Current market circumstances make options trading more attractive than ever. More restrictive monetary policies have turned the tide on all market participants, with stocks often falling faster than they rise. This makes it a superb time to search out brokers who specialise in options trading. Options give investors the fitting but not the duty to purchase or sell an asset at a set price on or before a certain date.

We researched and reviewed the perfect online brokers for trading options to assist investors resolve which platform offers the perfect mixture of education, speed, costs, tools, research, and more to suit their needs.

Best Brokers for Options Trading:

tastyworks: Best Options Trading Platform

Why We Selected It

We selected tastyworks because the Best Options Trading Platform due to its highly competitive options trading commissions, excellent options trading tools, and superb options-focused education and live video content.

Pros & Cons

Overview

Tastyworks, launched by tastytrade in 2017, was created by the identical those who created and developed TD Ameritrade’s excellent thinkorswim® application. The founders were inspired to create a platform allowing self-directed retail traders to have access to markets and complicated evaluation tools. Tastyworks is designed more for lively investors/traders and only offers stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrency trading. 

Tastyworks has very competitive fees for trading options. While it charges $1 per contract to open each leg of an options trade, it caps fees at $10 per leg for any option trade, no matter trade size. A $0.10 per contract clearing fee can be charged. Unlike most brokers, tastyworks doesn’t charge commission for closing positions, leading to its very competitive fees for options trading.

For instance, opening and shutting a 50 lot vertical call spread (total of 200 contracts traded to open and shut the position) would cost just $40 at tastyworks—the utmost of $10 per leg for the 2 legs ($20), plus the $0.10 clearing fee for 200 contracts ($20). The identical trade at E*TRADE, for instance, would cost $100 using its $0.50 fee per contract for higher volume/frequency traders. The identical vertical spread trade for 100 contracts would lead to fees of $60 at tastyworks ($20 for the 2 legs and $40 in clearing fees) and $200 at E*TRADE. Tastyworks is competitive on price for all options traders, nevertheless it gets more competitive for high-volume, high-frequency traders.

Together with these low commissions, tastyworks doesn’t skimp on options analytics, platform workflow, or trade input. Tastyworks’ strong options analytics include the Greeks for specific multi-leg strategies, profitability graphs for options positions, and a simple order entry that robotically sets up the trade structure when specific options strategies, similar to a vertical spread or butterfly, are chosen using an intuitive drop-down menu. From there, it is straightforward to vary the expiration dates and strike prices for a selected options strategy. The platform also provides probabilities for the potential profitability of varied options strategies. 

Tastyworks’ desktop and mobile platforms are designed to closely resemble the appear and feel of one another for consistency, although some things should be tweaked to account for the smaller screen size of the mobile app. While tastyworks provides real time streaming quotes, it doesn’t provide fundamental research or live streaming news. Tastyworks does offer a Follow Traders feature, which allows users to follow the trades of in-house celebrities. Tasyworks’ customer support is well regarded by customers for having prompt and capable support, with Trustpilot showing a 4.6/excellent rating from greater than 200 reviewers.

TD Ameritrade : Best Broker for Mobile Options Traders

Why We Selected It

We selected TD Ameritrade to win the Best Broker for Mobile Options Trader category totally on the strength of the outstanding options analytics, research amenities, and trading tools delivered by its thinkorswim® mobile app.

Pros & Cons

Overview

TD Ameritrade is the brand new winner within the Best Broker for Mobile Options Traders category this 12 months, unseating last 12 months’s winner, tastyworks. This has been a really tight race between the tastyworks and thinkorswim® platforms lately, nevertheless it was tastyworks’ lack of stories and fundamental research that allowed TD Ameritrade to climb into the lead.

TD Ameritrade is a full-service online broker well-known for excellent educational resources that provide customers with the fundamentals of investing and beyond. The corporate was founded in 1975, and was purchased by Charles Schwab in 2019. TD Ameritrade also offers a broad range of asset classes, and the several platforms will satisfy the needs of all investors, whether lively or passive traders. Although its options commissions are higher than a few of the other online brokers more focused on trading stocks and options, gaining access to a full set of economic products on one platform could also be price it.

