Do they pass through exchange rebates? Can you trade auctions and/or direct route? Both offer API? I tried emailing Schwab institutional just now, unfortunately it said there was an error submitting the email form so not sure if it went through. Tried again with different browser and same thing. Might have to phone them..
You can do closing auction no problem. For opening auction it is on a best efforts basis. I ran side by side with IBKR for some time and the OPG fills were identical.
With the "asset management," oriented firms volume may not be as important as assets or ancillary relationships like running your corp ESOP or 401(K). Vanguard and Fidelity have - for years - published their metric for no cost trading.
I agree. I don't mind their commission structure (with some routing tweaks, I rarely pay more than 15-20 cents/100-share order), but it'd be nice if there was some grandfathering into the lower commission tier. Maybe if you ended the last month in a lower tier, you'd continue on that tier for the first week of the new month, and if you hit 35% of the tier requirement in that first week, you continue in that tier for the remainder of the month.