I did a lot of research on trading commissions because if you trade frequently, at the end of the year it can all add up! Trading is a business and commission are like your expenses. Number#1 rule is: Maximize profit and minimize expenses. Of course at the same time, you want to assess the quality of the broker as well. You can have the cheapest commission but if the platform goes down multiple times or execution is terrible you can possibly incur losses or miss opportunities. Please read the review of each broker to assess the quality. This post will only highlight the cheapest commission of each broker.
It all depends, how many trades you will execute in a month, quarter, year? how many share lots typically you buy? Will you be trading pennystocks(unlimited shares is attractive) , mid-cap(fast execution is important) etc.?
Frequent/active trader:
Consider CIBC Edge Advantage as they are the cheapest when it comes to flat rate(unlimited shares) and includes all ECN fee's.
- $395 for 50 trades / year (unlimited shares). Works out to be $7.95/trade for the first 50 trades, and $6.95/trade after
Also their pricing structure allows you to purchase the same stock as MANY times as you like during the day, and you’ll only be
charged for 1 trade. This is a dream come true for scalpers that will go in and out numerous times on the same stock to exploit the range, i.e. AAPL, SPY . I don't know any broker that does this.
Alternatively, you can go with
TD Waterhouse under the active trader pricing structure.
- 150+ Trades/Quarter $6.99 flat (unlimited shares)
- 30-149 Trades/Quarter $9.99 flat (unlimited shares)
Keep in mind, you inure data fees if you do less than 150+ quarter.
Alternatively you can go with
Interactive Brokers with their bundled commission ( includes ECN fee's) if you trade less than 1k shares buy/sell(they charge per share) it's cheap. 100 shares=$1 , 1000 shares=$5, 5000 shares=$25. As you can see, when you increase share lot, you start to pay more commission. IB also has one of the fastest executions out of any broker.
Infrequent trader:
Questrade is the cheapest and you under no obligation to do certain number of trades per quarter, year etc. No inactivity fee. they have pricing structure where 1cent=share however min. is $4.95 and max is 9.95 you will pay and unlimited shares. Keep in mind as well, if you trade US securities in a registered account ( i.e. RRSP, TFSA) you will pay additional 5$ max per day regardless how many times you trade.
ThinkOrSwim Canada can be the next best thing if you get them to lower the pricing to $7.99 flat (upto 5k shares) You just have to ask kindly
Also you are under no obligation to do certain number of trades per quarter, year etc. No inactivity fee.
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