TradeStation vs Consorsbank — which broker is better?

Pros

• EasyLanguage plus tick-level historical data gives retail traders genuine strategy development, backtesting and optimisation — not a toy backtester
• Commission tiers are assessed per asset class, so equities, options and futures each step down independently with monthly volume
• Options fall from USD 0.80 to USD 0.00 per contract and futures from USD 1.75 to USD 0.50 per side at the top volume brackets
• RadarScreen scans hundreds of symbols in real time with custom indicators, and the Matrix ladder is a proper depth-of-market execution tool
• Regulated by the SEC and FINRA (CRD #39473) with SIPC cover to USD 500,000, and owned by Tokyo-listed Monex Group
• Zero commission for U.S. clients on US equities and more than 3,000 ETFs, including spot Bitcoin ETPs; clients outside the U.S. pay a USD 5.00 ticket charge per trade
• Full entity account support — LLCs, corporations, trusts and partnerships — plus futures IRAs

Cons

• USD 10 monthly inactivity fee unless the account placed at least ten trades or held a USD 5,000 average end-of-month equity balance during the previous 90 days
• Base-tier options pricing of USD 0.80 per contract is above the US market average, and index options cost more again
• USD 1.75 per futures contract per side at the base tier is roughly double a dedicated futures broker's headline rate
• Non-trading fees are dated and steep: USD 125 outgoing ACAT, USD 35 annual IRA fee, USD 50 IRA termination, USD 14.95 per option exercise or assignment
• No spot cryptocurrency, no forex, no fractional shares and no no-transaction-fee mutual funds
• Margin starts at 11.75% on debit balances under USD 50,000, and uninvested cash earns essentially nothing on the first USD 100,000

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