Uh, IB is not a professionally-focused brokerage. It's the most professional retail brokerage though.

On what basis are you calling it most expensive though? It's much cheaper than any other brokerage I know when you look at fees holistically.

It's sort of in the middle. They have plenty of retail customers for sure, but they also have hedge fund and proprietary trader accounts. I doubt you would find a single hedge fund among Etrade customers.

> On what basis are you calling it most expensive though? It's much cheaper than any other brokerage I know when you look at fees holistically.

It's much cheaper than most retail brokerages. It's more expensive than firms that cater to professionals; for the most part those firms don't put their pricing on their website because they're individually negotiated with each customer. Some example firms: all the big banks, Apex Clearing, eRoom Securities, TJM Institutional Services. For the banks you're probably looking at a minimum $20 million account size just for them to accept you as a customer. The smaller players require $1-$5 million for decent rates, but might accept smaller account sizes.

Ah, I see what you meant now. Yeah, I was just comparing it to most retail brokerages since I see the others (Apex, etc.) as in a different category. IB is something which the average HN user could actually use.