Just threw together an ugly spreadsheet to work out other brokers to consider (i need to take a look at sharebuilder as well)..

http://www.dangoodall.com


Takes into account an account balance above 5000 (which gets rid of the inactivity fee on ameritrade).. Also ignores pay in advance plan folio offers.


I was originally making purchases monthly but moved to quarterly last year when the annual maintenance fee was introduced (to keep expenses down).

Scenario 1. 1 purchase or sell per quarter, Ameritrade wins easily with the advantage of limit orders. BTW.. Ameritrade does have re-invesment which is a plus-one of the reasons i left Datek a couple years ago.

Scenario 2. 4 buys or sells a month to avoid INAC fees. Just hypothetical but not worthwhile on my account balance. Folio would win this.

Scenario 3 would be 4 buys in a quarter. Ameritrade wins again.

Interesting how no matter what you do, Folio will cost you 99 a year. In fact-you're almost forced to do so to REDUCE costs... odd..

Ameritrade can get pricey-but on lower balances (as long as you make the limit to avoid inactivity penalities) and low activity accounts it looks like a winner.

comments?