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Reviews By Richard Berry - Updated
If you want to invest in bonds read on for our guide to buying bonds and choosing a US bond broker. There are many different types of bonds that offer investments for different objectives. All bonds, although considered a safer (than most other) forms of investing come with risk that varies from very risky to safe and steady).
Our comparison table of US bond brokers covers the key account features. These include, tight pricing, financial security, regulation, range of markets, added value and reviews.
❓Here’s how we selected the US’s best bond brokers:
- Hands-on analysis: Our review team tests each bond broker using real money for a genuine trading experience
- Stand-out features: We compare what sets each bond trading platform apart to highlight their unique strengths
- Customer feedback: Over 30,000 votes from the Good Money Guide annual awards help shape our ratings
- Exclusive interviews: We speak directly with bond broker CEOs and senior management to get their insights
- Our process: Find out more about how we choose and rank providers on our How We Rate page
Interactive Brokers: Best Overall US Bond Broker
- Bond available: 1,000,000
- Bond commission rates: $5
Interactive Brokers Expert Review: Best Professional/DMA Broker 2025
Provider: Interactive Brokers
Verdict: Interactive Brokers is a major US online automated electronic broker company. The financial broker is listed on the Nasdaq Exchange with ticker IBKR. The firm operates in 150 electronic exchanges in 34 countries, and offers trading in 28 currencies. Interactive Brokers has more than 3.19 million institutional and retail customers.
Is Interactive Brokers any good?
Yes, Interactive Brokers is simply unmatched in terms of market access, account types and execution options for retail traders. It always has been and remains one of the cheapest trading and investing platforms globally.
Interactive Brokers is an exceptional trading platform that offers institutional-grade trading capabilities to private clients around the world. IBKR has some of the lowest trading and investing fees and the widest market range in the industry.
2025 Awards: Best Professional/DMA Broker 2025
Pricing: Top marks as IBKR don’t charge a custody (account) fee and commission are the cheapest around
Market Access: Top marks again for the widest selection of markets available
App & Platform: Hard to beat – excellent range of institutional grade execution tools and simple apps for beginners
Customer Service: IBKR let themselves down a bit here. If you are a big customer you get an account manager, otherwise online support is slow
Research & Analysis: Some of the best education, screeners and market data for free on their website and integrated into IBKR platforms.
I’ve used Interactive Brokers for about 20 years now. I’ve interviewed their founder (Thomas Peterffy), their UK MD (Gerry Perez), they’ve been a competitor (when I was a broker myself), a customer and a partner over the years. I’ve traded live with real money when thoroughly testing their platforms.
This included an in-depth conversations with their Head Of Product (Steven Sanders) to get inside insights on the best parts of the platform and services that some clients may not know about. In this review, I lay out my verdict on Interactive Brokers as an industry expert so you can decide if they are the right investing and trading platform for you.
There is one thing that Interactive Brokers gives you above all other brokers, and that is control. You can invest and trade in pretty much anything you want, in pretty much any account type, pretty much how you want.
If you are not familiar with Interactive Brokers (IBKR) they are American, but global, as most American things are, with the notable exception of their news, which always seems to be local. But I digress, IBKR was one of the first brokers to offer electronic trading to the masses. They were founded in 1978 and if you want to know more about the man who founded them and is still running the show, read my interview with Thomas Peterffy, the founder and chairman.
Highlights: The key things to focus on if you are considering opening an account with Interactive Brokers is that:
They are cheap: No other investment or trading platform can match their discount commissions, FX rates and zero account charges
Huge market range: IBKR offer by far the best access to global stock exchanges around the world
They innovate and create :You can invest in so many different ways through IBKR, from their beginner IBKR LITE apps, to their institutional-grade desktop workstation trading platform. They have some of the most advanced and easy-to-use features available to private investors.
