As online trading keeps growing, the brokerage industry faces transformation in the coming decade, fueled by advances in artificial intelligence and expansion into cryptocurrency and global markets. And the results of IBD's 13th annual Best Online Brokers survey — topped by Fidelity, Merrill Edge and Robinhood Markets — help investors find the right trading platform to fit their needs in this new era.
While younger investors have flocked to great mobile apps, such as Robinhood's, customers of online brokerages tell us fundamental features still reign supreme. Investors value fast trade executions, good prices and great customer service.
Investor's Business Daily's 2025 list of Best Online Brokers showcases perennial leader Fidelity Investments, frequent winner Merrill Edge (owned by Bank of America) and mobile-trading favorite Robinhood. These three brokers earned the top overall ratings from their customers.
Fidelity has ranked among the top Best Online Brokers every year the survey has been conducted.
Other online brokers included in the survey analysis this year are Interactive Brokers, E-Trade (owned by Morgan Stanley) and Vanguard.
Charles Schwab has been honored among IBD's Best Online Brokers for 12 years of the survey.
IBD's annual list of the best online brokers is derived from the results of an extensive survey of thousands of brokerage customers.
Read Our Full Special Report On The Best Online Brokers For 2025
Tech, AI And Younger Customers Transform Online Trading Platforms
Technology and AI are rooted and have been growing in the online brokerage industry for decades. But more recently, customers have shown a greater interest in mobile and online trading platforms and apps. And brokers are responding.
"The rise of younger investors and self-directed investing has led to asset managers, broker-dealers and advisors evolving their practices to better serve a more diverse class of investors across generations," said Dan Cwenar, head of Broadridge Data and Analytics.
In its 2024 study of more than 40 million U.S. retail investors, Broadridge found Gen-Z, millennial and Gen-X investors are steadily increasing their share of assets. Assets held by boomers and the Silent Generation continue to decline. Another trend is the rising popularity of self-directed investing across generations and Americans' "slow but steady breakup" with mutual funds as allocations to ETFs and U.S. equities rise.
The average number of investments held across generations continues to increase, with millennials growing the fastest over a five-year period, increasing from six investments in 2018 to 10 in 2023.
Cwenar describes the changes in the investing landscape and investor activity as "tectonic shifts."
More Investors Use Online Brokers
There's been a surge in the number of investors adopting self-directed investing, or online discount investing. Broadridge's most recent data shows 31% of all investors allocating assets to online discount brokerage platforms. About one-third of those also have an advisory relationship. Additionally, investors are intentionally increasing their asset ownership via online discount brokerages (up from 14% in 2018 to 23% in 2023), the report says.
Pre-retirees — investors in their 50s and 60s — may have the best of both worlds. Advice-driven investors are slightly older on average than those seeking out self-directed platforms, but they have portfolios that are more than twice as large, Broadridge says.
Online trading isn't just for the young and less affluent, however. Study data shows that high-net-worth investors (those with more than $1 million) put more assets and activity into self-directed investing than their mass market and mass affluent cohorts. High-net-worth investors have nearly 25% of their assets in the self-directed channel. Mass market investors are those with less than $100,000 in liquid investable assets. Mass affluent investors are those with liquid investable assets between $100,000 and $1 million.
New Generations Enter The World Of Online Trading
In a post-pandemic world, the landscape for online brokers is looking healthier. It helps that there are more younger investors, as well as mature investors with growing assets. New technologies and wider accessibility also are helping the industry.
The global online trading platform market size was estimated at $9.57 billion in 2023. Grand View Research, based in San Francisco, reports that this market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 7.3% from 2024 to 2030. The global market is estimated to reach $15.62 billion by 2030, Grand View says.
Investors have access to more financial news and data. Thanks to this access, social media influencers and online groups like Reddit's WallStreetBets, more individuals are trading. Grand View said the surge in retail trading activity has led to higher trading volumes on online platforms and bigger revenue streams for brokers.
While mobile trading apps have revolutionized trading, investors are increasingly interested in managing their own portfolios. Online trading tools give investors more control. That, Grand View said, "appeals to those wanting to be more hands-on with their investments and make decisions based on their market views."
Best Online Brokers Adapt To Democratization, Changing Product Mix
Broadridge's most recent survey highlights what it calls a "steady stream of younger and less-educated investors" entering the market. The "headcount of the youngest (Gen-Z at 5.9%) neared the oldest (Silent Generation at 6.7%)."
