flatex vs Smartbroker+ — which broker is better?

Pros

• EUR 5.90 flat commission on German, US, Canadian and other foreign orders with no percentage component up to EUR 40,000 — a EUR 10,000 trade costs the same as a EUR 1,000 trade
• All ETF and fund savings plans execute at EUR 0.00 commission with over 5,000 plans available and no cap on the savings rate
• No custody fee, no account fee, no inactivity fee, and free incoming and outgoing depot transfers
• Genuine spot crypto in around 25 coins at 0.6%–0.7% all-in, held inside the regulated German bank rather than as an ETN wrapper
• Full German banking licence under BaFin and Bundesbank supervision, with an MDAX-listed parent (flatexDEGIRO SE, ticker FTK) publishing audited accounts and over EUR 100 billion in customer securities under custody
• Tax-simple in both markets it serves: automatic German Abgeltungsteuer withholding and automatic Austrian KESt settlement at 27.5% on flatex.at
• Free foreign-currency sub-accounts, so USD or CHF proceeds can be held rather than converted back at a spread every time
• Fast onboarding — flatex advertises a five-minute fully digital account opening, and no minimum deposit applies

Cons

• 0.00% p.a. credit interest on cash balances. Competitors pay 1%–1.75% on the settlement or call account, so an investor holding EUR 20,000 in cash gives up EUR 200–350 a year that never shows up in any fee table
• Currency conversion costs an absolute margin of USD 0.0040 per euro — roughly 0.35% — which is worse than Consorsbank's published USD 0.0030 and far worse than a multi-currency specialist
• No Eurex or US options and futures trading at all. Certificates, knock-outs and Société Générale CFDs are the only leveraged instruments on offer
• Real-time quotes are metered: 25 free per month plus 10 per executed order, then EUR 0.01 per query, and the professional flatex trader 2.0 platform costs EUR 15–39 a month on top
• The EUR 5.90 floor makes flatex expensive for small orders — a EUR 300 purchase pays about 2% in commission before venue costs, where a EUR 1 neobroker charges 0.3%
• Direct foreign market access is narrow: US, Canada, Euronext, Vienna, Zurich and Milan (sell only). There is no direct London, Tokyo, Hong Kong or Nordic access, and stock savings plans cost 1.00% of the rate

Pros

• EUR 0.00 order commission on gettex for shares, bonds, ETFs, ETPs and funds from EUR 500 of order value, and EUR 1.00 below that
• 29 exchange venues plus eight OTC issuer desks - all German exchanges and eighteen foreign ones, so most securities can be bought on their home market in the home currency
• Genuinely broad range: roughly 40,000 shares, 40,000 bonds, 2,500 ETFs, 18,000 funds at net asset value and 4.6 million derivatives
• More than 10,800 savings plans on shares, ETFs, ETCs, funds and crypto ETPs, all free, from EUR 1.00 up to EUR 5,000 per instalment, at monthly to half-yearly intervals
• Zinskonto pays 2.25% p.a. variable up to EUR 100,000 and 2.00% from EUR 100,000 to EUR 1m, indexed to the ECB deposit facility rate
• VIP tiers trigger automatically at 45, 1,500 and 6,000 trades a quarter, cutting Tradegate and L&S to EUR 1-2 and including the EUR 29.90-a-month trading API
• Baader Bank as custodian means the full German tax service: automatic Abgeltungsteuer and church tax, Freistellungsauftrag, loss offsetting, Vorabpauschale, US withholding relief and Swiss tax vouchers
• Free custody, free sub-accounts, free foreign-currency accounts, free deposits and withdrawals, no inactivity fee

Cons

• The zero-commission promise applies to exactly one venue above one order size; Xetra costs EUR 4 plus 0.01%, Nasdaq EUR 4 plus 0.02% with a USD 8 minimum, and a small foreign order can easily cost EUR 12-15
• Crypto at 0.90% of market value plus the venue mark-up is expensive against German rivals charging a fraction of that for equivalent spot exposure
• The October 2023 migration from DAB to Baader Bank produced weeks of malfunctions and unreachable support; Finanztip pulled its recommendation until October 2024 and legacy DAB accounts that never moved now pay about EUR 9 per German exchange order
• Support is German-language business hours only, and the published fee list includes some hostile line items - EUR 100 for a copy of a recorded call, EUR 100 an hour for an address trace
• Onboarding is app-only and requires iOS 16 or Android 10 or newer; there is no browser-only route in
• The published Konditionen page and the July 2026 price list disagree on at least one venue charge (Stockholm: 0.03% versus 0.10%), which is not what you want from a fee schedule