Charles Schwab vs XTB — 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

• xStation 5 is the best platform in the commission-free bracket - a real screener, market heat map, sentiment data, economic calendar and news in one workspace, on web, desktop and mobile with near-identical features.
• Commission-free real stocks and ETFs up to EUR 100,000 of turnover per calendar month; above that only the excess is charged at 0.2% with a EUR 10 minimum.
• No minimum deposit at all, plus fractional shares, so a monthly savings plan can start at almost any amount.
• Listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange since 2016 under XTB, with audited financials and a KNF licence held continuously since 2005.
• EUR/USD spreads averaging around 0.9 pips on the Standard account with no separate forex commission - competitive for a spread-only model.
• Support is genuinely multi-channel including a phone line, with local-language desks across its main European markets - a real differentiator against the chat-only app brokers.
• The mobile app keeps the analysis tools rather than stripping them out, so charting and screening actually work away from a desk.

Cons

• The 0.5% currency conversion charge (0.8% at weekends and on public holidays) applies whenever the instrument currency differs from your account currency. For a EUR investor buying US stocks it is charged on the way in and again on the way out, and it dwarfs the commission it replaces.
• A EUR 10 monthly inactivity fee kicks in after 365 days without a trade and 90 days without a deposit - a charge Trading 212 and eToro have both abolished.
• Four disclosed regulatory actions since 2018: a PLN 9.9m KNF fine for asymmetric slippage (2018), a EUR 300,000 AMF fine for compliance failures and misleading advertising (2021), a Brazilian CVM stop order (2023) and a PLN 20m KNF fine over MiFID II CFD sales breaches (2026).
• No exchange-traded futures, no individual bonds and no mutual funds. Options exist but only around 140 contracts on US stocks and ETFs, with no headline per-contract price published.
• At the Cyprus entity, withdrawals below EUR 100 cost EUR 10 - a 10% haircut on a EUR 99 withdrawal, which penalises exactly the small accounts the no-minimum-deposit policy attracts. The Polish entity, which books most EEA clients, charges nothing.
• The Belize entity (XTB International Limited, FSC licence 000302/438) is a tier-3 offshore licence with materially weaker recourse than the Polish or UK entities. Check which entity you are onboarded to.