Interactive Brokers Account Types: IBKR offer by far the most types of accounts globally including regular investing account, active trader accounts, direct market access, futures, options and fractional stock trading
You can also earn money on your cash, you can buy bonds (high and low yielding), buy warrants, partake in placings, vote on company corporate actions. You can convert currency at 0.2%, which is cheaper than most specialist currency brokers or money transfer apps.
Foreign Exchange: Which actually segues me nicely to prove my control point. With most brokers you have to choose an account base currency (if you are in the UK that is probably going to be GBP) and when you trade, no matter what currency an asset is traded in your P&L will be converted to that base currency. But with Interactive Brokers you can run your account in multiple currencies.
So, if you put in GBP and trade the S&P for example, your P&L will be in USD. If you buy USD stock you get the option to attach a currency conversion to the transaction so you can convert exactly the right amount to cover the purchase, or you can choose to run a deficit in USD.
It’s not such an issue for small traders, as currency exposure, whilst important to be aware of, isn’t the most pressing matter. But if you are running a net flat long/short global macro portfolio, then keeping on top of your currency exposure could be the difference between making money or not.
Desktop Trader: Through ScaleTrader, (one of the founder’s favourite features) IBKR also gives you some very advanced order functionality, the sort you usually only get with professional trading systems like Fidessa (for stocks) or TT (for futures).
If you’re building a big position and don’t want the market to know you’ve got a big order to work, IBKR’s order ticket will let you gradually feed that into the market (but only charge you for the single order).
You can automatically drop bids and offers into the market based on time and price to take advantage of volatile markets. You can also set it to scalp for quick profits in choppy markets.
Pairs Trading: You can trade one stock against another automatically by spread, percentage or price.
Why is that important? Because it can help you build a market-neutral portfolio and when we asked the boss of IBKR the habits he saw in his most profitable customers, (referring back to our interview with him for the third time) he said the ones that traded one stock against another, often did well.
Interactive Brokers Universal Account: You can of course do these things with other brokers, but what you can’t do is do them all in one place.
For this review, I spent a while talking to Steven Sanders, IBKR’s head of Marketing & Product Development, and he said in the twenty years, he’s worked for Interactive Brokers the thing he’s most proud of (other than it being founder lead and therefore very little red tape when you want to get things done) is the implementation of the Universal Account, where everything is done from one account.
What’s amazing to me is that nobody else really offers it. Ten years ago when I was a derivatives broker at Man Financial, we offered everything that IBKR did, but all on separate platforms. We have a couple of big accounts, £20m upwards, that we were always trying to lure back from IBKR with our personalised voice brokerage where you could phone us up we’d take care of your complicated orders for you.
But times change, there is still demand for bespoke voice brokerage, but not as far as Interactive Brokers are concerned. They do offer it from specialists desks if needed, but most trading and investing is done online.
Demo Account: Interactive Brokers does have a demo account, but they call it a free trial instead. This is odd, because you don’t actually have to pay to have an account with IBKR. In fact, Interactive Brokers is one of the only trading platforms that does not have a custody fee for investing in a GIA, SIPP and ISA.
If you want to know more about that, you can listen to my podcast with Gerry Perez, the UK MD, who explains, how they offer such amazing market access for such little cost.
You get a cool $1m to paper trade with on the Interactive Brokers demo account or ‘Paper Trading version’ as they call it. You get access to the easy-to-use investors portal and the more complex IBKR TWS provides delayed market data, simulated trading and access to all of our unique tools and offerings, including the IBKR Risk Navigator, the Volatility and Probability Labs, Portfolio Builder, Research and News.
But, to be honest, I didn’t find the demo account very good. Lots of information was missing and I couldn’t place a trade. I’m not sure why, and actually, that’s going to be a bit of an issue for Interactive Brokers because demo accounts are a great way to get client’s interest. In a world where so many brokerages a vying for the same business, even small hiccups like that can cause a massive drop off rate in opening an account.
Usually, IBKR’s technology is first-rate, but the demo account isn’t up to scratch. I didn’t use the paper trading account, just the live trading platform with real market orders.
