Thinkorswim reviews, ratings, pros and cons, complaints from brokerage customers

Thinkorswim Ratings

Thinkorswim average user rating: brokerage firms reviews

Thinkorswim BrokerageReviews.org rating: 4-star brokerage firm rating

Thinkorswim Review: Stocks, ETFs & Options Trading Commissions

Stocks and ETFs: $0.015 per share, $5 minimum
OR $9.95 per trade on market or limit orders, 5,000 shares maximum
Options: the lesser of $2.95 per contract OR $1.50 per contract plus $9.95
Bonds: up to 6 months maturity: $1 per bond
Over 6 months up to 1 year maturity: $1.50 per bond
Over 1 year maturity: $2 per bond
Listed Bonds: $1.5 per bond additional
Treasuries: minimum order is $25,000 ($25 minimum commission)
All other bonds: minimum order is for 10 bonds ($25 minimum commission)
Futures: $3.50 per contract (inclusive of exchange fees)

Minimum To Open Thinkorswim Online Brokerage Account

$3,500

Thinkorswim Promotional Code/Offer/Bonus 2012

(no promotional offers at this time)

Thinkorswim (TOS) Reviews


by RRR, 11/22/2011 Pros: Cons: · 3 weeks ago Pre Ameritrade Think or Swim was a well run, efficient, responsive company. Since the Ameritrade transition the system lag time has been unacceptable and the customer service has been practically nonexistant. The only reason I do not leave is that the software is quite good but I would be delighted to find another company with equivalent software that has good customer service and commercial level response time. The current level of lag time and system response makes it impractical to try to scalp the ES or other active instruments.
by ironcondor, 9/30/2011 Pros: Cons: TERRIBLE TOS used to be a great platform, but once the merger happened they really went downhill. Platform crashes a lot and customer "service" is PATHETIC. On 2 occassions I called for help and had 20 to 30 minute hold time.
by MovinOn, 8/16/2011 Pros: Great for execution of complex option trades - in the past Cons: Full of bugs and errors - and customer service the worst imaginable in such an industry Well the mayhem of merging with TDA has taken it's toll. The latest is fictitious margin calls on accounts, incorrect balance reporting, inability to track cash flow, splitting accounts....now that they have sold themselves to a big broker for big bucks nothing works right and they just don't care about quality - and the impact on clients - to the degree they should. The big red flag was in May when the co-founder left the company on to his next venture and took his brain trust with him. I'll be Movin On once the dust settles and ACATs can be executed after the blackout!
by soon to be ex customer, 8/16/2011 Pros: Cons: The merger with TD Ameritrade is an unmitigated disaster. The trading platform won't execute trades, it's impossible to get them on the phone, they're splitting up futures vs stock accounts, I have no idea what they hell is going on with my accounts, and the bottom line is I'm taking my money elsewhere.
by private money, 8/11/2011 Pros: they used to be great, flexible, and always reachable made you feel you were dealing with a real broker Cons: their platform has slowed down nothing works like it used to and to compensate they keep adding more non working goodies to the platform not to mention that customer service is non existant at least not any thats useful. I am a customer and thought I was with the best, but since they merged with TD it has become a 2nd rate broker. Money talks RIP TOS
by brokerage-review.com, 5/8/2011 Pros: Powerful trading platform Cons: High stock commissions Thinkorswim was bought by TD Ameritrade. It remains to be seen how this is going to affect their excellent services. There are reports that recent trading tools updates are buggy and that interferes with customers trading. Read full review at ThinkorSwim review.
by Dissapointed long-term TOS client, 1/15/2011 Pros: ? Cons: Serious restrictions on wire transfers out of TOS account. Earlier this week I initiated a wire transfer from my TOS account. My request was denied because the destination was "different than the original funding source". Still the same owner's name though. I advise any potential new TOS' clients to keep it in mind that you may be unable to get your funds back. Especially, if you live in another country and international wire transfers are involved. Stay away from TOS.
by Big Joe, 1/14/2011 Pros: negotiable commisions, great software and order flexibility, Thinkondemand is great Cons: order executions seem much worse recently. Could be due to low market volume though. Data feed occasionally stops during high volume and they have no idea why or what to do about it. I've asked them several times and this was the answer I received after pressing customer service. This is not good for a scalp trader. Great platform bad execution. If you can find the features you need go elsewhere.
