Charles Schwab · Last verified September 8, 2026
Charles Schwab
Broadest service model, strongest for hands-on help.
TRI Score
90.6
Exceptional
#2 Best Brokerages
Overview
Our assessment
Schwab matches Fidelity on core costs and beats it on branch access and advisory services. Uninvested cash handling is the main reason it ranks second.
Best for
- Investors who want branch or advisor access
- Broad product needs
Not ideal for
- Investors focused purely on cash yield
Score breakdown
Why it scored 90.6
- Capability30%
- 92
- Value20%
- 90
- Ease of Use15%
- 89
- Reliability15%
- 94
- Professional Utility10%
- 90
- Momentum10%
- 82
How much the product can actually do, and how well it does the core job.
What you get for the price, including what the free plan really covers.
Time from signup to useful result, without training or a consultant.
Consistency, uptime, support responsiveness and predictable behaviour.
How well it fits real professional workflows, not demos.
Rate of meaningful improvement over the last two evaluation cycles.
Trade-offs
Strengths and weaknesses
- Strong research and service
- Wide product range
- Default cash sweep yields little
- Platform sprawl after integrations
Score history
How the score moved
- Jan 202688.2
- Apr 202689.0
- Jun 202689.8
- Sep 202690.6Latest evaluation cycle.
Head-to-head
Compared with
Evidence
Sources
- Public dataPublic pricing and documentation
Where a claim could not be verified, we label it rather than estimate it. Read the methodology.