Qtrade vs Questrade (2026):
which broker is actually cheaper?
Both charge $0 on stocks and ETFs, so the commission question is settled. What is left decides it: US dollar account costs, options pricing, currency-conversion transparency, research depth, and what it costs to leave. Every figure below is read from each broker’s own pricing pages, with dates.
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Who should choose which broker
Neither broker wins outright. The split runs along currency, options type, and research.
- You invest mainly in Canadian-listed stocks and ETFs and rarely need to hold US dollars
- You want Morningstar analyst coverage and a portfolio analytics suite included with the platform
- You trade Canadian equity or index options — $0.75 per contract undercuts Questrade’s CA$0.99
- You buy mutual funds, which are $0 commission at Qtrade
- You want an explicit Internet Security Guarantee and mandatory two-factor authentication
- You hold US dollars in a registered account — dual currency is enabled free, against US$15 per quarter per account at Qtrade
- You trade US equity options: $0 commission, $0 contract fee, $0 assignment
- You want fractional shares or automated recurring buys on US-listed securities
- You are transferring in less than $15,000 and want the fee rebate
- You want a published currency-conversion rate you can model in advance
Qtrade vs Questrade: the figures compared
| Feature | Qtrade | Questrade |
|---|---|---|
| Stock & ETF commission | $0 | $0 online |
| Mutual funds | $0 commission | $9.95 per trade, each side |
| US equity options | $0 base + $0.75 per contract | $0 commission, $0 contract fee |
| Canadian equity & index options | $0 base + $0.75 per contract | $0 base + CA$0.99 per contract |
| Options assignment / exercise | Assignment $30; exercises at representative-assisted pricing | Assignment $0; exercise $24.95 |
| Published currency-conversion rate | None published — Qtrade states it may earn revenue on FX | 1.5%, embedded in the exchange rate |
| US dollar registered account | US$15 per quarter, per account (RSP, RIF, TFSA; not FHSA) — waived for Investor Plus | Dual currency enabled free |
| Fractional shares | Not in Qtrade’s published investment-choice list | Yes — US-listed and select Canadian-listed |
| Bonds | $1 per $1,000 face value, $24.99 min / $250 max | No explicit commission; $5,000 minimum, remuneration in the price |
| GICs | $0 | Commission-free; remuneration in the rate quoted |
| New issues / IPOs | Yes — $0 commission | Yes — IPO Centre |
| Research included | Morningstar, Portfolio Score, Simulator, Creator | TipRanks, Seeking Alpha, OptionsPlay, screeners |
| Inactivity / administration fee | None — quarterly admin fees removed October 2025 | None — removed 1 October 2020 |
| Transfer out | $150 | $150 |
| Transfer-in rebate | Up to $150 — $15,000 minimum per transfer | Up to $150 — no minimum stated |
| Minimum deposit | $0 | $0 |
| Registered accounts | TFSA, RSP, FHSA, RESP, LIRA, LIF, RIF | TFSA, RRSP, FHSA, RESP, LIRA, LIF, RRIF |
| Registrant | Qtrade Direct Investing, a division of Aviso Financial Inc. | Questrade, Inc. |
| CIRO regulated · CIPF member | Yes · Yes | Yes · Yes |
Sources and verification dates: Qtrade figures read from qtrade.ca pricing, fees, investment-choices, accounts, platform, portfolio-analytics, transfer, security and news pages on 10 September 2026. Questrade figures read from questrade.com transaction, administrative, margin-interest, pricing, Plus, fractional-shares, relationship-disclosure and platform pages on 6 September 2026, held in QuantRoutine’s Questrade fee file v1.1 dated 9 September 2026. Trustpilot and app-store figures read 6 September 2026. Fees change — confirm on each broker’s own site before opening or funding an account.
The October 2025 reset closed the commission gap
Questrade moved self-directed stock and ETF trading to $0 in February 2025. Qtrade followed on 28 October 2025, according to the Aviso Wealth release announcing the change, and eliminated its quarterly administration fees at the same time. For years the comparison had a simple shape — Questrade was the cheap one, Qtrade was the one you paid more for and got better service from. That shape no longer exists.
