Charles Schwab vs Nordnet — which broker is better?

Pros

• USD 0 commission on every online listed US stock and ETF order, with no share cap and no proprietary-fund restrictions
• thinkorswim desktop, web and mobile are included free — full options chains, thinkScript, backtesting and paperMoney simulation
• Options at USD 0.65 per contract, with the fee waived on buy-to-close orders at USD 0.05 or less
• Around 7,700 no-transaction-fee mutual funds in Mutual Fund OneSource, plus USD 0 new-issue Treasuries at auction
• 24/7 phone and chat support backed by close to 400 physical branches — an unusual combination for a discount broker
• SEC/FINRA-regulated with SIPC cover and an affiliated FDIC-insured bank; parent company SCHW is NYSE-listed and reports publicly
• Schwab Global Account gives online access to 12 foreign markets in local currency from the same login

Cons

• No spot cryptocurrency trading — only ETFs, futures and crypto-adjacent equities, which puts Schwab behind Fidelity and well behind Robinhood
• The default uninvested cash sweep pays close to nothing (0.01% at the time of writing); you have to manually move idle cash into a money market fund
• Transaction-fee mutual funds cost up to USD 49.95 per purchase, with a USD 74.95 ceiling for some fund families
• Margin rates sit near the top of the US market — roughly 11.8% below USD 25,000, versus mid-single digits at Robinhood
• Stock Slices fractional investing is limited to S&P 500 constituents, so it will not cover a small-cap or ADR watchlist
• Trading foreign stocks through a broker costs the greater of USD 100 or 0.75% of principal, which makes ad-hoc international orders expensive
• Currency conversion adds a percentage charge on top of the commission: 1% of principal per conversion below USD 100,000 in the Schwab Global Account, tapering to 0.2% from USD 1,000,000 — USD 100 on a USD 10,000 conversion. Except on small orders, the conversion charge is larger than the online commission. Outside the Global Account, Schwab's pricing guide allows a markup of up to 300 basis points (3%) on USD/foreign-currency conversions

Pros

• Commission from 0.25% with a SEK 1 minimum on Nordic orders up to SEK 15,600 — small monthly share purchases are genuinely viable
• New customers start in the 'Kom igång' class with commission-free Nasdaq Stockholm trading (up to 500 share transactions a year) and fund fees refunded
• Nordnet Bank AB holds a Swedish banking licence under Finansinspektionen, and parent Nordnet AB (publ) is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm as SAVE
• Two separate protection layers: the Swedish deposit guarantee on cash and the Swedish investor compensation scheme on securities
• Broad for a domestic broker — shares, ETFs, mutual funds with no dealing charge, options, futures, warrants, certificates and bonds
• No custody fee, no platform fee, no inactivity fee and no minimum deposit
• Nordnet reports to the Nordic tax authorities and the ISK wrapper removes per-trade capital gains declarations entirely
• Scale that is easy to verify: 2.5 million customers, SEK 1,374 billion of savings capital and 17.6 million trades in a single quarter

Cons

• Residents of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland only — there is no route in from Germany, Austria, Switzerland or the rest of the EU
• Automatic currency exchange costs 0.25%, and the 0.075% route needs a free currency account — open to everyone only on an ordinary aktie- och fonddepå, restricted to private banking and active trading clients on an ISK or KF, and never available on fund orders
• Commission classes step by order size, and the Nordic minimum jumps from SEK 1 to SEK 39 at SEK 15,600 — though a SEK 15,000 order already costs SEK 37.50 at 0.25%, so the real step at the boundary is small
• Support is weekday office hours only, in Nordic languages plus English; there is no 24/5 desk and Trustpilot sentiment is markedly weaker than app-store sentiment
• The Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish price lists have different structures and different numbers, which makes cross-border comparison genuinely confusing
• No fractional shares on ordinary orders, no demo account, no spot forex and no CFDs — active traders will find the toolkit thinner than a specialist platform