Questrade vs Trading 212 — which broker is better?

Pros

• CAD 0 commission on every Canadian and US stock and ETF trade, on both the buy and the sell side, with no ECN fees at all on Canadian orders
• CAD 0 contract fee on US-listed equity options and free assignment — one of only two Canadian brokers offering this
• Questrade Pro is free to all clients and includes Level 2 depth, time and sales, chart trading, hot keys and a multi-leg options strategy builder
• No inactivity fee, no annual account fee and no minimum balance on any registered or non-registered account
• Dual-currency registered accounts let you hold USD inside a TFSA or RRSP, removing forced conversion on every US dividend and sale
• Fractional shares, pre-IPO access, private credit, bonds, GICs, mutual funds and a separate FX & CFD account under one brand
• CIRO-regulated with CIPF coverage of CAD 1,000,000 per account category, and a record as Canada's largest independent broker going back to 1999

Cons

• The 1.5% CAD/USD conversion charge is high and unavoidable unless you deliberately manage currency; on a CAD 20,000 US-stock purchase it costs CAD 300, dwarfing any commission saving
• Cash earns effectively 0% below a CAD 250,000 balance — the published formula is prime minus 8.50%, floored at zero — while Wealthsimple pays 1.25% or more on chequing balances
• CAD 150 to transfer an account out, full or partial, and CAD 9.95 per journalling request unless you pay CAD 19.99 a month for Questrade Plus
• The 'margin rates as low as prime minus 2.5%' headline applies only to USD borrowing for clients trading 5,001+ US options contracts a month; the standard CAD non-registered rate is prime plus 4.25%, and registered accounts pay prime plus 8.10%
• No spot crypto, no exchange-traded futures, and no meaningful international equity access — non-US foreign shares cost 1% of trade value with a USD 195 minimum per side
• Questrade advertises no practice or paper-trading account for self-directed clients, so there is nowhere to learn Questrade Pro without real money at risk

Pros

• One of the lowest all-in costs among mainstream European brokers for buy-and-hold investors: no commission, no custody fee, no inactivity fee, free withdrawals with no minimum, and a 0.15% FX conversion fee.
• Over 13,000 global stocks and ETFs across LSE, Xetra, Gettex, NYSE, Nasdaq and Euronext Amsterdam, all available fractionally from as little as EUR 1.
• Pies and AutoInvest let you define a target portfolio with weights and drip contributions into it automatically - proper portfolio automation rather than a recurring single-stock order.
• A true multi-currency account across twelve-plus currencies including GBP, EUR, USD, CHF, PLN, SEK, NOK, DKK, CZK, HUF, CAD and AUD, so you can hold the currency you trade in and avoid conversion entirely.
• Bank transfers and all withdrawals are free with no limits; card and e-wallet deposits are free up to a cumulative GBP/EUR 2,000 before a 0.7% charge applies.
• EEA clients of Trading 212 Markets Ltd. get EUR 20,000 ICF cover plus, per Trading 212's own disclosure, additional insurance up to EUR 1m through Lloyd's of London.
• Regulated across five jurisdictions - FCA 609146, CySEC 398/21, BaFin 10109603, ASIC 541122 and Bulgaria's FSC - which is unusually broad for a private app broker.
• The mobile app is genuinely excellent: full account functionality, fast, and consistently among the highest-rated broker apps in the UK.

Cons

• Research is the weakest of any broker at this size. There is no meaningful screener, no analyst consensus, no fundamental data worth the name and no export tooling - you will make every decision using data from somewhere else.
• No options, no futures, no individual bonds and no mutual funds. The entire proposition is stocks, ETFs, CFDs and spot crypto; anything more structured has to live at another broker.
• Support is chat and email only, with no retail phone line. For a platform holding a pension and an ISA, the absence of a voice channel is a real gap when something is time-critical.
• Privately held, so there is no quarterly reporting or public market scrutiny of the kind eToro and XTB are subject to as listed companies.
• Governance record has two visible blemishes: blocking retail GameStop purchases in January 2021, which drew UK Financial Ombudsman complaints, and being reported in 2026 to have let UK retail clients buy crypto ETNs between October 2025 and January 2026 before holding the FCA permission.
• CFD costs are much less attractive than the investing side - the FX fee is around 0.5% rather than 0.15%, and overnight interest accrues daily on every leveraged position and compounds over time.