BUX vs Lightyear — which broker is better?

Pros

• Owned by ABN AMRO since July 2024, with clearing and custody through ABN AMRO Clearing Bank — a materially stronger backing than the venture-funded startup that preceded it
• ETFs and ETCs cost EUR 0.99 a market order on every plan, Basic included — they are priced in their own column and are not dragged onto the EUR 3.99 European share grid
• Commission-free Zero Orders on the Plus and Prime plans — 3 a month on Plus, 5 on Prime — plus free Investment Plan purchases on every plan including Basic, which do not count against that allowance
• Fractional shares from EUR 5, which makes small recurring purchases of high-priced US shares work properly
• US market orders cost EUR 0.99 on every tier, and real-time quotes, deposits and withdrawals are all free
• Open to residents of eight European countries including Germany, Austria and Ireland — one of the few EUR-native app brokers accessible across DACH
• AFM-supervised with securities covered to EUR 20,000 under the Dutch investor compensation scheme and cash held at a bank under deposit-guarantee terms
• The app is genuinely well made: clean order flow, Investment Plans for automation, and expert-built portfolios for people who do not want to pick

Cons

• The free Basic plan is the expensive one everywhere except ETFs: 0.20% per year on invested assets, EUR 3.99 European share orders, 0.75% FX, no interest on cash, no Zero Orders and no limit orders — a EUR 20,000 portfolio pays more in service fees than the Plus subscription costs
• The AFM fined BUX B.V. EUR 1.6 million in November 2024, published in March 2025, for paying introduction fees to finfluencers, comparison sites and existing customers in breach of the Dutch inducement ban — a conduct matter, but one worth knowing before you read anyone's BUX recommendation
• Zero Orders are capped rather than unlimited: 3 a month on Plus and 5 a month on Prime, after which you are back on the paid market-order grid
• BUX does not act as a German or Austrian paying agent, so no Abgeltungsteuer or KESt is withheld at source and DACH investors must declare gains and dividends themselves via Anlage KAP or the Austrian equivalent
• Very narrow product range — shares, ETFs and ETPs only. No bonds, no mutual funds, no options, no futures, no forex, and direct crypto trading was discontinued in March 2024
• Zero Orders execute only in an end-of-day batch, so the commission-free route gives you no control over the price you get intraday
• No telephone support at any tier; everything runs through in-app chat and email during weekday business hours
• The subscription model introduced in August 2025 replaced a largely free product and was poorly received by the existing user base, which is visible in recent public review sentiment

Pros

• Zero commission and zero custody fee on ETFs, so a monthly ETF plan costs nothing to execute or hold
• US stock orders cost 0.1% capped at USD 1 — a USD 20,000 trade still costs a single dollar
• No account fee, no platform fee, no inactivity fee and no withdrawal fee, in a genuinely short fee schedule
• Fractional shares from EUR 1, with multi-currency EUR, GBP and USD balances held free of charge
• Cash earns interest through AAA-rated BlackRock and J.P. Morgan money market funds, quoted around 2.2% APY on euros
• Two regulators: EFSA in Estonia (licence 4.1-1/31) and the FCA in the UK (FRN 987226), with US securities held at SIPC-member Alpaca
• Mobile app is genuinely well built — earnings-call audio, fundamentals and Auto-Invest plans without clutter

Cons

• 0.35% FX conversion is fine against a bank but expensive against Interactive Brokers, and it applies every time you buy a US stock from a euro balance
• No options, futures, CFDs, forex or margin, and no commodities — the product list is short by design
• Only market, limit and recurring orders. No stop-loss, no good-till-cancelled, no conditional orders
• No demo account and no structured education, which is an odd gap for a platform aimed at newer investors
• Support is email and in-app chat only, with no phone line and reported response times of several days on complex queries
• Founded in 2020 and privately held, with no track record through a full market cycle — audited accounts are filed publicly for all three entities