Discount Brokers are the ones who carry out trading activities on behalf of the client at a reduced/discounted commission or fees. They provide cost effective access to the stock market and investment opportunities and saves the clients from paying huge commissions. In fact, these brokers offer a few basic services for free and charge a flat rate for other transactions. The charges are calculated on a per transaction basis and not connected to the volume of the trade.  These are generally technology driven brokers and offer solutions through online apps.

But the flip side is that they do not provide the clients with any assistance wrt to research reports, dedicated RMs or expert dealers. The clients are presumed to be knowledgeable enough to be able to trade without assistance. These broking houses are targeted at self-driven, informed, new age investors.

Having briefly described the discount broker concept, lets quickly look at its pros and cons, before we jump to their rankings.

PROS:

Economical – for young retail investors who are here for some quick gains or for the fun of trading this is an appropriate platform which allows them to take the calls on their investment without putting a huge dent in their pockets.

Impartial – since these brokers do not offer any research reports the trade decision of the client is self-directed and not based on any sector, industry, firm based or investment type partiality of the service provider. 

Impersonal – all personal biases are removed since there are no advisors, consultants or middlemen that will influence a client’s decision and try to sell any particular stock.

CONS:

Low on Value adds – Discount brokers are known to offer no value adds in execution of orders. 

Absence of Research and dedicated RM Services – they do not provide regular research and guidance. If you need hand holding in executing your stock market transactions, you may decide not to choose discount brokers.

Let us now move on to discuss each of the Discount Service Brokers that have made to our list of leading ten! The data stated here has been collated from various sources and is as of May 2023.

10. Tradingo

The discount broker at no. 10 is Tradingo that was founded on 2016 by an IIT Delhi Alumini, Parth Nyati. Tradingo is powered by Swastika Investmart Ltd. It offers INR 0 brokerage for delivery stocks and INR 20 for futures, options and intraday stocks. But if you choose to call and trade, you will have to pay INR 50 per order. It allows its clients 5x margin for equity trading. It also offers free of cost research calls daily for its premium members. Hence you have an option to upgrade in case you need more research-based assistance for your trading needs. It also allows clients to trade in various economies through its global trading platform.

The company has about 335 followers on LinkedIn, 75K active clients as per latest NSE reports and 10K+ app downloads from google play store. As far as the online traction is concerned, its website sees 51.5k visits where people explore about 2.81 pages per visit and spend approximately 4 minutes per visit on the website. All this put together has made Tradingo one of the leading discount brokers in the country.

9. 

At no. 9 We have a very young player – Dhan. It was founded in the year 2021. It was conceived with a view to break monotony in the market with respect to innovation less products and offerings by the current players. It is a technology driven firm that offers lightning-fast online trading experience through its web and app. It was the first to introduce options trading platforms through its “Option Trader App”. It is also India’s first discount broker to allow direct trading on charts through integration with “Trading View”. A resident Indian can open a two in one account with Dhan at zero fees. It also charges no brokerage fees for investing in stocks, IPO, and ETF.  Like other players it also offers trade on call @Rs. 50.

The company has about 4005 followers on LinkedIn, 107K active clients as per latest NSE reports and 1M+ app downloads from google play store. As far as the online traction is concerned, its website sees 3.5M visits where people explore about 8.89 pages per visit and spend approximately 10 minutes 35 seconds per visit on the website. This clearly shows that people are adopting its offerings and are satisfied with the same.

8. 

Alice Blue is ranked 8th as per the active clients last month. Alice blue was incorporated in the year 2006 and has pan India presence through its 17 branches and 1000+ partners. Its Freedom 15, for equity trading, offers a flat Rs. 15 brokerage plans to its clients. It has much software offering different types of market access to the clients. For example, TickerTape is to discover and analyze stocks, whereas AliceAlgo is an app based also trading tool. Its flagship trading platform is called ANT. Alice blue offers two types of accounts: offline and online. All offline clients get branch support for their trading needs. It has been receiving lots of awards over the years and very recently in the year 2022 it was awarded Operational Excellence Leadership Award by the BSFI.

The company has about 11,655 followers on LinkedIn, 142K active clients and 100K+ app downloads from google play store. As far as the online traction is concerned, its website sees 785K visits where people explore about 8.85 pages per visit and spend approximately 14 minutes 35 seconds per visit on the website. This is a clear indicator of high online engagement by the firm.

7. 

With a present client base of over 4,50,000+ clients Fyers began its operations in the year 2016 from Bengaluru. With cutting edge technology, competitive broking plans and various products on offer the company has achieved a daily turnover of 1,50,000 cr+ and MOM growth of 15%. The clients are wooed by various benefits like, zero cheque bounce charges, zero account opening charges, zero pledge charges and others. On the flip side the company does not offer services of bonds, insurance and US stocks but clients are pleased with the current fees and offerings and continue their relationship with the broking house.

The company has about 8,058 followers on LinkedIn, 172K active clients and 1M+ app downloads from google play store. The company’s website has seen 5.6M visits over the last month where people explore about 4.16 pages per visit and spend approximately 7 minutes 22 seconds per visit on the website. This is a clear indicator of customer loyalty and engagement.

6. 

