CapTrader vs LYNX — which broker is better?

Pros

• BaFin-supervised German investment firm (institution number 10156708) with a Düsseldorf address, German contract law and a free German hotline until 20:00
• Eurex options and futures at EUR 2.00 per contract, Mini-DAX futures at EUR 1.00 and CME Micro E-minis at USD 1.25 — competitive with anything available to German retail traders
• Access to over 160 market destinations, more than 1.2 million instruments, one million-plus bonds and 37,000 funds from a single multi-currency account
• No account fee, no custody fee, no inactivity fee, and free real accounts on TWS, CapTrader Desktop, AgenaTrader Andromeda and the TraderFox Trading-Desk
• German shares on Tradegate, gettex, Chi-X and Turquoise DE from a EUR 2.00 minimum — noticeably cheaper than the EUR 4.00 Xetra minimum for small orders
• Trustpilot rating of 4.9 from more than 800 reviews, with support consistently named as the reason
• Interactive Brokers' execution stack underneath: SmartRouting, real-time margining, more than 60 order types and a mature API

Cons

• No Abgeltungsteuer is withheld. German investors gain a compounding advantage but must declare everything themselves via Anlage KAP, and a Freistellungsauftrag is not possible — for many people that alone rules CapTrader out
• Commissions are a visible markup on Interactive Brokers' own schedule: 0.10% with a EUR 4.00 Xetra minimum against IBKR's 0.05% and EUR 1.25, and USD 0.01 per share against IBKR's USD 0.0035
• Currency conversion costs 0.3 basis points with a EUR 3.75 minimum — one and a half times what IBKR charges direct, and the minimum bites on every small conversion
• Investor compensation for EEA clients is the Irish scheme's 90% of EUR 20,000, thin against the German EUR 100,000 deposit guarantee investors are used to
• EUR 2,000 minimum deposit and per-order minimums make small, regular ETF purchases uneconomic; there are no free savings plans
• No spot crypto — only Bitcoin futures and exchange-traded products — and real-time market data is a paid monthly subscription per exchange

Pros

• LYNX+ is a genuinely good browser platform, and having it alongside full Trader Workstation access means you can start simple and grow into the terminal
• No minimum deposit and no custody or account fee for individual and joint accounts
• Eurex options at EUR 2.00 per contract, Micro-DAX futures at EUR 0.99 and CME Micro E-minis at USD 2.50 — the derivatives schedule is competitive
• Börse LYNX is one of the strongest free German-language education and analysis libraries any broker publishes, with a substantial webinar programme
• German-language service desk on a free number Monday to Thursday until 20:00, rated 4.8 on Trustpilot from over 760 reviews
• Trading since 2006 through a Dutch AFM-authorised entity with a BaFin-supervised German branch, and access to 100-plus exchanges in over 30 countries
• Free outbound transfers if you leave, which is rarer in Germany than it should be

Cons

• The most expensive of the German Interactive Brokers introducing brokers on equities: 0.14% with a EUR 5.80 Xetra minimum and a USD 5.00 minimum on US shares, against CapTrader's EUR 4.00 and USD 2.00
• Currency conversion costs 0.005% with a EUR 5.00 minimum — two and a half times Interactive Brokers' own rate, and a permanent drag on any multi-currency portfolio
• No Abgeltungsteuer is withheld, so German investors must declare everything through Anlage KAP; and a German withholding-tax certificate costs EUR 30.00 per line on top
• Investor compensation is the Irish scheme's 90% of EUR 20,000 for EEA clients — thin next to the EUR 100,000 German deposit guarantee investors expect
• Business accounts pay a EUR 15.00 monthly minimum activity fee whenever commissions fall short of that amount
• The Stock Yield Enhancement Program hands LYNX a quarter of your securities-lending revenue, and there is no spot crypto despite the crypto-broker marketing