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Comparison
Where the money actually goes
Cash sweeps, currency conversion, margin and account charges, with a calculator.
Breakdown
Interactive Brokers fees
Lite against Pro, and the currency conversion breakeven at around 6,667 dollars.
The four costs worth checking
The cash sweep. Where your uninvested money sits, chosen for you when the account opened. Brokers offer several options paying very different rates, and the default is rarely the best one available to you.
Currency conversion. Applied every time you buy or sell something listed in another currency, built into the rate rather than shown as a line item. The spread between the cheapest and the typical is wider than any commission difference.
Margin interest. Irrelevant if you never borrow, and the largest cost you pay if you do.
Account charges. Mostly gone at the large US brokers, and far less consistent elsewhere.
Work out your own number
Our free spreadsheet totals commissions, platform charges and currency conversion into one annual figure, so a switch stops being a guess.
Get the spreadsheet