What replaced it is a set of narrower, less visible costs. A US dollar registered account is free at one broker and a quarterly charge at the other. Mutual funds are free at one and $9.95 each way at the other. Options pricing splits by contract type rather than by broker. And only one of the two publishes what it charges to convert currency.
Commissions beyond stocks and ETFs
This is where the two brokers stop looking identical.
Options: the answer depends on the contract
Qtrade charges no base commission and $0.75 per contract on options. Questrade charges no commission and no contract fee on US equity options, but $0 base plus CA$0.99 per contract on Canadian equity and index options, and a flat US$0.99 per contract on US index options.
So a US equity options trader pays nothing at Questrade and $0.75 per contract at Qtrade. A Canadian options trader pays $0.75 at Qtrade against CA$0.99 at Questrade. Neither broker is cheaper across the board.
The corporate-action fees diverge more sharply. Assignment costs $30 at Qtrade and $0 at Questrade. Exercise costs $24.95 at Questrade; at Qtrade, exercises are processed as investment-representative-assisted transactions and priced accordingly — representative-assisted trading at Qtrade starts at a $45 minimum and is tiered by stock and option price.
Mutual funds
Qtrade charges $0 commission on mutual funds, including low-MER Series D units. Questrade charges $9.95 per trade, on each side, and does not carry deferred-sales-charge or trailer-fee funds. Qtrade attaches two conditions worth knowing before you buy: a 1% fee with a $45 minimum applies on the sale or switch of any fund held under 90 days, excluding money market funds, and the minimum purchase is whatever the prospectus states or $1,000, whichever is greater.
Fixed income and GICs
Qtrade prices bonds and exchange-traded debentures at $1 per $1,000 of face value, with a $24.99 minimum and a $250 maximum, and charges $0 on GICs. Questrade charges no explicit bond commission but requires a $5,000 minimum purchase and builds its remuneration into the price of the security. Its GICs are commission-free on the same basis — the compensation sits inside the rate you are quoted, with most GICs carrying a $5,000 minimum. Questrade discloses that Community Trust Company, a Questrade Group company, issues some of the GICs it makes available; that is a disclosed related-party conflict, not an allegation.
FX transparency, US dollar accounts, and journalling
For anyone buying US-listed securities, this is the section that decides the page.
One broker publishes a rate. The other does not.
Questrade states its self-directed CAD to USD conversion rate as 1.5%, embedded in the total exchange rate rather than shown as a separate line on the confirmation.
Qtrade’s entire published statement on foreign exchange is that transactions settle in the currency the security trades in, that currency conversion may apply depending on account type, and that Qtrade may earn revenue on foreign exchange transactions. No rate is published. We are not going to substitute a third-party estimate for that, because the estimates in circulation disagree with each other and none of them is Qtrade’s own figure. The publishable difference here is not the size of the spread — it is that at Questrade you can model your conversion cost before you trade, and at Qtrade you cannot.
US dollar registered accounts
Holding US dollars inside a registered account means you can sell a US-listed holding and keep the proceeds in USD instead of converting back to Canadian dollars and then converting again on the next purchase. That is the structural cost difference between these two brokers, and it is larger than any single commission line on this page.
Registered accounts hold US dollars directly, with no forced conversion and no charge. Questrade describes this as dual currency enabled for free.
Charged per account, in US dollars, on RSP, RIF and TFSA accounts. It does not apply to the FHSA, and it is waived for Investor Plus clients.
Three details do the work in that Qtrade line and are routinely dropped elsewhere. The fee is denominated in US dollars, not Canadian. It is charged per account, so an investor running a US dollar RSP and a US dollar TFSA is paying it twice. And Investor Plus clients do not pay it at all. Qtrade also states that all fees are charged in the currency of the trading account.
