Revolut Invest vs flatex — which broker is better?

Pros

• Fastest account opening of any broker we cover: six in-app steps, no minimum deposit, verified in about a business day
• Free trades inside the plan allowance — 1 a month on the free Standard plan, up to 10 on Metal and Ultra
• No custody fee, no inactivity fee and no withdrawal fee on the investment account
• Fractional shares from small amounts, so EUR 50 buys a slice of any covered US stock
• Free and instant funding by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, with roughly one-business-day bank withdrawals
• Pays interest on uninvested USD, EUR and GBP cash, tiered by plan and rated above average against 100-plus brokers
• Banking licences in the UK and Lithuania sit behind the group, alongside FCA and Bank of Lithuania oversight
• The minimum country fee is only EUR 1 in Germany and GBP 0.01 under the UK entity, and recurring ETP buy orders are exempt from it

Cons

• Narrowest product range of any broker we cover: about 1,500 US stocks, three stock markets, no options, futures or mutual funds
• Above the free allowance every order costs at least the EUR 1 minimum country fee, so a EUR 200 purchase still pays 0.5%
• Trading is USD-denominated, and once the monthly exchange allowance is spent (EUR 1,000 on Standard) conversion costs 0.5%, plus 1% more at weekends
• Customer service scored 1.1 out of 5 in independent testing — no email channel, pre-recorded phone menus, slow chat
• No demo account, no structured education and only basic in-app research; education rated 1.0 out of 5
• EEA clients moved from a EUR 100,000 deposit guarantee to EUR 22,000 investor compensation plus a shared SIPC pool

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