Options No Trade Fee Price Internet (0-20 contracts) 0.99 per contract ($5 min.) Internet (21 + contracts)2 0.75 per contract Index Options3 0.75 surcharge per contract Broker-assisted surcharge $25 Exercise and Assignment $25 Not appealing at all.
My buddy uses Options Express, not the cheapest, but he is pretty happy with them. Also check out Trade Station if you are trading enough volume.
I can tell you from 5 years experience that IB's customer service is fine. They answer the phone timely. They answer the questions I ask in a way I understand. It's ridiculous to believe 90% of what you read on internet chat boards. Most "opinions" end up just being peoples emotional outlets. The bottom line is, don't even believe me. Just set up an account and try it. It's your money, isn't it worth the time to try a few brokers if you have to. I tried four different brokers before landing at IB 5 years ago, and I wouldn't consider changing. I've found IB's support to be superior to the other brokers I tried, and most businesses in general. Often, on these boards, you'll find someone firing a complaint at IB, threatening to go else where, they go, and they later down the road admit they returned to IB. Right now there is a thread complaining about IB's auto liquidate in options. The person doing the complaining conveniently forgot to mention that what IB did was right in their client agreement. Other posters (including myself) mentioned they were happy that IB was so committed to risk management because it made the company safer and kept commisions down. This is typical of most IB complaints, not complaints at all, just sour grapes from people who didn't do their homework or looking for a way to pawn off responsiblity for their own errors.
IB is wonderful. I trade with them options on indexes and futures indexes. I can trade options on DAX,CAC40, ESTX50, Z . TOS or OX dont trade all this. IB commission -no minimum charge. I am just surprised US is a big country and nobody has IB's business model.
I have had experiences or exposure to Choicetrade, OptionsXpress, IB, Ameritrade Apex, Fidelity, Tradestation, Genesis, and Redsky, and have collected information regarding a lot of other brokers, and plan to open a broker referral service within the next month, including alerts about broker abuses, and special offers made by various brokers for option volume. I think Choicetrade or Redsky in the group would make the best combo of having the personal flexibility of an online broker plus company support. Both will offer orders to be placed as spreads over the next month or so. Redksy knows options more than ALL of the above. They don't offer price improvement; they claim they are the fastest.