BUX vs finanzen.net ZERO — which broker is better?

Pros

• Owned by ABN AMRO since July 2024, with clearing and custody through ABN AMRO Clearing Bank — a materially stronger backing than the venture-funded startup that preceded it
• ETFs and ETCs cost EUR 0.99 a market order on every plan, Basic included — they are priced in their own column and are not dragged onto the EUR 3.99 European share grid
• Commission-free Zero Orders on the Plus and Prime plans — 3 a month on Plus, 5 on Prime — plus free Investment Plan purchases on every plan including Basic, which do not count against that allowance
• Fractional shares from EUR 5, which makes small recurring purchases of high-priced US shares work properly
• US market orders cost EUR 0.99 on every tier, and real-time quotes, deposits and withdrawals are all free
• Open to residents of eight European countries including Germany, Austria and Ireland — one of the few EUR-native app brokers accessible across DACH
• AFM-supervised with securities covered to EUR 20,000 under the Dutch investor compensation scheme and cash held at a bank under deposit-guarantee terms
• The app is genuinely well made: clean order flow, Investment Plans for automation, and expert-built portfolios for people who do not want to pick

Cons

• The free Basic plan is the expensive one everywhere except ETFs: 0.20% per year on invested assets, EUR 3.99 European share orders, 0.75% FX, no interest on cash, no Zero Orders and no limit orders — a EUR 20,000 portfolio pays more in service fees than the Plus subscription costs
• The AFM fined BUX B.V. EUR 1.6 million in November 2024, published in March 2025, for paying introduction fees to finfluencers, comparison sites and existing customers in breach of the Dutch inducement ban — a conduct matter, but one worth knowing before you read anyone's BUX recommendation
• Zero Orders are capped rather than unlimited: 3 a month on Plus and 5 a month on Prime, after which you are back on the paid market-order grid
• BUX does not act as a German or Austrian paying agent, so no Abgeltungsteuer or KESt is withheld at source and DACH investors must declare gains and dividends themselves via Anlage KAP or the Austrian equivalent
• Very narrow product range — shares, ETFs and ETPs only. No bonds, no mutual funds, no options, no futures, no forex, and direct crypto trading was discontinued in March 2024
• Zero Orders execute only in an end-of-day batch, so the commission-free route gives you no control over the price you get intraday
• No telephone support at any tier; everything runs through in-app chat and email during weekday business hours
• The subscription model introduced in August 2025 replaced a largely free product and was poorly received by the existing user base, which is visible in recent public review sentiment

Pros

• EUR 0.00 order commission on shares, ETFs, funds, certificates and warrants, with no custody fee, no third-party cost surcharge and no venue fee
• Savings plans in shares, ETFs and funds cost EUR 0.00 from EUR 1.00 per instalment and carry no minimum-quantity surcharge
• Best-rated app in the German neobroker field - roughly 4.7 out of 5 across about 26,000 German App Store ratings - with limit, stop, stop-limit, trailing stop-loss and OCO orders
• Trading is embedded in finanzen.net, Germany's largest retail finance portal, so quotes, news and instrument data sit beside the order ticket at no extra cost
• Extended hours: securities from 07:30 to 23:00 on weekdays and 14:00 to 19:00 on Saturdays, crypto 24/7
• Real spot crypto in the same account - 59 coins held by BaFin-supervised Tangany GmbH in Germany, plus more than 50 crypto ETPs including staking products
• Junior account on identical terms with no running costs, and Swiss share trading is supported
• Full German tax handling through Baader Bank: automatic Abgeltungsteuer, Freistellungsauftrag, loss offsetting and annual tax documents

Cons

• One trading venue only. Every order goes to gettex, so you cannot compare quotes, and outside Xetra core hours (09:00-17:30) the spread is the entire cost of your trade with nothing to benchmark it against
• No telephone support of any kind - the only channel is a ticket system inside the login, which Finanztip also flags as the reason ZERO scores mid-table on service
• The Fair Use Policy explicitly reserves the right to terminate clients for automated or high-frequency trading, latency arbitrage, 'economically pointless' transactions, or simply never funding the account
• Crypto costs 1.0% of order value in commission (0.5% brokerage plus 0.5% settlement) on top of the spread, and coins can be neither deposited nor withdrawn - the wallet is a closed system
• Three-company structure: finanzen.net zero GmbH is only a tied agent with no licence, DonauCapital Wertpapier GmbH carries the liability, and Baader Bank holds the assets. It is legal and disclosed, but there is no single accountable balance sheet
• No individual bonds, no joint or second accounts, no business accounts, no demo account, and uninvested cash pays 0.00% p.a.