Journalling between currency sides
Journalling moves a dual-listed security between the Canadian dollar and US dollar sides of an account, which is how investors convert currency without paying a conversion spread. Questrade charges $9.95 per online journalling request, and has offered it self-serve online since 31 January 2025. Questrade Plus subscribers get unlimited free online journalling. Fractional shares cannot be journalled. Questrade does not state a settlement time for a journalling request, so we do not publish one.
Qtrade’s published fee schedule contains no journaling or journal-transfer charge. That is an absence in the schedule, not a confirmed $0 — we are recording what the document says and not filling the gap. The nearest listed item, a $45 per security swap fee, is a different transaction and should not be read as a journalling price.
Pass-through and ECN fees
Both brokers can pass exchange and regulatory charges through to you. The rules governing when they do are different, and neither is on the headline pricing page.
Questrade’s relationship disclosure states the rule twice: an ECN fee is charged only when a client’s order removes liquidity from the market. Orders that add liquidity attract no client ECN fee. In practice that means a marketable order can pick up a fee and a passive limit order that rests on the book does not.
Canadian securities carry no ECN fees. US securities carry none either, except on direct-routed orders — EDGA $0.004, IEX $0.0012, NASDAQ $0.003, and BATS, ARCA, NYSE and EDGX $0.004 per share — plus US OTC at $0.000005 per share and fills in the overnight session between 8pm and 2am ET at $0.003 per share. Direct routing requires a Questrade Edge platform. US sales also carry the SEC fee at 0.0000206 times trade value.
Qtrade states that ECN fees are not passed on to clients unless they result from repeated, high-volume trading on the active side of the Canadian market. Qtrade also states that its first action in that situation is to contact the client to help them avoid the activity generating the charge, rather than to bill it silently.
Qtrade charges a US regulatory fee on US sales at the current SEC assessed rate. Depositary fees on ADRs run at roughly $0.01 to $0.03 per share and are passed through.
Platforms, tools, and research
One broker built a research suite. The other built six platforms.
Qtrade runs a single web platform with Morningstar analyst recommendations on Canadian and US investments, including top picks for growth, value and income. Alongside it: fundamental and technical research, screening tools with prebuilt screens, the Morning News Call, new issues access with notification emails, real-time quotes, news feeds, watchlists and alerts, plus Valuation, Performance and Allocation views and account history since inception.
The analytics suite is the differentiator. Portfolio Score rates a portfolio across six dimensions — downside protection, performance, diversification, income, fees and ESG score. Portfolio Simulator tests the effect of adding or removing a security against risk exposure. Portfolio Creator generates a back-tested ETF portfolio using the Sharpe ratio, Roy’s safety-first criterion and the Sortino ratio. A goal planning tool and a set of free calculators sit alongside them. Portfolio Simulator, Portfolio Creator and Portfolio Score are trademarks of Aviso Financial Inc.
Questrade operates Questrade Trading as the main web platform, QuestMobile as the main app, Questrade Pro as a browser-based advanced platform, Questrade Edge on desktop, Edge Mobile as a separate app, and Questrade Global for FX and CFDs with Saxo Bank A/S as liquidity provider and CFD issuer.
Questrade Pro is live, free to all customers, and out of beta. It carries Level 2 market depth, one-second candles, automatic pattern detection, Options Radar, a strategy builder, hot keys, a performance dashboard and Flows automation. Edge remains available but Questrade’s current marketing leads with Questrade Pro.
The research stack is free to every Questrade customer, not gated behind a data package: TipRanks, Seeking Alpha, OptionsPlay, the Morning Brief, IPO Centre access, Level 1 data, Smart Alerts, screeners, an events calendar, watchlists and investment reports. Questrade Plus adds advanced charts, a profit-and-loss calculator, the Market View heat map and custom alerts. Passiv and TradingView integrate as third-party tools, though TradingView can only place Questrade trades from its web platform, not from desktop or mobile. Questrade does not offer Morningstar in any material we read.
