Best Discount Stock Broker for Medium Portfolios

Portfolio size between 10,000$ and 25,000$

Membership fee for Stock Basket Account is still too high. Traditional account with pay per trade is preferred.

This segment is where the jungle is because all offers have subtle differences that may be costly if you don’t pay attention.


Discount Broker Maintenance Fee Free Window Trades /month Buy Window Trade Sell Window Trade Market Order Limit Order
Sharebuilder 0$ 0 4$ 15.95$ 15.95$ 19.95$
Foliofn 14.95$/quarter (*)
(59.8$/year)		 0 3.95$ 3.95$ 14.95$ 14.95$
BuyAndHold 6.99$/month
(83.88$/year)		 2 2.99$ 2.99$ 15$ No

(*) waived if ≥4 transactions in the previous quarter.

  • Sharebuilder has no account fee but Sell Orders are expensive.

  • Foliofn trade fees are higher than BuyAndHold but account fee is lower and is waived if 4 transactions are performed during the quarter.

  • BuyAndHold has the lowest fee per trade, includes 2 free trades per month but has the highest monthly account fee which cannot be waived.


    As, you can see, it is not straightforward so let’s look at a practical and realistic example to get a better idea.

    You invest 15,000$ in a mechanical strategy with 10 stocks and annual rebalancing. This portfolio generates 10 Buys and 10 Sells per year.

    Discount Broker Maintenance Fee 10 Buys 10 Sells Total costs /year %costs
    /15,000$
    Sharebuilder 0$ 40$ 159.5$ 199.5$ 1.33%
    Foliofn 44.8$ 39.5$ 39.5$ 123.8$ 0.83%
    BuyAndHold 83.9$ 23.9$ 29.9$ 137.7$ 0.92%


    Be careful with the no account fee with Sharebuilder. The Sell fee quickly adds up when you rebalance. Sharebuilder is best if you’re a Passive investor (e.g. invest in ETFs with occasional buy/sell such as Market Timing).

    Despite the 2 monthly free transactions with BuyAndHold, it is slightly more expensive than Foliofn because the annual account fee is higher. BuyAndHold is interesting if you dollar cost average.

    Foliofn ends up to be the cheapest which was far from obvious at first glance. The reason is a cheaper maintenance fee versus BuyAndHold and its removal when the number of transactions exceeds 4 in the previous quarter: something that can happen regularly.


    It is worth noting that tools available with Stock Basket Accounts such as Tax Optimization Tools, Ready Made Folios (Foliofn only).… are not available with Traditional Accounts. This is true for all 3 brokers.

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