocks you cannot trade on IBKR.
Apps & Platforms: Interactive Brokers' stock trading apps and platforms are seriously good. When I traded on the desktop workstation platform, I was able to pair trade two stocks against each other.
IBKR is one of the few platforms that allows you to do this. Probably because when I interviewed IBKR founder Thomas Peterffy before testing the platforms, he told me that he thinks the most successful stock traders are ones that trade one company against another.
Customer Service: Because Interactive Brokers is one of the largest stock brokers in the world, customer service is largely automated and they were even using automated chatbots before the AI revolution took over.
This is a good example of how they are at the forefront of stock trading technology. However, it can be a bit of a pain trying to get through to someone on the phone if you are not a large customer with a personal stock broker.
Research & Analysis: You get lots of research and analysis from Interactive Brokers, including the IBKR Campus, for beginners to improve their stock trading. For longer-term investors, there is fundamental data on 30,000 companies and over 5,000 analyst ratings to give you an indication of whether a stock is a buy or a sell.
Customer reviews for Interactive Brokers
Customer ratings come from reviews left on this site. Every review is read and approved before it is published.Based on 1,375 reviews
- Excellent74%
- Very good14%
- Basic7%
- Poor2%
- Bad2%
What customers like
- Low fees and competitive pricing
- User-friendly platform
- Fast execution and reliability
What customers dislike
- Poor customer service
- Confusing account management
- Slow response times
Read customer reviews
4/5
Pros:
Lots of investment options
Cons:
Improve the online service
5/5
Pros:
Easy and cheap
Cons:
Client atention and more markets
3/5
3/5
Pros:
Low cost and informative, but not good for small cap.
Cons:
Improve availability for smaller shares on their portal platform
3/5
4/5
Pros:
Range
Cons:
Deposit funds with debit cards or simple bank transfers
3/5
Pros:
Wide range of instruments
Cons:
Improve platform
3/5
Pros:
good data
Cons:
expensive for what it is
5/5
Pros:
low cost yet sophisticated
Cons:
be more user friendly
5/5
Pros:
Range of investments
5/5
Pros:
easy to trade
Cons:
Tends to be cheaper
5/5
Pros:
Depth of trading ability
Cons:
Better interface
4/5
Pros:
Has the essentials
Cons:
No thoughts
3/5
Pros:
Ease of use
Cons:
N/A
5/5
Pros:
low cost currency exchange
5/5
Pros:
Save my time
Cons:
Admin
3/5
3/5
Pros:
Dealing
5/5
Pros:
Currency handling
Cons:
Fees based on shares traded makes trading uk shares expensive
4/5
Richard is the founder of the Good Money Guide (formerly Good Broker Guide), one of the original investment comparison sites established in 2015. With a career spanning two decades as a broker, he brings extensive expertise and knowledge to the financial landscape.
Having worked as a broker at Investors Intelligence and a multi-asset derivatives broker at MF Global (Man Financial), Richard has acquired substantial experience in the industry. His career began as a private client stockbroker at Walker Crips and Phillip Securities (now King and Shaxson), following internships on the NYMEX oil trading floor in New York and London IPE in 2001 and 2000.
Richard’s contributions and expertise have been recognized by respected publications such as The Sunday Times, BusinessInsider, Yahoo Finance, BusinessNews.org.uk, Master Investor, Wealth Briefing, iNews, and The FT, among many others.
Under Richard’s leadership, the Good Money Guide has evolved into a valuable destination for comprehensive information and expert guidance, specialising in trading, investment, and currency exchange. His commitment to delivering high-quality insights has solidified the Good Money Guide’s standing as a well-respected resource for both customers and industry colleagues.