Questrade’s free tier gives real-time bid, ask and last prices on all stocks and ETFs, free snap option quotes and Level 1 streaming, at no cost. The Expanded package adds direct streaming from every major US exchange plus OPRA at CAD $9.95 per month, included at no charge with Questrade Plus. The Advanced package adds Level 2 depth on US and Canadian markets plus S&P indices at USD $44.95 per month.
Note the currency on that last figure — it is quoted in US dollars, and writing it as “$44.95” understates what a Canadian investor actually pays. Level 2 depth is bought through the data tier, not unlocked by choosing a particular platform.
$19.99 per month plus tax. Free for all customers until 30 September 2026; billing starts 1 October 2026. It includes unlimited free online journalling, CA$0.05 per contract cashback on US equity options with no cap, a 1% RRSP contribution match running from 1 August 2026 up to the CRA’s 2026 maximum of $33,810, the Expanded real-time data package including OPRA which otherwise costs CAD$9.95 per month, a first-access window on Pre-IPO offerings, and the advanced charting, profit-and-loss calculator, Market View heat map and custom alerts noted above.
Plus is not required for $0 commissions on stocks, ETFs or US equity options. Qtrade’s equivalent tier, Investor Plus, waives the US dollar registered account fee and the paper statement fee.
What you can actually buy, and in what account
Canadian stocks on the TSX, TSXV, CSE and NEO. US and foreign stocks on the NYSE and Nasdaq. OTC stocks. Rights and warrants. Thousands of mutual funds including low-MER Series D. All ETFs on Canadian and US exchanges, crypto ETFs included. Options. Bonds — Canadian and US government and corporate, commercial paper, strip coupons and treasury bills. New issues, meaning IPOs and secondary or treasury offerings, at $0 commission. GICs at $0.
Fractional shares do not appear in Qtrade’s published investment-choice list, and the order types Qtrade documents are market, stop-loss, stop-limit and trailing-stop. Forex, CFDs and physical metals are likewise absent from that list. We are describing what Qtrade publishes rather than asserting a flat no.
Fractional shares cover all S&P 500 constituents, all NASDAQ 100 constituents, the top 100 ETFs by assets, the top 50 ADRs by volume, and select Canadian-listed stocks and ETFs. Questrade publishes no count of eligible securities, so we do not quote one. The constraints matter: market orders only, day duration, no limit orders, holdings tracked to four decimals, $1 minimum buy, no voting rights, and fractional positions cannot be transferred in kind or journalled. The feature launched on 3 April 2025.
Recurring Investments run daily, weekly, bi-weekly or monthly from $1, in every registered and non-registered account except Margin, using market orders with automatic conversion at the 1.5% rate. Eligible securities are fractional-eligible US-listed stocks and ETFs only — Canadian-listed securities are not eligible. Also available: Custom Indexing at no charge across 15,000-plus securities in TFSA, RRSP, FHSA and cash accounts; Securities Lending on US securities with a 50/50 revenue split; Quest Metals at 0.25% per transaction with no storage fee, through the Royal Canadian Mint; the IPO Centre; and Pre-IPO and Private Credit behind accredited or eligible investor gates for Canadian residents outside Quebec.
Transfers, withdrawals, and the cost of leaving
Exit costs are identical. The entry terms are not.
Both brokers charge $150 to transfer an account out. At Questrade the figure is $150 whether the transfer is full or partial. That is worth knowing up front, because it is the one fee on this page that neither broker’s marketing leads with, and it applies whichever of them you choose.
The rebates differ materially. Questrade’s self-directed transfer rebate reimburses the losing institution’s transfer-out fees up to $150, with no minimum stated. Qtrade reimburses up to $150 plus applicable taxes, but attaches conditions: each transfer must have a minimum value of $15,000, or the account must reach $15,000 within 30 days of the transfer completing; you mail or fax Qtrade the statement from the losing institution showing the charge; and the credit lands within 60 days. These two rebates are not the same offer and should not be read as one.
Free on every account: eStatements and eConfirmations, electronic funds transfer, DRIPs, scheduled LIF, RIF and LRIF payments, and customer support.
