Picked a flat $4.95 per trade broker over my credit union's $8.50 one, here is how it went after 6 months

Olivia Bennett · 2026-10-12T21:05:05.005522+00:00

Six months back I had about $3,200 sitting in a savings account doing nothing, and I finally decided to move it into a taxable brokerage so I could buy a couple of index funds. My credit union offered a self directed account at $8.50 a trade, which did not sound terrible until I did the math on buying a little every two weeks. A buddy at my fencing shop kept telling me about one of the flat fee places at $4.95, so I split the difference and opened both, just to see which one I actually liked using. Right away the cheap one felt clunky, the app logged me out constantly, and it took four days for my transfer to show up while the credit union posted it next morning. But here is the thing, over 6 months and 26 trades I saved around $92 in fees, which is real money when you are only working with 3 grand. The part that bugs me is I still cannot tell if the cheap broker gave me worse fills on the buys, because the price always seemed a hair higher than what I saw quoted. Has anyone actually tracked their execution prices between a discount broker and a bank one, or am I just seeing ghosts?

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Picked a flat $4.95 per trade broker over my credit union's $8.50 one, here is how it went after 6 months | Broker Reviews - Librear