Currently have investment money with Fidelity, Vanguard, Wells Fargo and Interative Brokers.
Vanguard is a low cost dumpster fire of a firm IT systems old, and paper statements suck. Attract bogglehead cultists, and actively dismisses any criticisms of such from their forums, if not investors. Actively discourages fund swapping and trading. Pros: does develop and use annual tax minimization strategies which results in a higher tax upon withdrawal in taxable accounts. tldr: they swap annual short term gains for long term cap gains for a lower tax rate but a higher pretax gain amount. pick your poison. Last time I had issues, no online forms, but printing and USPS mail only. . not a risk free lost mail proposition. . Also has developed and IRS approved swapping managed mutual funds to a similar ETF for zero tax implications, which is huge. Other financial firms are copying it which is great for the current tax advantage of ETFs over mutual funds.
Advantage long term set it and forget it investors. . main customer target is 401K/IRA corporate accounts.
Wells Fargo most corrupt national financial institution around. most fined institution primarily handling individual investments. Still trying to clean up the lack of controls and internal fraud. Great online data / transactional excel format, including withholding/payment of taxes with all transactions. very easy to reconcile from start to end. Currently I am using a CFA advisor, with someone who can easily recommend different strategies. WF custom built a stock portfolio for my parents 2 accounts which has withstood since the 1990s with excellent stability, growth and dividends. But that was before the corruption stated. Very easy to talk with, however, the downside is that he is very tax ignorant, as he should be. His job is to invest for wealth creation. The CPA is to manage strategies for tax minimization. I am currently bridging the two due my parent's financial situation, can't do one without the other. Am not using their on line brokerage features, so I can't comment. Currently assigned advisor not able to be changed easily if desired, I tried for a more local one and was denied, saying its up to the individual branch negotiations.
Fidelity have been an options trading customer since the early 80s. My first options course was in freshman year of college in 1976-77. Great local firm with offices for easy access. great customer service. Have regular web seminars, and have attended both online and in person seminars. Last one was the ins and outs of collecting social security timing. Currently using their Active Trader pro software, dislike their web site for trading. Financial reports are pretty, however, they suck for being super intuitive. have two different labeling conventions for funds. Missing tax withheld transactions, making it difficult to foot transactions from opening balance to ending balance. Having worked with insiders after leaving, they are profit/incentive driven from their advisors to their fund managers. Consistently had the lowest interest rate / dividend rate of competitors due to high fund management costs, accruals for incentives.
Current customer targets: corporate 401K / 403B plans and very high net worth customers. small individual investors, not so much, but you are coat tailing the high net worth strategies.
Friends are using their internal portfolio management strategies, and all are very happy with it. One friend retired early, prior to 60, using Fidelity's IRA tax strategies to avoid early withdrawal penalties. . . somehow, not sure of the details. . for regular monthly paychecks.
Interactive brokers: target customers are high tech algorithmic traders. cheapest transaction costs anywhere, since all electronic. Can send orders for execution using python, making lots of trades in many accounts much faster and efficient. Have lots of independent strategies to select from. I tried one options strategy, and they executed very well, but I got my account executed at the same time. For only highly sophisticated investors, and mostly used for risky strategies. Sending and executing orders electronically was cool for me anyway, but I don't trust the purchased trading strategies yet, as i use independent purchased portfolio strategies along with personally in development trading strategies being developed with python.
Conclusion: most big firms, V, WF, and Fido charge alot as they target high net worth individuals. Most strategies will be a buy and hold with minimal trading or monthly/quarterly rebalancing. Most do not have any systemic issue protection, so if the SP500 goes down 40%, and your portfolio goes down 30%, it's a huge win! Quarterly rebalancing is the max length of time for conservative portfolios. There are factor investing strategies which can be very good as well, such as investing in high inflationary environment. There are publicly available portfolios to track, such as the JPM Efficient Five
https://sp.jpmorgan.com/spweb/content/307403.pdf and there are small / private money managers who will manage your portfolio at a cost.
however, cost should NOT be the sole/primary selection driver. Strategy with quarterly rebalancing and after tax/commission returns, sharpe ratio, and largest annual drawdowns should be the primary metrics for evaluation.
good luck, and sorry if the post was long or detailed, but the trade off is personal experience. And yes, all my own very opinionated opinions, use it or ignore it, i don't care.