by tnun5800, 1/5/2011 Pros: Cons: Have had the same P/L Day calculation problem for over a year. Been told it's being fixed for that time period. Can't talk to anyone at company above a customer service rep. Made mistake transferring to TOS. Like their charts when they work. Don't trust the platform. Merger with TDA has not gone smoothly. Timing of dividends hitting your account is extremely slow. Not a professional operation at this point.
by gogetter, 12/23/2010 Pros: nice system...good fills lots of cool stuff! Cons: pour backtesting before unleashing on there customers.Reliability issues There Having issues alot with new updates and new versions. Gliches and chart and quote freazes... Which is very bad thing concerning peoples hard earned money being at stake!!! But hey don,t take it personal it,s just business!! And there your business partner? Not holding up there end of the Bargain?? But hey it,s free?? Soooo... Go figure? Great tool for education... Intraday market comentary. Not to reliable though.. Lots of people are having trouble since late sep early nov 2010
by Max L, 12/18/2010 Pros: charts look good Cons: charts crash daily. customer service is poor. This is a broker that has great window dressing, but behind the window is a nightmare. Their charting platform crashes daily. Every upgrade. It gets worse. For a day trader this is a nightmare. Especially when you call to complain and get either a simpleton who gives you a stock answer or an arrogant ass. Nobody on their end will give you a solid answer to their lack of platform reliability. And they could care less that it's costing you money. Fact. Good luck talking to someone in customer service. Sometimes it's a busy signal. Sometimes it's voice mail. Sometimes it's a college kid who sounds like the office gopher. When does the platform crash or freeze up the most? When it's opening market hours and the best time to trade. When does it not crash? When the market is slow and not good trading time. Great huh?
by Sarah, 11/15/2010 Pros: Charts, scanner, multiple screen layout Cons: Price, instability of platform, charts, broker Watch out for price! At their price/share an $8 stock is $5/100, $15/1000, and $140/10000. At their fix rate/share an $8 stock is $5/100, $9.95/1000 and still $140/10000! Not a good deal for a serious trader. Platform is very unstable from version to version. When they release a new version it is a crap shoot for what works and what doesn't work. Their latest version will sometimes display current intraday and multiple day intraday and sometimes not! There is no option for going back to the previous working version. If you ever thought about trading penny stocks don't even think about TOS! The platform falls apart on charts and price displays for low priced stocks. Charts display incorrect prices, cursor does not display anything except "0" and last but not least their broker doesn't participate in low priced stocks by not making quotes available. Fidelity offers better trading service and price but does not have any useful tools for a frequent trader. Currently looking at Power Etrade Pro. Doesn't have the comfort feel of TOS or the ease of charting but does have consistent pricing and displays correctly for low priced stocks. So far, if TOS fixed their problems with the platform, pricing, and allowed the use of a good broker they would win hands down. If Etrade had more ease of use of their platform and better displays and a good scanner they would win. I am still looking for a good platform with a good broker.
by Yannis, 10/21/2010 Pros: Cons: I've had an account with TOS for over a year now, but I can't say that I'm thrilled. The user interface is slow and hard to use, prices are average to high, but customer service and their autotrade feature are good.
by SullyisGod, 10/21/2010 Pros: Cons: TOS is an OK broker... fees are reasonable. Availability of shorts is ok, not great, but being able to reserve is awesome. Customer service is usually good, although I suspect the reps who deal with short borrows are blatant liars. Executions ok, but not great compared to others such as IB. Platform is pretty good, easy to navigate, and charting software is better than most.
by Hacker2005xp, 10/21/2010 Pros: Cons: Have been using a broker for a few months.The best 2 things about this broker are charts and customer service, really top quality.Platform is really comfortable and user friendly. Cant tell about trading executions, because I couldn't open an account there, as after merging with TD Ameritrade, some ridiculous restrictions apply for most European countries. Overall this broker deserves to be among the best.