Charged: $100 to close an account within the first year only. Partial de-registration $50, excluding RESP, TFSA and FHSA, and including HBP and LLP. Full de-registration $125, including TFSA, HBP and LLP, excluding FHSA. Additional LIF, RIF or LRIF payments $50. Formal trust accounts $100 to set up plus $50 a year after the first. Paper trade confirmations $2.50 each and paper statements $6 a quarter, the latter waived for Investor Plus. Swap $45 per security. All fees are charged in the currency of the trading account.
No inactivity fee at any balance, removed on 1 October 2020. Electronic funds transfers are free up to $50,000 in Canadian dollars and $25,000 in US dollars.
Charged: Canadian dollar wires $20, US dollar wires $30, international wires $40. Full plan deregistration $100 and partial $50, with RESP deregistration free. GST, HST, QST and PST are added to all administrative fees.
Service reputation, security, and investor protection
Service quality is the hardest thing on this page to source honestly, so here is exactly what we have and where it came from.
Qtrade publishes an Internet Security Guarantee: account holders receive 100% reimbursement for losses in their account arising from unauthorized online brokerage activity. The conditions travel with it — you must report promptly and cooperate with the investigation, and meet the customer responsibilities Qtrade sets out. It excludes authorized activity, activity by anyone you granted access or authority to, tax consequences, legal fees, and consequential or lost-opportunity damages. It applies to Qtrade Direct Investing accounts only.
Two-factor authentication is mandatory on all Qtrade accounts, not optional. Questrade publishes a comparable commitment: its Online Security Guarantee, read 10 September 2026, promises 100% reimbursement for unauthorized transactions in a Questrade account that cause direct losses, subject to conditions. Those conditions are specific — two-step verification enabled before the unauthorized transaction, current antivirus and firewall software, account activity and statements reviewed at least monthly, a report filed with law enforcement, and notice given to Questrade no later than six days after you receive the statement showing the transaction. Both brokers guarantee 100% reimbursement for unauthorized activity. Neither guarantee is unconditional, and the conditions are where they differ.
Questrade holds 1.3 out of 5 on Trustpilot across 422 reviews, on a profile Questrade claimed in April 2021, read on 6 September 2026. Trustpilot’s own summary of the 113 most recent reviews at that date names long phone wait times, unhelpful staff, and prolonged delays or freezes on transfers and withdrawals.
Read it for what it is. Trustpilot is self-selecting and skews toward complaints, and 422 reviews is a small sample against Questrade’s client base. It is a signal about the shape of the complaints, not a measurement of average service. Set against it: Questrade’s mobile app holds 4.7 on 19,000 ratings on the Canadian App Store, ranked 32nd in Finance, and 4.5 on Google Play across 168 written reviews. Those are also self-selecting, and they point the other way.
Qtrade Direct Investing is a division of Aviso Financial Inc. — worth knowing, because searching the CIRO or CIPF registries for “Qtrade” returns nothing. Aviso is the registrant. Questrade’s self-directed accounts are held by Questrade, Inc., a registered investment dealer, CIRO member and CIPF member that has been self-clearing since 1 January 2013. Questrade Wealth Management Inc., which manages Questwealth portfolios, is neither a CIRO nor a CIPF member; the CIPF protection on a Questwealth account attaches to Questrade, Inc. as custodian, not to the manager.
CIPF coverage is applied per account category, not per account. That means up to $1,000,000 across your general accounts combined — cash, margin, FHSA and TFSA — plus a separate $1,000,000 across registered retirement accounts combined, covering RRSP, RRIF, LIRA and LIF, plus a further $1,000,000 for RESPs. CIPF covers the insolvency of a member firm. It does not cover investment losses from market movements.
What the industry rankings actually say
Both brokers have a case here, and both cases are narrower than the marketing suggests.
Qtrade announced on 2 September 2026 that The Globe and Mail’s 2026 online brokerage rankings placed it first for platform and second for fees, and that MoneySense’s 2026 rankings placed it third overall, with second place in three categories: best online brokers for seasoned investors, best $0 commission online brokers, and best non-bank online brokers. Qtrade counts 28 top-online-brokerage namings over 18 years, including 13 first-place finishes from The Globe and Mail.
