Broker Comparator
Compare the fees of different brokers under different investing scenario.
How does this work?
You can choose between four different scenarios:
- Invest. This calculator assumes that you are investing once a month into your ETFs. By default, you will invest in each of your two ETFs according to your allocation. If you use 100 or 0 as a world allocation, you will only invest in one ETF each month.
- Sell. This is very similar to the Invest scenario, except that we sell each month instead of buying.
- Invest for a goal. This scenario assumes you are savings for a specific goal and that you will sell everything you have accumulated after a specified number of hours. This could be used if you are investing to save for a house, for instance.
- Invest for retirement. This is the most advanced of the scenarios. In this case, you are investing for multiple years (like the previous scenario) but you are then withdrawing (selling) from your portfolio every month for multiple years as well.
The total fees include everything that can differentiate brokers:
- Custody fees.
- Foreign currency exchange fees.
- Transaction costs for the stock market.
- Stamp duty if the broker is Swiss.
- The US taxes on dividends if the broker does not allow you to invest in US ETFs.
The total fees are computed for an entire year.
Is something missing?
If you would like another broker included in this calculator, please let me know in the comments below. And if you want to be able to do more configuration, also let me know and I will consider extra features.
What about Robo-advisors?
If you are also interested in results for Robo-advisors, you can check out this other calculator: The Robo-advisor Comparator.
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Hello Baptiste,
Thank you for this amazing resource!
I wanted to clarify if I understood correctly “Portfolio value” – is this a starting value of sorts?
I’m looking to change my broker (Volt) and already have a significant portfolio there that I’d like to completely transfer out due to their exorbitant fees. Is it correct that I use “Portfolio value” as the starting balance I’m looking to transfer?
Thanks!
Hi Jamie
It is the starting value. In your case, it would be the current value of your portfolio at Volt, yes.
On the other hand, the comparator will not compute the costs of the transfer itself.
Ciao Baptiste,
Thanks for your calculator, very useful, so as has already been said it might make sense to have an American world stock ETF in IB and a Swiss bond ETF in Neon, but if one day I would like to sell my Swiss bond ETF shares, would I have to transfer it to IB and then sell everything with lower commissions? would it make sense? Thank you
Hi Gabriele
Yes, it would make sense to use another broker for your Swiss shares if you want to spread your broker risk.
You can transfer shares for 100 CHF to another broker. You could do that to save on selling fees. You could also use another broker like Saxo where the selling fees would not go up so significantly for large amounts.
Hi Baptiste,
I am trying to better understand the gap in my calculation for IBKR for the purchase of 500.- a month on a Swiss ETF.
In the calculator IBKR cost would be 53.- a year, while I get around 7.-.
What am I missing in the calculation below?
Breakdown of IBKR Tiered Pricing for CHF 500 Monthly Investment
• Trading Fee: 0.05% of CHF 500 = CHF 0.25, but the minimum fee of CHF 1.50 applies.
• Trade Reporting Fee: CHF 1.00
• Clearing Fee: CHF 0.38
• Stamp Duty: 0% (Exempt)
• Total Cost per Transaction: CHF 1.50 + CHF 1.00 + CHF 0.38 = CHF 2.88
• Total Cost per Year (12 transactions): CHF 2.88 × 12 = CHF 6.96
Thanks a lot for your time!
Hi Frank,
You are missing on the exchange fee. This is the fee for the exchange itself (SIX). This is 0.015% plus 1.50 CHF.
And 2.88 CHF times 12 is 34.56 not 6.96 :)
Hi Baptiste,
I see! I thought the exchange fee was actually on the “money” exchange.
And as in this case I was buying directly in Swiss Francs this was not going to apply.
Would it mean this exchange fee is applied to all providers e.g. Yuh, Neon or Saxo?
As I’m focused only on buying a Swiss ETF with the provider, combining a one-off entrance and monthly payments of 500.-, Saxo looks to be the best option.
Would you suggest to look into any other factor before choosing provider based on my scenario?
Thanks a lot!
Hi Frank
As far as I know, these fees are on each order, but I may be wrong.
And yes, these fees should be applied to each provider, but they are generally “hidden” behind a single fee and then the broker will pay back the exchange.
I think Saxo is very good option to buy and hold Swiss ETFs. This is what I am doing myself (VT on IB and CHSPI on Saxo).
Postfinance custody fees are 18 CHF / quarter now.
Thanks, I have updated the comparator!
Hi Baptiste,
I am considering complementing my IBKR with a Swiss-based broker, and I decided to go with PostFinance.
However, I don’t quite understand what “Extra US dividends witholding (lack of US ETFS)”
As far as I know, US ETFs are supported at PostFinance. Why is there any “extra” withholding? Could you please give me some background about that?
Many thanks!
Hi ABCD
As far as I knew, there was no support for US ETFs at PostFinance. But I may be wrong. If somebody with a PostFinance account could confirm that, I can update the comparator.
Thanks, I think I will just go ahead and open one, and then I’ll let you know.
I’m still struggling to understand the issue though. If US ETFs cannot be bought on PostFinance, then there is no dividend tax withholding to worry about to begin with, no? Or would that concern US stocks then? In any case, wouldn’t I be able to get the taxes withheld back when I do my tax return?
If you cannot buy them, it means you have to opt for a worse option, likely an Ireland ETF. And the difference is that you will lose 15% of the dividends with an IE ETF compared to a US ETF and you won’t get back this 15%.
For US stocks, this is not a problem.
So I wrote to the PostFinance customer service and was told that PostFinance is a “Qualified Intermediary” and US ETFs can be bought and held at their E-trading platform.
Thanks for sharing, ABCD. On my next update, I will change this in PostFinance.
Thanks for the tool, very helpful.
