Charles Schwab brokerage
Ranked 2 of 3 online brokerages by recommenders
People recommend Schwab for its smooth app, strong customer service and its place among top brokerages. Critics say it blocks some trades, such as foreign bonds, puts and shorts.
People recommend Schwab for its smooth app, strong customer service and its place among top brokerages. Critics say it blocks some trades, such as foreign bonds, puts and shorts.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 11
- approval share
- 48%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Named among top brokerages
“A typical broker like Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab etc. acts as a gateway to the market”
Comment from 27 Dec 2025 in “The battle to stop clever people betting” “the top brokers you would need Schwab, Fidelity, Trading212, Hood.”
Comment from 22 Nov 2025 in “Show HN: Wealthfolio 2.0- Open source investment tracker. Now Mobile and Docker” “Instead just click buy in Robinhood or Schwab”
Comment from 5 May 2026 in “Today I've made the difficult decision to reduce the size of Coinbase by ~14%” Smooth app and customer service
“I think the Schwab app-for doing as many things as the Chase app, is a much smoother experience.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “1Password Raising Prices ~33%” “Schwab also has amazing customer service”
Comment from 8 Jan 2026 in “Chase to become new issuer of Apple Card”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Blocks some trades, like puts and shorts
“it appears to be impossible to even trade in foreign bonds with traditional brokerage accounts”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Swedish Alecta has sold off an estimated $8B of US Treasury Bonds” “does not allow me to buy puts for this symbol”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Allbirds announces pivot from shoes to AI, stock explodes 175%” “schwab won't allow me to short it”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “SpaceX bond worth 10% less than issue price – heading for junk bond status”
Other online brokerages people recommend
The two most recommended other online brokerages, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robinhood | 16 | 36 | 31% | 9 | — | — |
| Charles Schwab brokerageThis page | 10 | 11 | 48% | 6 | — | — |
| Interactive Brokers | 6 | 2 | 75% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
20 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Schwab used to silently! truncate all passwords to 8 characters.”
“massive ones that don't even support HSMs at all, let alone leave no recovery route”
“a bank that refunds all worldwide ATM fees, such as Charles Schwab”
“Not for Chase, not for Schwab, not for my DOCSIS provider”
“schwab won't allow me to short it”
“didn't like that my signed form retitling an account looked too perfect”
“Instead just click buy in Robinhood or Schwab”
“does not allow me to buy puts for this symbol”
“I think the Schwab app-for doing as many things as the Chase app, is a much smoother experience.”
“Use a direct indexing platform (Frec, Wealthfront, Fidelity, Schwab, Parametric among others)”
“solve many of the trading analytics pain points I was having with etrade and charles schwab”
“it appears to be impossible to even trade in foreign bonds with traditional brokerage accounts”
“Charles Schwab also supports the current administration for anyone that wants to bank morally.”
“Schwab also has amazing customer service”
“A typical broker like Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab etc. acts as a gateway to the market”
“Most brokerages (IBKR, Schwab, Robinhood) treat every contract as a siloed trade.”
“That's why I'm a Schwab junkie”
“This is a nice touch, though I'm not sure how much it would help in a real scam situation”
“the top brokers you would need Schwab, Fidelity, Trading212, Hood.”
“Schwab simply reports the added shares, not the split ratio, so I can't do it via csv import”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.