MoneySense named Questrade the best online broker in Canada in 2023, 2024 and 2025 — three consecutive years, from the same publication that ranked Qtrade third in 2026.
Pros and cons
- $0 on stocks, ETFs and mutual funds, with quarterly administration fees eliminated at the same time
- Morningstar analyst coverage plus Portfolio Score, Simulator, Creator and goal planning included
- First for platform and second for fees in The Globe and Mail’s 2026 rankings
- Cheaper on Canadian options — $0.75 per contract against CA$0.99
- Internet Security Guarantee, plus mandatory two-factor authentication on every account
- New issues and IPOs at $0 commission; crypto ETFs available
- US$15 per quarter, per account, for a US dollar registered account unless you qualify for Investor Plus
- No currency-conversion rate published at all — you cannot model the cost before you trade
- Fractional shares are not in the published investment-choice list
- $30 options assignment, and exercises priced as representative-assisted transactions
- Transfer-in rebate requires $15,000 per transfer; Questrade’s states no minimum
- $100 to close an account within the first year
- Dual-currency registered accounts enabled free — no quarterly charge to hold US dollars
- US equity options at $0 commission, $0 contract fee and $0 assignment
- Published 1.5% conversion rate, so the cost is modellable in advance
- Fractional shares and Recurring Investments from $1 on US-listed securities
- Research stack free to all customers — TipRanks, Seeking Alpha, OptionsPlay, screeners
- Named MoneySense best online broker in Canada in 2023, 2024 and 2025
- $9.95 per mutual fund trade, on each side, where Qtrade charges nothing
- CA$0.99 per contract on Canadian options, above Qtrade’s $0.75
- Recurring Investments cover fractional-eligible US-listed securities only — Canadian-listed securities are not eligible
- Free unlimited journalling requires Questrade Plus at $19.99 a month once billing starts on 1 October 2026
- Six platforms is a lot of surface area to learn your way around
- Level 2 depth requires the Advanced data package at USD $44.95 a month
Final verdict: which broker should you open?
With commissions level, the decision comes down to one question: do you hold US dollars? If you do, Questrade’s free dual-currency registered accounts remove a recurring charge that Qtrade applies per account, per quarter, in US dollars. If you do not, that advantage evaporates and Qtrade’s research suite and mutual fund pricing carry the argument.
Investors building a Canadian-listed portfolio who want Morningstar coverage and a real analytics suite included rather than bought. Mutual fund buyers, who pay nothing at Qtrade and $9.95 each way at Questrade. Canadian options traders, at $0.75 a contract. Anyone who values an explicit security guarantee and enforced two-factor authentication, and anyone transferring in $15,000 or more who wants the fee rebate without worrying about the threshold.
Anyone holding US-listed securities inside a registered account, where free dual currency is the single largest structural cost difference on this page. US equity options traders, who pay no commission, no contract fee and nothing on assignment. Investors who want fractional shares or automated recurring buys on US-listed securities. Anyone transferring in under $15,000. And anyone who wants to know their conversion cost before they place the trade rather than after.
Two things apply whichever you pick. Both charge $150 to transfer out, so treat the choice as reasonably sticky and make it deliberately. And both are CIRO-regulated CIPF members — Qtrade through Aviso Financial Inc., Questrade through Questrade, Inc. — so the counterparty question is not the one that separates them.
Open an account with Qtrade or Questrade
Both charge $0 commission on stocks and ETFs and require no minimum deposit. Check each broker’s current pricing before you fund an account — fees change, and the figures on this page carry the dates we read them.
Is Qtrade or Questrade cheaper?