The thinkorswim® desktop application might be customized by the user, and usually has more functionality than the net and standard mobile platforms. That said, TD Ameritrade’s thinkorswim® mobile app makes an honest attempt at replicating its robust desktop version. thinkorswim® mobile has watchlists, streaming real-time data, and supports charting and trading directly from charts. It doesn’t support the flexibility to attract trend lines, but charting remains to be a lot better on the mobile thinkorswim® app than on the usual mobile app. Consequently, options traders will probably be using thinkorswim® mobile as their primary mobile experience.

Being very much like the desktop thinkorswim®, the mobile version allows users to trade multi-leg options. Traders can decide to depend on TD Ameritrade’s order routing technology or direct their orders to specific exchanges. Traders even have the flexibility to backtest trading strategies and set orders to trigger robotically when certain criteria are met. 

As with E*TRADE, TD Ameritrade isn’t specifically an options platform. It has a bigger universe of offerings and comes with extras that include robust customer support options, industry leading educational resources, and tools that transcend trade evaluation to assessing your overall financial situation. Inside that larger universe of offerings, nonetheless, thinkorswim® mobile is a standout experience for options traders seeking to access markets on the go.

Interactive Brokers: Best Broker for Advanced Options Traders

Why We Selected It

Interactive Brokers (IBKR) takes the highest spot because the Best Broker for Advanced Options Traders due to its low options commissions, ongoing enhancements to its already superb trading and analytical tools, and its long-standing commitment to efficient order execution.

Overview

Interactive Brokers is the brand new winner within the Best Broker for Advanced Options Traders category this 12 months, taking up the reins from last 12 months’s winner, tastyworks. It is because tastyworks still doesn’t offer streaming news or fundamental research, and IBKR continues to progress in its efforts to construct a best-in-class platform.

The corporate was founded in 1978 by its current chairman, Thomas Peterffy, under the name T.P. & Co. The corporate created the primary handheld computers used for trading markets and started selling its services to the general public in 1993 when Interactive Brokers Inc. was incorporated as a U.S. broker-dealer. In that point, IBKR has turn out to be the clear alternative for classy traders since it makes just about every security type in most markets available on a single platform. 

In 2021, IBKR launched IMPACT, a trading application that aligns investor values with their investments, and Global Analyst, an internet tool that helps investors find undervalued corporations. The corporate has also developed many revolutionary tools to higher analyze and automate the trading process, and it supports options trading globally in greater than 30 market centers.

Interactive Brokers has low options commissions for lively traders, starting from $0.15 to $0.65. That said, $0.65 per contract is the commission for purchasers trading lower than 10,000 contracts per 30 days, so this puts IBKR on the high side for lower volume options traders. There are break points for trading larger volumes per 30 days that also vary with the premium, but you’ll have to trade greater than 100,000 contracts per 30 days to hit the $0.15 per contract commission. Interactive Brokers also has superior execution, allowing its large clients to route their very own orders while also providing customers commission-free trading (not including options) that comes with payment for order flow. 

Interactive Brokers has developed some excellent options evaluation tools which might be also available on the mobile application. These tools include options spread templates to simply compare similar strategies to seek out the one with the perfect risk/return profile. IBKR Mobile also has one-tap options strategies that allow the trader to simply make changes to varied legs of the strategy, in addition to showing key options Greeks on the quote page and allowing fine-tuning of strategies through the adjustment of filters. Along with futures options spreads, Interactive Brokers also allows traders to exercise all or some options, and provides helpful indicators to assist the trader determine if an early options exercise could be useful. 

Along with these tools, Interactive Brokers provides traders with tools to graph potential payouts on options strategies, in addition to tools to estimate the probability of an option becoming profitable. Other tools specific to options at Interactive Brokers include a write option tool that scans your stock positions and calculates the variety of covered options to jot down against the uncovered stock, and rollover tools for options about to run out. There are also options analytics that allow traders to control options pricing data similar to price, time, and implied volatility. Finally, Interactive Brokers’ Options Portfolio repeatedly and efficiently scans market data to discover low-cost options strategies in keeping with the objectives of the user. It’s, quite truthfully, lots for even experienced traders to soak up, nevertheless it is a welcome sight for advanced traders searching for the complete toolset. 

