Firstrade Brokerage Promotion
Get up to $250 ACAT rebate and $0 commission trades.
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Charles Schwab Promo For a New Account
Satisfaction guarantee and $0-fee trades at Charles Schwab.
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Acorns New Account Bonus
Try Acorns absolutely free and get a $20 bonus.
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Webull Brokerage Account Bonus
Grab your last chance to get up to 75 free stocks when you deposit at Webull!
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Robinhood Brokerage Offer
Up to $200 free stock + 1% IRA match + transfer fee refund at Robinhood.
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Zackstrade Brokerage Special
Get the lowest margin rates with Zackstrade account.
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Overview of Brokerage Promos
The brokerage industry in the U.S. is very competitive, and this gamesmanship means that brokerage firms are really out to get your business. So much so that they’re willing to pay you, literally, to come to them rather than one of their rivals. These prizes can come in a variety of offers and incentives. Sometimes, they are non-cash offers. Whatever the prize, it’s usually worth the effort to open an account and make a deposit or transfer of assets. Most brokers nowadays have online tools to accomplish these tasks, and only a few minutes are required.
Broker Cash Bonuses
Awards of cash are one of the most common forms of brokerage specials. Simply open an account and receive a deposit of cash from the brokerage firm. Free money. Pretty simple. But of course, there’s usually fine print attached to such offers. One of the most common conditions is to transfer into the account or make a minimum deposit.
For example, Tastytrade has a current incentive that offers a $100 bonus for depositing or moving at
least $5,000. Anything below that level receives no prize at all. But a larger deposit or transfer ($25k or higher) gets a larger bonus ($500). A very large deposit or transfer ($100k or more) gets a very impressive $2,000. This type of tiered schedule is very common.
Fine print on these offers also usually includes eligible and ineligible accounts. Common types of ineligible accounts include trusts and IRAs, although tax-advantaged accounts sometimes do qualify. The account balance may need to be retained for a minimum period of time, and sometimes the applicant is required to be a U.S. resident. As always, read the fine print.
Transfer Rebates
In a cash bonus promo, often the online broker will require a transfer of assets or deposit. For this reason, new clients will transfer an old brokerage account into the newly-opened account through the ACAT network. This transfer usually results in a transfer fee from the old broker-dealer. This fee is designed to dissuade customers from jumping ship, but as we have already mentioned, this is a really competitive industry, and brokerage firms really want your business. So many firms will actually refund this ACAT fee. Sometimes, this ACAT fee refund special will be on top of the cash bonus, but as always, check the fine print.
A brokerage firm that has a long-standing policy on refunding ACAT transfer fees charged by other firms is Robinhood. Customers who transfer accounts to Robinhood and discover transfer fees assessed by the outgoing firms simply need to contact Robinhood and request a refund. Robinhood does require proof of the charge, which typically is in the form of an account statement.
Investment firms don’t like to pay out these generous bonuses with no strings attached. So they sometimes will require a minimum transfer amount to qualify for the ACAT fee refund, or they might stipulate a minimum hold period on the transferred assets. Fidelity, for example, requires a transfer to be valued at $25,000 or more before it shells out cash to refund the fee that its new customer was charged.
Discounted Commissions
You may have heard that online discount broker-dealers now charge $0 commissions. Well, this is true only for online trades of U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs. Trades in other situations may, and often do, carry trading fees. This is especially true in the world of futures, cryptos, and foreign stocks. Be on alert for discounts on these types of trades.
TradeStation, for example, is offering a 50% discount on its normal commission schedule for futures accounts. A promo code (FUTRAFZT) is required on this one.
Free Use of Software
Although a lot of brokerage firms have also moved to a free-software model, not all companies have done so. Accounts minimums or monthly fees may be required to gain access to some trading platforms. This is where free software promos come in handy.
Lightspeed is a day-trading specialist that offers a suite of trading platforms. The company offers free trials of these programs with almost no strings attached. These free tryouts are limited by time, the only notable downside. Just an email address and phone number are needed to sign up for a demo of one of these platforms, including the very popular Lightspeed Trader.
Sterling Trading Tech is the company behind the very famous Sterling Trader Pro and a few other trading platforms. Any one of these is available for a free demo. Once again, it’s limited by time but only requires an email and phone number.
Free Shares of Stock
Brokerage houses realize that people open accounts to trade stocks. So many of them are giving away exactly that—stocks—instead of cash. Moomoo is one such brokerage firm.
There are three tiers in moomoo’s current promotion:
Open an investment account and get one free stock valued between $3 and $2,000.
Deposit at least $100 of new cash and receive 4 free stocks of the same value range ($3 to $2k).
Deposit at least $2,000 and get an additional 10 stocks within the same price range.
In total, a new account could receive 15 free stocks. Pretty good, although the odds aren’t very good for getting a stock above $100. The terms & conditions of the special include requirements to use ACH or wire for the deposit of new cash, keep the assets in the new account for 60 days, and have a valid Social Security Number.
Free Investment Advice
More and more firms are offering automated account management. In order to promote their robo services, the investment firms are offering free trials of their services. Typically, these are periods of free management or free management below a certain account value.
The very famous robo advisor Betterment, for instance, is giving away months of its automated investment service in return for minimum amounts of funding. The larger the deposit, the longer the free management. Here’s the tiered schedule:
Deposit: 0% Fee
$15,000 - $99,999: 1 month
$100,000 - $249,999: 6 months
$250,000+: 12 months
The deposit of new money must be received within 45 days of opening the new account. As with so many other offers, the new account holder must be a U.S. resident. The offer also is not valid on crypto accounts.
Some investment-advisory firms offer ongoing free management below a certain account level. Fidelity, for example, offers free management on the first $25,000 in its robo service Fidelity Go. There’s nothing account holders need to do to obtain this lucrative offer as it is standard fare in the program.
Refer-a-Friend Broker Specials
Refer-a-friend bonuses are very popular. These are deals investment firms offer for getting new customers
from existing ones. Despite the name, the referred customers do not always have to be friends. They could, in some cases, be family members or complete strangers. But read the terms & conditions. Interactive Brokers, for example, does not permit account holders to refer family members if they’re in the same household in its refer-a-friend program.
Non-Cash Broker Awards
Some broker-dealers like to spice up their marketing with something other than the standard fare of cash and stock. Webull, for example, currently has a refer-a-friend special that is giving away free vacations to New York City. Customers who refer friends to Webull are automatically entered into a drawing that will give away stays in the Big Apple in 4-star hotels, meals at the Crown Club, and suite tickets at the Barclays Center.
This promotion and many others appear in Webull’s Promotion Center, which can be found on the Menu page of the mobile app.
Brokerage Promotions Recap
Lots of specials are out there for investors who are willing to take the minimal amount of time to open an account and make a deposit. In fact, there are so many promotions that it’s hard to avoid them. The important thing to remember is to follow the terms & conditions to maintain eligibility.
Updated on 10/2/2024.