Online brokers also are adapting to what it calls Americans' slow-but-steady breakup with mutual funds. Allocations to ETFs and U.S. equities are on the rise. ETFs and equities continued to gain asset share (at 1% and 2% a year, respectively, since 2019). Mutual funds declined another 1% to 36.8%, down from 51.3% in 2019. Equities accounted for nearly four in 10 investment dollars and ranked at the top with a 39.6% asset share.
Broadridge data for the most recent year, 2023, marked the first time that mutual fund assets dropped below equity assets within individual investors' portfolios. The share of investors owning mutual funds declined from 72% in 2018 to 62% in 2023. Also, the average number of equity investments held by investors doubled from four in 2018 to eight in 2023.
Areas Where The Best Online Brokers Excel
These shifts reveal themselves in IBD's 2025 Best Online Brokers special report.
Stalwarts Fidelity, Merrill Edge and Robinhood lead the best online brokers. They have consistently scored well in the attributes customers value highly. These include security, customer service and investment research.
See The Complete List Of IBD's 2025 Best Online Brokers
Fidelity, at 78 years old, has about $6 trillion in assets under management. Besides its brokerage, the privately held company manages mutual funds and offers retirement services and wealth management. Fidelity's online brokerage topped the competition with an overall score of 65.4 in IBD's 2025 Best Online Brokers survey. "We continually invest in our technology, tools and capabilities with a 100% customer focus," said Josh Krugman, senior vice president of brokerage at Boston-based Fidelity Investments. Fidelity scored a high of 81.2 for its customer service.
Merrill Edge customers said their brokerage has the best investment research. For that attribute, Merrill Edge ranked highest in IBD's 2025 survey. According to Matt Gellene, head of consumer investments at Merrill Edge, it's because of the company's connection to Merrill Lynch. "The solutions that we put in place are unique to Merrill Lynch because they're built from our chief investment office – they're not robo products that are just 'set it and forget it,'" Gellene told IBD.
The wealth management firm Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, known as Merrill, was founded in 1914. Merrill Edge was started in 2010, after Merrill Lynch became a subsidiary of Bank of America in 2008. Both are owned by Bank of America, but Merrill Edge is not part of Merrill Lynch.
Robinhood Grows With Next Generation Of Investors
Robinhood, the third in IBD's 2025 trio of Best Online Brokers, started out in 2013.
"Our customers skew a little younger," said Steve Quirk, Robinhood's chief brokerage officer. "We're so aligned with our customers. That alignment helps us understand what they need. Many of our associates are the same age."
Robinhood rose in the ranks this year, earning its highest overall customer rating yet in the IBD survey. The online brokerage earned the highest ratings for both mobile trading platforms and premarket and after-hours trading.
Beyond the three Best Online Brokers overall, other brokerages showed areas of strength.
Schwab Focuses On Customer Service
Schwab ranked among the three best brokers in seven categories, including customer service, research tools, investment research, availability of account types and educational resources.
Customer service is a top priority for Schwab, said Jonathan Craig, managing director and head of investor services. "The quality of service and depth of knowledge that our professionals provide to clients is deeply engrained in our culture and very difficult for other firms to replicate — not only from an expense standpoint but also the time and investment it requires with hiring, staffing, and professional development. We have more than 10,000 U.S.-based professionals providing world class service across phones, chats, social media, and in our physical branch locations in local communities."
Schwab also has specialized service teams that cater to the unique needs of different types of clients, Craig says. That includes high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth, traders, advisory clients, clients new to investing, and self-directed investors.
Interactive Brokers captured the highest rating for options trading platforms and pulled high scores in five other categories.
E-Trade customers lauded their broker for its equity trading platform and made the top three in two more areas. Vanguard was among the best online brokers for both cash management choices and incentives, discounts and pricing.
What It Takes To Be A Best Online Broker
While 2023 and 2024 were good years for equity investors, they also operated against a volatile backdrop. The U.S. elections at home and political conflicts abroad contributed. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve began a rate-cutting cycle.
For IBD's 2025 Best Online Brokers report, we asked customers to rank the brokers they do business with on 20 attributes. In the first phase of our survey, conducted from Aug. 30 to Oct. 21, survey respondents identified those 20 attributes. In a switch for this most recent survey, customers pointed to a new attribute — risk management — as important. Risk management took the place of wealth management in this survey.
The attributes that survey respondents told us were most important included trade execution speed/price, website security, equity trading platform and site performance.
Phase two of the survey was conducted from Oct. 31 to Dec. 9. In that phase, more than 2,000 customers ranked their primary broker on the attributes identified in the first phase.
IBD's Best Online Brokers List for 2025 is objective and the results are based solely on the data from our extensive customer survey. This independent special report is produced by the IBD editorial team. There is no sponsored content, nor are there any commission links.
