Brokerages
Brokerage accounts and their charges
Every self-directed brokerage we captured, with its full published fee schedule: 13 brokerages, captured 2026-11-15 from each brokerage's own published pricing. 7 of them publish a $0 commission on online stock trades; where the cost sits now is set out below the table.
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| Brokerage | Stock commission as published | Transfer out fee as published |
|---|---|---|
| Wealthsimple (self-directed / Wealthsimple Trade) | $0, "Commission for listed US & Canadian securities : $0" | $0, "Outgoing account transfers to another institution: $0" (full/partial not distinguished) |
| Questrade | Free, "Stock Trade - Buy | Free"; "Stock Trade - Sell | Free" (no commissions for US and Canadian listed stock and ETF online trades; ECN fee may apply by order type) | $150.00 full, "Transfer out an account to another institution | $150.00"; $150.00 partial, "Partial transfer of account to another institution | $150.00" |
| Interactive Brokers Canada | Per share, Fixed/Tiered. Canada (CAD-denominated): Fixed CAD 0.01/share, Tiered CAD 0.008/share at ≤300,000 shares/month, minimum CAD 1.00/order, maximum 0.5% of Trade Value. US: Fixed USD 0.005/share, Tiered USD 0.0035/share at ≤300,000, minimum USD 1.00 Fixed / USD 0.35 Tiered per order, maximum 1% of Trade Value | |
| TD Direct Investing | $9.99 per trade (Standard Trader, fewer than 150 trades/quarter); $7.00 per trade (Active Trader, 150 or more trades per quarter); partial shares $1.99 per trade | |
| RBC Direct Investing | $9.95 per online/mobile trade; $6.95 per online/mobile trade for Active Trader (150+ trades/quarter); GoSmart (TFSA/FHSA/RRSP): 50 commission-free stock & ETF trades per year | $150 (all account types, excluding donation of shares); no full/partial distinction published |
| BMO InvestorLine (Self-Directed) | $0 per trade, unlimited $0 commission trades on stocks and ETFs | $0 (was $150 -> $0); no full/partial distinction published |
| Scotia iTRADE | $9.99 per Canadian or U.S. equities trade (less than 150 trades/quarter); $4.99 at 150+ trades/quarter; + $65 for trades placed with a telephone representative | |
| CIBC Investor's Edge | $6.95 per online stock or ETF trade (standard, less than 150 trades/quarter); $4.95 active trader (more than 150 trades/quarter); $0 for clients under 25 with CIBC Smart Start; $5.95 for CIBC Smart for Students | |
| National Bank Direct Brokerage (NBDB) | Free, $0 commission on all Canadian and U.S. stocks, online trades (Commission and General Fee Schedule, effective June 1, 2025); agent-assisted trades available online may incur a $60 fee | $150 per account, 'Total or partial transfer to another institution (plus commissions if applicable) $150 per account' (full and partial not distinguished) |
| Desjardins Online Brokerage (Disnat) | $0 online (CAD and USD; stated on Disnat's 18-30 page and reported by reviewers citing the Disnat pricing page, checked Oct 2026; the text fetch of the pricing page itself returned only the representative-assisted table: minimum $45, Canadian markets $35 + 0.5c-6.5c/share by price band, American markets $39 + 2c-8c/share by price band) | Full: $150. Partial: $25 per security. |
| Qtrade Direct Investing | $0 online, Canadian and U.S. exchanges, effective October 28, 2025 (from search-indexed summaries of Qtrade's pricing page, direct fetch returned 429, not retried). Phone orders: $45 minimum. | $150 (fetched fees page, verbatim: 'Account transfer out, $150'). No full/partial distinction published on that page; partial transfer-out fee not published / not found. |
| CI Direct Investing | Help Centre states: 'CI Direct Investing does not charge any fees to transfer out your accounts.' No dollar amount published; fee schedule states closure/transfer-out fees are not included in the management fee without stating an amount. No full/partial distinction with amounts published. | |
| MogoTrade | $0 for listed US & Canadian securities (fee schedule, verbatim) | $0 (fee schedule, verbatim: 'Outgoing account transfers to another institution, $0'; no full/partial distinction) |
Where the cost sits now
The headline commission, the number brokerages advertise, has largely finished falling, and the schedules show what replaced it as the real comparison. An investor's actual cost now hides in four other lines: the currency conversion charged on United States securities, which runs as high as 1.5 percent at several brokerages in this record and a small fraction of one percent at the cheapest; the per-contract fee on options, which is where the options traders' commission went; the transfer out fee, which prices leaving and is worth reading before arriving; and the admin and inactivity fees that wait inside registered accounts. Compare those four lines first and the commission last. Fees are printed in the brokerages' own wording, because a fee schedule compressed into a single number loses the conditions that decide what a customer actually pays. The thinnest capture is TD Direct Investing, whose own pricing page could not be read in full; its page says what is held and what is not.
What a brokerage costs over a year, at a stated pattern of use
The yearly cost comparison page models every brokerage whose published schedule supports it at three stated patterns of investing, with the method and every parsed input printed: the commission collapse means the four quiet lines decide the comparison, and this page adds them up.