Customer Service At Interactive Brokers: It’s not all great, it takes a while to get through on the phone to customer service, and it has a slightly outsourced feel about it (if you know what I mean).
The desktop trading platform, despite its exceptional functionality, is also a bit ‘Windows 95’. But if you don’t need all the bells and whistles, the web based platform, or app has a more modern feel to them.
Options Strategy Builder: Options trading is gaining in popularity in the UK, mainly because of the press attention they derived from meme stocks (where US traders punt via options). But they are still a very complicated product. So what Interactive Brokers has down is create a Strategy Builder product, that essentially reverse the process of putting on options strategy trades.
You tell Strategy Builder what you think the market is going to do. For example, either, go up, stay still, not move for a while, or volatility will increase and it will create an options strategy around that. Instead of you having to know what strategy to put in place or working out the individual options legs.
IMPACT Ethical Investing: In tune with moving with the times, Interactive Brokers has also released the IMPACT app to help people investing in ESG and impact sectors, so they can put their money to good.
You can see the IMPACT dashboard on desktop, but it also operates as a standalone app that connects directly to your IBKR account and scores your portfolio based on how ethical the stocks you hold in it are. Ratings come from FactSet and Refinitiv, and there is this excellent feature that allows you to swap into more ethical stocks.
If one of your holdings is flagged as not that ethical, the app will suggest another one and at the click of a button, it will sell your shares and calculate how many new shares of a more ethical but similar company to buy and do it all for you. If you’re in the US, you can also make charitable donations directly on the app.
Interactive Brokers For Beginners: There is no doubt that Interactive Brokers is a proper trading platform, for those who know what they are doing and cater mainly to the more sophisticated investor. But they are making an effort to open their services up to the newer breed of investor and trader.
It’s standard now among many fintechs, but IBKR were actually the first to offer no commission trading. They also offer fractional shares through IBKR LITE and IBKR Pro accounts and have removed the monthly minimum account charge.
The hope of course is that by onboarding investors when they just start, they can look after their investments for the next 40 years, just as they have been doing for their existing clients for the last 40.
Interactive Brokers runs a Student Trading Lab where students from 600 schools and universities take part in a $1m paper trading account for the purposes of getting a better understanding of the markets. No broker these days can tell you what to buy or sell, but IBKR GlobalAnalyst helps you hunt out undervalued opportunities, across the world, not just in the US.
IBKR offer a Trading Academy, podcasts, webinars and blogs for beginners and experienced traders so that new customers survive the markets to become long-term clients.
Plus, they are cheap.
24-Hour ETFs At Interactive Brokers:Interactive Brokers has a list of 24 selected ETFs available to trade around the clock from Sunday evening, east coast time, through to the close on Friday, by adding these funds to its US overnight trading facility.
Clients who are permissioned to deal in US stocks, are able to trade these ETFs 23.50 hours a day, five days per week, allowing them to react to news stories, macroeconomic and geo-political events as they happen, rather than waiting for US markets to open.
The trading hours and ETFs are available to both retail and institutional clients alike and are traded via the firm’s IBEOS system. Trades can be submitted using multiple order types.
The range of ETFs is pretty broad and includes firm favourites such as SPY, QQQ, DIA and IWM, which track the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, Dow 30 and Russell 2000 indices respectively. You can also short those indices by trading the SH, PSQ, DOG, and RWM inverse ETFs.
Pros
- Very low dealing fees
- Wide market range
- Direct market access
- Complex order types
Cons
- Customer services can be slow
- No financial spread betting
- Pricing (5)
- Market Access (5)
- Apps & Platform (5)
- Customer Service (4)
- Research & Analysis (5)
Overall
4.8Best US Bond Brokers 2025 Compared
| Bond Broker | Bonds Available | Bond Trading Costs | Our Rating | More Info | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | 1m+ | $1-$5 | See Platform | ||
 | 60,000+ | $1 | Read Reviews | ||
 | 209,000+ | $1 | Read Reviews | ||
 | 88,000+ | $1 | Read Reviews |
USA Bond Broker FAQs:
Here are the answers to the most commonly asked questions by people searching for the best bond brokers in America.
