Lightyear vs Scalable Capital — which broker is better?

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

Pros

• Free savings-plan executions from EUR 1 with fractional amounts, across more than 2,700 ETFs, 4,500 shares and 3,800 funds - the deepest catalogue in Europe.
• PRIME+ at EUR 4.99 a month makes trading a fixed cost rather than a variable one; commission-free orders from EUR 250 on EIX break even at roughly five trades a month. Purchases of PRIME ETFs (Amundi, iShares, Vanguard, Xtrackers) from EUR 250 on EIX are free on the FREE Broker as well, so they do not count towards that.
• Holds its own full ECB banking licence since September 2025 and custodies client securities itself, with cash covered to EUR 100,000 and PRIME+ balances spread across partner banks for wider statutory coverage.
• 2.60% p.a. on the Scalable Overnight cash account, paid monthly - on unlimited cash, with or without PRIME+.
• More than 3,800 mutual funds tradable without the front-end load, which is unusual at a flat-fee broker and useful for anyone holding legacy fund positions.
• German residents get Abgeltungsteuer, solidarity surcharge and church tax withheld and remitted automatically, with annual tax certificates issued.
• Broker, cash account, robo-advisor (Scalable Wealth) and a securities-backed credit line all sit behind one login, which is a genuine consolidation argument.

Cons

• Since 1 September 2026 gettex orders cost up to EUR 1.99 on every plan, up from EUR 0.99, which wiped out the PRIME+ commission-free advantage that made the subscription compelling on that venue.
• Only three trading venues - EIX, gettex and Xetra - with no direct access to US or other foreign exchanges, so you buy foreign shares through a German quote rather than on their home market.
• On EIX, Scalable is the single market maker on the venue it routes you to by default, which is the same broker-as-counterparty conflict the post-PFOF industry inherited.
• Euro-only accounts with no multi-currency balances and no itemised FX charge, so the true cost of a foreign share purchase is not visible on the contract note.
• No telephone support: chat and email only, with slow replies and delayed tax documents the most common complaint in user reviews.
• Fractional trading works in savings plans but not in ordinary lump-sum orders, and there is no demo account.