Charles Schwab Review: The Everything Broker That Actually Delivers
Charles Schwab is the 800-pound gorilla of US brokerages. After swallowing TD Ameritrade in 2020 and fully integrating it by 2024, the combined firm manages trillions in client assets and serves tens of millions of accounts. It's the broker your financial advisor probably uses. It's also — and this surprises people — genuinely cheap for everyday investors. Schwab charges $0 commissions on online stock and ETF trades, $0 to open any account, $0 to maintain any account, and has $0 account minimums across nearly every account type. That's not a gimmick or a loss leader; it's the baseline. The real question isn't whether Schwab is affordable — it is — but whether all that institutional heft makes it better or just bigger than the competition. The short answer: for most US investors, Schwab is one of the safest, most complete choices available. It's not the flashiest. It won't gamify your trades with confetti. But if you want a broker that can handle your first Roth IRA and your eventual $2 million portfolio without making you switch platforms, this is the one to beat.