by JP, 10/21/2010 Pros: Cons: Have happily traded with them since November, and would have given a 5 star review, but the latest platform release is slow and cumbersome, and makes day trading and money management much more difficult. Market orders are no longer filled as quickly or accurately as they used to be, and I now get .5 pip to 2 pip slippage on almost every trade I get stopped out on, regardless of market conditions. This never used to happen on stops. Perhaps when TD Ameritrade acquired them they tasked them with increasing profits at the expense of customer experience. Unfortunately, I am now looking for a new broker. They have a great feature called Active Trader which is a price grid that allows you to execute trades and adjust Bracket Trades against the Bid/Ask graphically. However the Bid/Ask no longer accurately reflects the price they give you when you execute a market order. They've recently switched to quotes at 1/10th of a pip. When they made this switch is when the platform changed for the worse. On the plus side, they still have outstanding customer service. Emails are usually answered within 15 mins. Not a bad broker I guess, just not a great one anymore.
by salleh7, 10/9/2010 Pros: Cons: Very good platform and user interface but ToS isn't the best broker. The charts update slowly and it seems that my orders sometimes take a long time to go through.
by Dis, 7/29/2010 Pros: Cons: Someone added a strange bank to my thinkorswim Rollover IRA account and used ACAT to transfer tens of thousands of dollars to the bank. In addition, cash was transferred from my trading account to the IRA account and from there to the bank. The thief could have stolen a lot more money had he/she sold the stocks but, apparently, was unable to do so. This, and the lack of e-Mail notifications leads me to believe that the thief did not know the password and that the theft may have been an inside job. It has been over a week since I reported the incident to thinkorswim's compliance officer Mr.Tim Cullen who promised to fix the problem by the middle of last week, but as of today the money is still missing. I left a voice message to a ToS manager that has not been returned.
by john, 7/24/2010 Pros: Cons: Quality at Think or Swim has deteriorated over the past few years, especially after their merger with TDAmeritrade. Sometimes there is lack of response in customer service and they’ve become less helpful when running into issues/problems. I know of a few people that had electronic deposits and wires temporarily “lost” for at least a week.
by Brutus Maximus, 3/22/2010 Pros: Cons: i have tried TOS and as others have said, it is like using a giant lego set made of bricks. It will weigh down your computer and it will crash intermittently. Even if you are only using it for the charting and not actually trading with it. There is continual data lags as well, especially at the open. As everyone seems to agree, this platform cannot be used for trading. It is better used for end-of-day analysis...... I have to agree with this analysis from one other poster. Too expensive for too little especially if you daytrade
by LongArm, 3/2/2010 Pros: Cons: They're known as a good broker for options, they give you 3 free mutual fund trades per month and they have no-fee IRAs. And TOS has a good rep, in general. As for index funds vs. ETFs, they're basically the same thing except for the way they're traded. With ETFs you have the advantage of being able to place stop losses, trailing stops, limit buy & sell orders..and you can short 'em. Another big plus is that you can buy & sell at intraday prices. With index funds, OTOH, you generally get end-of-day prices, you can't place stops, limits, etc., and most funds impose short-term redemption fees for selling within a certain period of time after buying, such as 90 days. Bottom line is that ETFs give you much more flexibility. One advantage the index funds sometimes have, however, is that you can often get them commission-free. So you may have to decide if the flexibiity provided by the ETFs is worth the cost. For me, it is. For you, it may not be.
by Slapshot, 2/27/2010 Pros: Cons: Nasty looking interface, bad graphics, bad color schemes, non-intuitive layout - I did not care for it at all, just my .02
by mavericktrader, 1/26/2010 Pros: Cons: Best options software in the biz. Commissions are too high for pros.
by johnlvs2run, 1/14/2010 Pros: Cons: I like TOS's charts and realtime much better than Ameritrade's, but haven't quite figured out how their entries and exits work, so I still do my trading with Ameritrade. One issue with TOS is that they mix up options, futures, forex and whatever else all on the same order screen with equities, which is crap and the reason I've not started with them yet. Also whenever I've asked them a question about equities they have answered about options. Except for that I would have been trading with them since last fall. This being said, I'm still planning to transfer the ST account to TOS as they seem to be as good or better than anyone else, and I like their program, especially the charting, keeping track of my stocks, and the program is easy to use on Linux Sabayon.

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Thinkorswim (TOS) reviewed by BrokerageReview.org users. 24 customer reviews. Rating: 3.

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