Best Fidelity Alternatives for 2026!

Interactive Brokers (IBKR) is a publicly listed company with almost five decades of experience. By June 2026 it had 5.18 million client accounts and $930 billion in client equity, up 34% and 40% on the year, and it has won Barron’s top online broker ranking repeatedly.

Its product range is comparable to Fidelity’s, but IBKR is stronger for anyone who trades. The advantages include:

• An advanced dashboard with tools such as the Market Scanner and Risk Navigator;
• Futures trading, which Fidelity does not offer;
• Margin rates far below the rest of the industry. On a $25,000 loan IBKR charges around 5.1%, against roughly 11.3% at Fidelity, according to IBKR’s own published comparison from March 2026;
• Interest on uninvested cash, advertised at up to 3.14%.

Stocks, ETFs and mutual funds are commission-free for US clients. International investors still pay little, from $0.0035 per US share. Options run from $0.15 to $0.65 per contract and futures from $0.25 to $0.85. You can hold Traditional, Roth, Inherited, Rollover and SEP IRAs.

Here is the all-important section on transfers if you do decide to switch:

If you do move to IBKR, check whether a friend is already a client. Outside a handful of countries, the referral pays your friend $200 and gives you $1 of IBKR stock for every $100 deposited, up to $1,000 worth of shares. Not life-changing, but better than nothing.

Webull launched its US brokerage in 2018 and has grown fast since. It is headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida, and has been listed on the Nasdaq since April 2025, after a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, trading under the ticker BULL. That listing matters for a broker that used to be described simply as Chinese-owned: it now files audited public accounts.

Webull Financial is a member of FINRA and SIPC, which gives $500,000 of investor protection including up to $250,000 in cash. New users can claim free shares when they open and fund an account.

Webull is built for active traders. Its tools include:

• Real-time news and market data;
• More than 60 technical indicators;
• Extended-hours trading;
• Multi-screen desktop trading;
• An OpenAPI for automated strategies.

The range has widened well beyond stocks and options: futures, crypto (reintroduced in 2025), mutual funds inside IRAs since June 2026, and access to private market vehicles for accredited investors. Retirement accounts now come with a contribution match of up to 3.5% for Webull Premium subscribers, which costs $3.99 a month, or 1% without the subscription.

The commission-free structure is genuinely cheap to trade, but the account fees are worth knowing before you move:

Fees above are from Webull’s published fee schedule. For more details, check our Webull review.

E*TRADE was founded in 1982 and bought by Morgan Stanley in 2020. That acquisition is the reason its clients get research from Morgan Stanley’s analysts and strategists at no extra cost, which is the single biggest argument for choosing it over a pure trading app.

Combine that with Power E*TRADE, the firm’s trading platform, and you have a credible alternative to Fidelity. Power E*TRADE was designed for traders, with features such as:

• Live quotes;
• On-demand news from the Bloomberg Terminal;
• Pattern recognition on charts;
• Risk and reward analysis;
• Implied volatility around earnings;
• Personalised data points;
• More than 140 charting tools.

The fee structure is fair: stocks and ETFs trade commission-free, options cost $0.65 per contract (less for frequent traders), futures $1.50 per contract and bonds $1 each. Other relevant charges are as follows:

E*TRADE offers Traditional, Roth, Rollover and SEP IRAs, plus 401(k) options for small businesses.

On the incentives, the current offers are among the largest in the market: up to $1,500 on a new brokerage account and up to $10,000 on a new retirement account, in both cases with a cash credit that scales with the size of your deposit, a $1,000 minimum to qualify for the smallest tier and a funding window of 60 days. There is also a savings account promotion with a boosted rate for six months. Promo codes and deadlines change, so check the terms on E*TRADE’s site before opening the account.

Public.com was founded in 2019 and is a member of FINRA and SIPC. The platform is for US residents only, as Public.com is not available internationally.

The product range has changed a lot since its social-investing days, and the gaps this article used to flag are gone. Public now offers:

• Retirement accounts, with a match on contributions, transfers and 401(k) rollovers;
• Bonds and Treasuries, including a Bond Account built for yield and a screener covering thousands of issues;
• A high-yield cash account;
• Options, with a rebate paid back to the customer on each contract;
• Crypto, executed and custodied by Zero Hash, a third party;
• Alternative assets, or “alts”, which are not covered by SIPC.

On order routing, Public does not take payment for order flow on equities, which is unusual among commission-free US brokers. On options it does receive rebates, and it passes part of them back to you rather than keeping them, so read that as a different model rather than the absence of one.

US stocks and ETFs trade with no commission during regular market hours. Outside them it costs $2.99 per trade, the same as OTC stocks, and recurring purchases through an Investment Plan cost $0.49 to $1.99 depending on how many symbols the plan holds. Index options are $0.50 per contract, while stock and ETF options are free and can even pay you a rebate of $0.06 to $0.18 per contract under the Options Rebate Program. Bonds are priced per $100 of par value, from $0.10 on short Treasuries to $0.50 on corporate bonds.

Public Premium costs $10 a month or $96 a year, and is waived entirely on accounts above $50,000. It removes the extended-hours and Investment Plan fees, cuts index options to $0.35, drops the $3.99 monthly fee on the Bond Account and adds Morningstar research and VIP support.

Margin is competitively priced, starting at 4.90% and falling with the size of the balance, and from 17 September 2026 it is set by formula as the top of the Fed funds target range plus a spread.

Here is the guide to the cost of deposits, withdrawals and transfers:

Fees above come from Public’s fee schedule of 14 August 2026. The old cash bonus of up to $10,000 for transfers closed in September 2025. In its place, Public runs a 1% match with no cap on brokerage transfers, IRA transfers and 401(k) rollovers, which is the better deal for large balances, with the catch that the matched amount has to stay put for five years.