How The Motley Fool Ascent Rates Brokerages

Published May 2, 2024

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At The Motley Fool, we take our mission to make the world smarter, happier, and richer very seriously. That includes making sure the brokerages we feature on The Ascent are heavily vetted by our team of experts, so you can feel confident the picks on our site are fantastic choices for most people.

Our brokerage rating philosophy

When rating brokerages, we consider the most important features for the average user. We tend to favor brokerages with low fees and minimums, top-tier tools and interfaces, and many investment options. Our core objectives for our recommended selections are:

Editorially independent (NOT influenced by partners)
Easy to understand
Applicable to any brokerage
Scoring is weighted, and scaled to 5 stars

Meet our Head of Ratings, Brian Frey

About Brian:

Brian Frey is The Ascent's Head of Product Ratings, and has worked with The Motley Fool since 2020 covering personal finance trends, and rating credit cards, bank accounts, stock brokers, and more. His work has appeared in Forbes, Entrepreneur, American Banker, and many other financial media outlets. Outside the office, Brian optimizes credit card points to travel, and is always on the hunt for new ways to save and invest money.

How we score brokerages

We evaluate all brokerages across four main criteria: user experience, cost efficiency, product variety, and support and security. These criteria are tailored to common features found in brokers. Brokerages are assigned a point value for each score, out of 3, then adjusted to a 5-star scale, rounded to the nearest half point. We may apply a grading curve to our scoring, depending on the brokerage category (e.g., a grading curve for robo-advisors may be different than that of traditional brokerages).

3 = High
2 = Medium
1 = Low

Our scores are weighted as:

User experience: 30%

High brokerages are generally user-friendly and accessible for beginners, while catering to all levels of experience.
Medium brokerages have reasonably clear interfaces, but might require a short learning curve.
Low brokerages are limited in their ability to cater to varying user needs. Interfaces may be clunky and complex, lacking commonplace tools and resources.

Cost efficiency: 25%

High brokerages have very low to no fees and minimum deposit requirements.
Medium brokerages have moderate fees and minimum deposit requirements.
Low brokerages have high fees and minimum deposit requirements.

Product variety: 25%

High brokerages offer a wide range of investment vehicles and account types, including stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, alternatives, and specialized accounts like retirement and education plans.
Medium brokerages offer a good variety of standard investment options and account types, but lack breadth in alternative investments and specialized accounts.
Low brokerages offer limited investment choices with few account types available.

Support and security: 20%

High brokerages provide excellent customer support with multiple channels available 24/7. Top-notch security measures are in place with a proven track record of protecting user data and assets.
Medium brokerages provide adequate support with some delays in response times or limited availability. Security measures meet industry standards.
Low brokerages provide limited customer support options with slow response times and restricted availability. Security measures are below industry standards, or there have been significant breaches in the past.

Our brokerage rating methodology

At The Motley Fool Ascent, brokerages are rated on a scale of one to five stars. We primarily focus on fees, available assets, and user experience; however, we also take into account features like research, security, tax-loss harvesting, and customer service. Our highest-rated brokerages generally include low fees, a diverse range of assets and account types, and useful platform features.

How our ratings translate to our Best Of lists

We combine the factors outlined above with an evaluation of brand reputation and customer satisfaction to ensure you're getting the best brokerage recommendations on each of our pages. Our aim is to maintain balanced best-of lists featuring top-scoring brokerages from reputable brands.

Ordering within our lists is influenced by advertiser compensation, including featured placements at the top of a given list, but our product recommendations are NEVER influenced by advertisers. Our Ratings team operates totally independently of our Partnership team.