Consorsbank vs Interactive Brokers — 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

• US stocks from USD 0.0035 per share on the Tiered plan, minimum USD 0.35 per order and capped at 1% of trade value
• Currency conversion at 0.20 basis points (minimum USD 2) — an order of magnitude cheaper than most European brokers' 0.25%–1.5%
• Roughly 160 market destinations in 36 countries from a single multi-currency account, with 28 settlement currencies
• No inactivity fee since 2021, plus no custody fee and no platform fee
• Trader Workstation offers over 100 order types plus a mature Python/Java/REST API used widely by retail algo traders
• Nasdaq-listed parent (IBKR) with published quarterly financials and around USD 21 billion of equity capital
• Top-tier licences in the US, UK, Ireland, Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong, with per-entity investor compensation disclosed
• Paper trading account mirrors the live platform, including the full API

Cons

• Customer support is the most common complaint: many requests go through the ticket system, and public reviews (e.g. on Trustpilot) often cite slow replies and template answers
• Trader Workstation has a genuinely steep learning curve; the first session is intimidating even for experienced traders
• The fee schedule is complicated: Fixed versus Tiered, pass-through exchange fees, and per-exchange minimums make cost prediction harder than it should be
• Real-time market data is a paid subscription per exchange, so the headline commissions understate the true monthly cost for active traders
• Account opening is longer and more document-heavy than at app-first brokers, and the website navigation is poor
• Spot crypto is only available to US clients via a separate arrangement; EEA clients get futures and exchange-traded products instead