Could the neon 0% savings plan be included? There, the 0.5% only applies when selling, not when buying.
Another advantage is that the e-tax statement is free with neon.
Hi FOAD
Yes, I can try to fit it in. The problem is that this plan is limited in the ETFs, so it adds a several limitation. I will see how I can make it clear.
It’s true that some companies charge for the e-tax statement, but since it’s not “strictly” necessary, I do not want to add this to the costs.
Hi Baptiste
Yes that’s true, the selection is very limited but I think the selection is sufficient for most people.
The e-tax statement is not absolutely necessary but it’s nice to have. There are providers who don’t offer it at all, others charge more than 100 chf for it and there are providers who offer it for free. I understand that it is not included in the comparison.
Dear Baptiste Wicht,
In Neon or Degiro i just want to invest only in Stock like Nvidea or other AI. I did open account in IB with the help of your book and it is great information for the beginner.Because i am new to investment. but some features did not allow me to trade like Nvidea and other AI.
Which one will be cheaper in the long run.I like to invest not more than 10,000 in 10 Years.Could you leave a reply. Thank you.
kelly
Hi Kelly,
That’s weird, you should be able to trade NVDA without issues on IB. You need to get stocks permission for US in your account permissions.
IB will be much cheaper than DEGIRO and Neon. If you invest at once, DEGIRO should be cheaper. If you invest in many small pieces, Neon will be cheaper.
Hi Baptiste,
Thank you very much for this great tool! Was just trying to put together something similar for myself, when I found this, much appreciated.
Quick question, could it make sense to use Interactive Brokers and Neon at the same time, IB for the International Stock exposure and Neon for the Swiss market bias?
From the buy fees this seems optimal (for the sums i am thinking of). Is there something i am missing?
Thanks a lot for your site, so many helpful articles!
Best,
Henrik
Hi Enrico
I am glad this is useful!
It can make sense indeed. Below something like 750 CHF per month in a CH ETF, Neon Invest will be cheaper than IB. Just keep in mind that when you will see, you will need to pay the fee again and the stamp duty, so selling will be much higher on Neon. a
Thanks for your reply!
For the selling fees, could i make a very rough estimate of:
S_Neo ~= (0.5%+0.075%)*P
S_IB ~= (0.1% to 0.3%)*P + fixed amount
Do you know if selling fees are guaranteed upon buy? Or can they be changed (I guess they are unlikely to significantly change for IB, but maybe for Neon)
Your estimate for Neon sounds right, but your estimate for IB sounds way off.
For instance, selling 100’000 of a Swiss ETF on IB would only come to 0.05% and selling 100’000 USD of a US ETF would only come to about 0.01%, so selling fees are going to be way lower with IB than with Neon.
No, selling fees are not guaranteed.
How is it possible that Neon is cheaper than Interactive Brokers at 10k portfolio, 300 per month investment and 80% World (77.85 CHF vs. 45.36 CHF)? I though IB was so cheap it was undoubtedly the best broker to use in terms of fees? According to your calculator it eats up more in currency exchange fees and transaction cost for the CH ETF than Neon does in stamp tax and missed dividends. Is IB only cheaper for high investments?
Or should one just not buy a CHF ETF with IB but rather with Neon?
Keep in mind that as you invest more and more, your portfolio will go up and the advantage will go in favor of IB. But if your goal is to never reach high amounts, Neon Invest may indeed be cheaper than IB.
Neon Invest is quite cheap. In this case, it has no currency conversion fees (because it only supports CHF). And it has no minimum fee while IB is relatively expensive to buy small amount of non-US Shares.
If you switch to a 1000k a month investment, IB is already much cheaper.
If you switch to 100% World ETF (translates to US ETFs), IB becomes already cheaper than Neon invest.
In practice, you can make IB cheaper by investing in a single ETF per month, but it is difficult to translate this with a variable world allocation in my calculator.
So would you say, if I don’t have 1000 CHF per month to invest but at most half that, it would make sense to invest in a US World ETF on IB and every now and then in a CH ETF on Neon? And generally no non-US stocks on IB?
Also, does your calculator use the fixed minimum of 2 USD in currency conversion fee for IB or the automatic one? I just read about that in your IB post and I think that could make a difference. Because above it said 21.something CHF in currency conversion per year.
That would seem a reasonable indeed. Keep in mind that the fee when you sell would be 0.5% as well on Neon. On a large amount, this could be significant.
Yes, my calculator uses the 2 USD fee. That’s a good point, IB could be cheaper using the automated conversions for amounts below 6500 CHF. I will think about it.
What fees to sell does IB have?
IBKR has the same fees for buying and selling. But selling large amounts is much cheaper with IB than with Neon and at some point, you may sell (otherwise you will never use the shares).
Selling 100k CH ETF with IB will cost about 65 CHF but will cost 500 CHF with Neon.
Hi Baptiste,
Could it be that the custody fee is not capped at Saxo Bank in your calculator? AFAIK, you never pay more than 10.-/month for custody fees at Saxo, but in the calculator this does not seem to be reflected.
Hi Yanick,
You can click on any item and you can see the details. The fees are capped at 120 CHF properly. The difference you are mentioning is that the calculator does not reflect the fact that Saxo recently changed and allowed US ETFs. This will be updated in my articles and the calculator in the coming days if I have the time.
Thanks, that make sense!
Another question:
Would it make sense to put a limit on the minimum monthly amount to your form? Since the results do not make sense anymore if you e.g. invest 0 each month (keeping it the same each month; it still tells you that you have ETF buying fees). Also negative values can be entered currently.
I stumbled upon this when i attempted to visualize the different in custody fees (and no transactions) for a year.
Yes, it would make total sense :) I have fixed the code so that it works with zero and negative numbers. And I will later fix the form itself. Thanks for reporting the issue.