There are a few different ways to buy bonds. They are slightly more complex than stocks as some require large minimum deal sizes and can have illiquid markets meaning they are difficult to sell if you want to cash in.
- Bond Brokers – A bond broker is the most common way to buy bonds. As with a US stock broker you simple, log on, choose the bond to buy and purchase as you would a stock on the stock market.
- As an ETF – ETFs or Exchange Traded Funds are diversified bond funds that are traded on the stock exchange. To buy a bond ETF you will need an American based ETF broker. Stock brokers usually give access to ETFs so a standard stock broking account should be enough. The advantage of bond ETFs is that as they contain a selection of bonds rather than just one, they are in theory a safer investment. Although, as there is more administration involved the costs of ownership and therefore performance are lower.
- Direct from the Government – You can buy bonds direct from the Government with their TreasuryDirect service.
All bonds are risky, but what is the right risk for you? The principle price of bonds moves up and down, which means the less you pay the higher the yield you will get from interest payments. As a rule, the lower the price the higher the risk.
- How much debt does the company or country have? – Most companies fund their activities through debt in one way or other. If a new company has lots of debt relative to it’s revenue, that would be considered a higher risk bond investment than an established company with a small amount of bond debt.
- Has the bond been given a rating? – Companies like Standard and Poors and Moody’s provide credit rating on bonds. These financial institutions grade bonds on the companies ability to pay them back. Giving a guide (although not definitive) to how safe or risky a bond is.
As with stocks picking the right time to buy US bonds is a gamble. Generally, bonds are considered longer term investments because the objective is to buy and sell at the same level and mainly earn income from the interest payments. However, with stocks, the objective is to invest mainly for growth.
All bond prices fluctuate in price and this depends on how healthy the underlying asset is, the economy in general and the sector performance relative to the overall stock market.
In order to trade futures online, you’re going to want to find a reputable US futures broker. Some will have a minimum amount threshold, meaning you could need $5000 to start investing. If you do, then you can expect access to a wide selection of markets and with plenty of data on offer as well as customisable tools and trading options, giving you everything you need to turn a profit at your fingertips.
For those on more of a budget and who are perhaps new to trading, it may be worth considering one of the several brokers where there’s no minimum amount required. Also look out for brokers who provide a two-week demo for those who are new to US futures brokers and want to try out the service before making a commitment. It’s a good idea to keep an eye out for brokers that offer generous fees as well, with many prices starting from just $0.59 per contract, per side commission as well as no inactivity fees.
Bonds are issued by many different types of organisations looking to raise money through debt. When you invest in a bond you are doing so in the hope that that organisation can pay it back along with the interest payments. Here’s a quick rundown of the types of bond available.
- Federal Government Bonds – These are backed by the US treasury and as such are deemed to be very safe. However, the safer a bond the lower the interest payment. There is also quite a large a market in speculating on Government bonds through US futures brokers and American options brokers.
- Municipal Bonds – These are similar to Government bonds, but issued by local government or US States. As they are also considered so safe the fixed income generated is low. Although this is offset by them being non-taxable, so depending on your tax structure could offer relatively higher yields.
- Investment Grade Corporate Bonds – Here you are buying bonds directly from companies who are borrowing money from investors. How safe the bonds are depends on the creditworthiness of the underlying companies and what the bond is guaranteed against. A well performing company would have a high priced bond paying relatively low interest coupons.
- Junk Bonds – These are corporate bonds that offer a high yield because the issuing company or country is considered a high risk. With junk bonds there is capital appreciation to be had from the principle price as well as the interest coupons that will pay a relatively high percentage. However, they are a risky form of bond investment.
