Consorsbank vs DEGIRO — which broker is better?

Pros

• All ETF savings plans run at 0% of the savings rate on more than 1,700 ETFs, permanently — the partners cover the fee, replacing the old 1.50% charge
• The deepest derivatives access of any German retail bank: Eurex options and futures with volume rebates down to EUR 2.00 per contract, plus CME, CBOT and OCC options and futures on a dedicated Margin account
• ActiveTrader professional software and the Trading API are both free, with real-time monitoring, one-click ordering and Iceberg orders on Xetra in the Pro version
• Free depot, free Verrechnungskonto, free sub-accounts and free depot transfers, with no inactivity fee
• Transparent, published FX conversion margins — Bloomberg BFIX plus USD 0.0030, GBP 0.0020, CHF 0.0030 — roughly 0.26% on the dollar (0.30% if the price page's percentage margin applies to securities trades), better than flatex's 0.35% and more transparent than comdirect, which publishes no percentage at all
• Free foreign-currency sub-accounts in eleven currencies plus EUR, so US or Swiss proceeds do not have to be converted back at a spread
• Backed by BNP Paribas S.A. under ECB, BaFin, ACPR and AMF supervision, with the voluntary BdB fund protecting private individuals up to EUR 3 million
• From the second partial execution only the percentage commission applies — base fee and venue cost drop away, which materially cuts the cost of large orders that fill in pieces

Cons

• The tiered pricing starts unremarkable and Consorsbank does not publish the volume thresholds for Silver, Gold and Platinum status on its public price pages, so a new customer cannot calculate what they will actually pay next year
• Direct foreign exchange access is priced punitively: EUR 34 for London, EUR 41 for Zurich, EUR 72 for Tokyo, EUR 121 for Singapore and EUR 136 for Wellington in venue costs per order, plus a EUR 21 USA Smart Order fee and EUR 69 for Canada
• Customer service scores 1.6 out of 5 on Trustpilot across 300 reviews, with reviewers reporting online-banking failures that blocked access to accounts and depots for weeks, and slow, unhelpful responses
• Share, certificate and ETC savings plans still cost 1.50% of the rate, so only the ETF plans are genuinely free once the twelve-month new-customer promotion expires
• ActiveTrader Pro costs up to EUR 119 a month for standard-status customers, and US derivatives market data adds EUR 5–29 a month — the professional tooling is only free once you are already trading heavily
• No CFDs, no spot forex and no spot crypto, and the Tagesgeld pays 1.00% p.a. outside promotional periods

Pros

• ETF Core Selection trades cost EUR 0 commission plus the EUR 1.00 handling fee - among the cheapest ETF execution available to EU retail investors.
• US and Canadian shares are EUR 1.00 commission plus EUR 1.00 handling, flat, with no percentage component at any order size.
• Options and futures at EUR 0.75 per contract undercut nearly every European retail platform, across eight derivatives exchanges including Eurex and CME.
• No custody fee, no inactivity fee, no deposit or withdrawal fee, and a minimum deposit of EUR 0.01.
• Direct market access to more than 50 exchanges in 30 countries, so you own the actual listed line rather than a synthetic wrapper.
• Sits inside flatexDEGIRO Bank SE, a BaFin-supervised German bank, with cash covered to EUR 100,000 by the German statutory deposit guarantee.
• Parent flatexDEGIRO SE is listed in Frankfurt under FTK, so capital position, client numbers and profitability are published quarterly.

Cons

• The EUR 1.00 handling fee lands on almost every order, so a EUR 200 ETF purchase costs 0.5% before anything else. DEGIRO is cheap per order, not cheap per euro invested.
• AutoFX converts every non-euro trade at a 0.25% markup in both directions; the Manual FX alternative costs EUR 10.00 + 0.25% and only pays off on large conversions.
• The EUR 2.50 per-exchange annual connectivity fee is trivial in isolation but stacks quietly for anyone holding positions across five or six markets.
• No fractional shares and no demo account, which rules out small monthly contributions and leaves beginners nowhere to practise.
• Research is close to non-existent: no analyst ratings, no usable screener, and charting that stops well short of what an active trader needs.
• DEGIRO does not act as a withholding tax agent, so German and Austrian clients declare and pay capital gains tax themselves instead of having it handled at source.