On stocks and ETFs, neither — both charge $0 commission, and Qtrade removed its quarterly administration fees at the same time it went commission-free. The cost difference sits elsewhere. Qtrade charges US$15 per quarter, per account, for a US dollar registered account in an RSP, RIF or TFSA, waived for Investor Plus clients; Questrade enables dual-currency registered accounts at no charge. Questrade charges $9.95 each way on mutual funds, where Qtrade charges nothing. On US equity options Questrade charges no commission and no contract fee, while Qtrade charges $0.75 per contract. On Canadian options that reverses — Qtrade’s $0.75 sits below Questrade’s CA$0.99. Which broker is cheaper depends entirely on what you actually hold.
Which is better for ETF investors?
Both charge $0 on ETFs listed on Canadian and US exchanges, with no restricted list at either. Qtrade’s advantage is research — Morningstar analyst coverage, Portfolio Score across six dimensions, Portfolio Simulator and Portfolio Creator. Questrade’s advantage is currency and automation: dual-currency registered accounts at no charge, fractional shares, and Recurring Investments on fractional-eligible US-listed securities. If you buy Canadian-listed ETFs and value research, Qtrade. If you buy US-listed ETFs inside a registered account, Questrade.
Can I hold US dollars in a registered account at both brokers?
Yes, but not at the same cost. Questrade enables dual-currency registered accounts for free, so US dollars are held directly with no forced conversion. Qtrade charges US$15 per quarter, per account, for a US dollar registered account in an RSP, RIF or TFSA — the fee does not apply to the FHSA, and it is waived for Investor Plus clients. If you hold US dollars across more than one registered account at Qtrade, the fee applies to each account.
Which broker wins on independent rankings?
They win different things. In The Globe and Mail’s 2026 online brokerage rankings, Qtrade placed first for platform and second for fees, and MoneySense’s 2026 rankings placed Qtrade third overall with second place in three categories. Qtrade counts 28 top-brokerage namings over 18 years, including 13 first-place finishes from The Globe and Mail. MoneySense named Questrade the best online broker in Canada in 2023, 2024 and 2025. None of Qtrade’s 2026 placings is a customer-service category, so neither broker can be called the service winner on the basis of these awards.
Which is better for beginners?
Qtrade’s tools are built around guided decisions — Portfolio Score, Portfolio Simulator, Portfolio Creator and a goal planning tool — and Qtrade makes two-factor authentication mandatory on every account and publishes an Internet Security Guarantee. Questrade’s free research stack is broader for someone who wants to run their own analysis, and its fractional shares and Recurring Investments make small, regular contributions easier. Neither broker requires a minimum deposit.
Which is better for investing in US stocks?
Questrade, on cost structure. It enables dual-currency registered accounts at no charge, so you can hold US dollars without converting back after every sale, and it offers fractional shares on US-listed stocks and ETFs. Its currency conversion rate is published at 1.5%. Qtrade offers US stocks on the NYSE and Nasdaq, but charges US$15 per quarter, per account, for a US dollar registered account unless you are an Investor Plus client, and does not publish a currency conversion rate at all.
Is my money protected if the broker goes bankrupt?
Both are CIRO-regulated and CIPF members. Qtrade Direct Investing is a division of Aviso Financial Inc.; self-directed accounts at Questrade are held by Questrade, Inc. CIPF coverage is per account category, not per account: up to $1,000,000 for general accounts combined, up to $1,000,000 for registered retirement accounts combined, and up to $1,000,000 for RESPs. CIPF covers member firm insolvency, not investment losses. Questrade Wealth Management Inc., which manages Questwealth portfolios, is not itself a CIRO or CIPF member.
What does it cost to move an account in or out?
Both charge $150 to transfer an account out. On the way in, the terms differ. Questrade’s self-directed transfer rebate covers the losing institution’s transfer-out fees up to $150 with no minimum stated. Qtrade reimburses up to $150 plus applicable taxes, but each transfer must be worth at least $15,000 or the account must reach $15,000 within 30 days of the transfer completing, you must send Qtrade the statement showing the charge, and the credit is applied within 60 days. Qtrade also charges $100 to close an account within the first year.
This site provides educational content only, not personalized investment advice. Investments can lose value and past performance does not guarantee future results. You are responsible for your own financial decisions and for confirming the tax and legal rules that apply in your country.