E*TRADE: Best for Starting Options Traders

Why We Selected It

We selected E*TRADE as the perfect options broker for beginners due to its excellent investor education tools, incredibly intuitive platform design, and top-notch customer support.

Pros & Cons

Overview

We selected E*TRADE as our Best Broker for Starting Options Traders, although it charges higher fees than other online brokers in the choices trading space, because E*TRADE has powerful desktop, web, and mobile platforms which might be also easy to make use of and meet the needs of each beginner and expert investors and traders. E*TRADE was established within the early Eighties as one in all the primary online brokers and was purchased by Morgan Stanley in 2020.  

E*TRADE has excellent tools and analytics, and a big selection of educational materials on options and other investing concepts to assist latest options traders learn. One other great good thing about E*TRADE to latest options traders is the flexibility to paper trade, so users can practice and check out various options strategies before committing their very own capital out there.

It can be crucial to notice that there’s a difference in fees that becomes more stark as trading volumes increase, because E*TRADE charges fees on either side of the trade, with no maximum fee. A vertical spread trade for 10 contracts would cost $20 for an lively E*TRADE trader, while on tastyworks the fees total $14. Once trading volumes increase, the differences turn out to be very apparent as a 100 contact spread trade would lead to a commission of $200 at E*TRADE but only $60 on tastyworks.

E*TRADE offers greater than just options, and holds its own against most of the large full-service brokerages across a wider set of asset classes. Along with its options trading capabilities, E*TRADE provides customers with streaming quotes, news, fundamental stock research, and multiple screeners for stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and glued income along with options. So, while E*TRADE could also be at a value drawback for high-volume, high-frequency options traders, it’s a whole solution for investors who’ve a standard portfolio of stocks, funds, and bonds but are interested by expanding into options trading for the primary time.

Webull: Best Broker for Low-Cost Options Trading

Why We Selected It

Webull is our alternative to win the Best Broker for Low-Costs Options Trading category since it levies no (direct) costs on its users while still providing very capable trading and analytical features.

Pros & Cons

Overview 

Webull began operating in 2017 and released its mobile brokerage platform in 2018. Its mobile-first strategy reflects the corporate’s goal market that skews young, embraces technology, wants information on the go, and is made up of lively, self-directed traders. Webull has added CBOE products to its platform, including S&P options (SPX), CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) options, and Mini-S&P 500 Index options. Webull added fractional share trading to its platforms in 2021 and commission-free over-the-counter (OTC) stock in 2022.

Webull has a narrow focus, offering customers access to only stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies. While it doesn’t charge customers commissions or fees on these assets, Webull still provides some excellent tools and features, including streaming quotes, news, and each technical and fundamental evaluation. Webull also publishes market calendars and provides a breakdown of rankings from multiple analyst rankings using very clear and straightforward to know graphics. The platform doesn’t offer trading in mutual funds or fixed income.

Webull’s desktop and mobile platforms are easy to make use of. Webull has a stock screener that has multiple filter options, and a customized screen might be saved and changed into a watchlist. Webull has made recent enhancements to already good charting capabilities, and in addition provides tools to assist construct probably the most common one, two, and four-leg options strategies, similar to vertical and calendar spreads, straddles/strangles, and butterflies/condors. The platform also allows the user to bring up a payout graph at maturity for the strategy, in addition to tools to further customize the choices strategy by changing strike prices and maturities.

Since there are not any commissions or fees charged to the client, Webull is transparent in that it accepts payment for order flow to generate revenue. Webull also generates revenue on customer money balances since it doesn’t offer interest on idle money. Webull recently added options trading capabilities as a part of its paper trading platform to go together with its existing stocks and ETF simulators, although the functionality is currently limited to single-leg option strategies. This implies you would need to purchase each leg of an options strategy as a person single-leg option as an alternative of entering a single order for a variety as you may on the primary, non-paper trading platform. 

Considering many brokers still charge fees on each opening and shutting options positions, the difference in costs will add up, especially for very lively, high-volume traders. This makes Webull an internet broker price considering, especially for higher volume traders.

Final Verdict