At no. 6 we have Paytm money which is a 100% subsidiary of one97 communications. It offers various financial services to its clients including MFs, stocks, IPOs, F&Os and others. It presently employs over 566 employees as per their link in update. Paytm money aims to achieve a daily turnover of 1.5 trillion in one year and 100 million users in the next 3-5 years.  Its revenue has seen 9% quarter on Quarter growth. As per their CEO, Vijay Shekhar, the company is on track to achieve operating profitability by the end of September 2023.

With consumers and small businesses rapidly adopting new technology, demanding new and varied financial services and a shift to online consumerism, the company is all set to leverage this opportunity through their various business arms.

The company has about 53,177 followers on LinkedIn, 646K active clients and 10M+ app downloads from google play store. The company’s website has seen 1.3M visits over the last month where people explore about 5.65 pages per visit and spend approximately 7 minutes per visit on the website. 

5.

With the tag line of “Aise karte hain Trade” 5paisa Capital Ltd aim to provide an easy interface to the new generation tech savvy investors. With their information they wish to empower the investors to take the right decision for themselves. 5paisa is promoted by IIFL founders who are in the business for over 20 years hence the company is backed with years of trading experience, trust and legacy. It is a publicly traded and professionally managed company. Its available in 8 different languages and has a customer base of 33lakhs+ of which 652K+ are active traders as per the NSE reports. You can trade in as low as INR 20 for all trades, INR 10 for smart trades and 0 commission on Mutual funds and choose from various available plans like basic, Power Investor and Ultra trader. At present 5 paisa does not offer NRI trading and does not offer a 3 – in – 1 account.

The company has about 39,894 followers on LinkedIn and 10M+ app downloads from google play store. As far as the online traction is concerned, its website sees 2.7M visits where people explore about 7.82 pages per visit and spend approximately 6:09 minutes per visit on the website. All this put together has made 5 Paisa as one of the leading discount brokers in the country.

 4.

Backed by investors like Ratan Tata and Tiger Global, Upstox was incorporated in the year 2009 with its headquarters in Mumbai. This fintech has a unicorn status and claims to offer innovative investment offerings for its clients. It has a zero brokerage policy for equity delivery trading. Zero commission on IPO and MF. The low or zero cost is achieved through its promise to give you flawless technology. The company has been investing in technology significantly. Presently it has 1 Cr+ registered customers and a turnover of 60K Cr+. It has won many awards over the years from CDSL, Indian Fintech Forum and MCX. The ideas of the promoters were to keep the entire user interface, accessible, affordable and simple. They were the first in the industry to launch unlimited trading plans at a fixed price. Yet another industry first was going completely paperless for client on-boarding in 2016. The 2021 partnership with IPL led made the company widely popular and it saw 70% of new users coming from Tier 2 ad 3 cities.

The company has about 93,112 followers on LinkedIn and an employee base of 1600+. As per the NSE reports it has 2.88M active clients and 10M+ app downloads from google play store. The company’s website has seen 8.1 M visits over the last month where people explore about 5.68 pages per visit and spend approximately 8 minutes per visit on the website.

 3.

At no. 3 we have Angel One, previously known as Angel broking. It was incorporated in the year 1996. Along with various offers and products to entice the investors angel one has a very unique offering called ARQ Prime for stock recommendations. It has been found by the company that the returns on ARQ’s recommendations are higher compared to others. It offers zero charges for first year of maintenance. It boasts of 1 Cr + registered users and 18K+ authorized persons. Its digital journey began in the year 2019. It won various awards like ET Brand Equity Smart API Launch Award 2022, India Digital Awards, IAMAI 2022 and Kaleido Awards by ET Brand Equity 2022.

The company has about 135,578 followers on LinkedIn. As per the NSE reports it has 4.28 M active clients and 10M+ app downloads from google play store. The company’s website has seen 7.7 M visits over the last month where people explore about 4.56 pages per visit and spend approximately 10 minutes per visit on the website. This clearly shows their high user interaction online.

 2 

 With the aim of making finance simple for millions of Indians, the company was founded in the year 2016 by a group of colleagues who worked for Flipkart. It is an online investment platform based out of Bengaluru joining the unicorn club in just 5 years of its operations. The founders saw a gap in the average Indian investing as the market lacked these few major features of being transparent, fast and easy. They decided to give the Indians the freedom to invest as per their requirements and give them control of their own financial portfolio. They now have 40M+ registered clients and 1000 team members working for the company with a 4.5 rating. They enable users to invest in Stocks, Mutual Funds, ETFs, IPOs, and gold in an easy, paperless, and trouble-free manner. It claims to be the largest mutual fund distributor in India with 2.5 lakhs SIP every month as on 2021.

The company has about 265,284 followers on LinkedIn. As per the NSE reports it has 5.37 M active clients and 10M+ app downloads from google play store. The company’s website has seen 20.1M visits over the previous month where people explore about 4.23 pages per visit and spend approximately 6:20 minutes per visit on the website.

 1 

Derived from the Sanskrit word obstacle the company was named as zero+rodha, meaning no obstacles. As of now it is India’s fastest growing online broker. The company claims to contribute to over 15% of all retail order volumes in India daily. It offers online stock broking education through Varsity that talks on topics from basics to advanced. All this is done with the aim to empower investors. It hosts the active investor community named Trading Q&A where you can connect with like-minded people. It received the start-up of the year award by ET in 2020. Its online app is called Kite and as promised allows you to trade in everything, from IPO to Equity, MF and more at the lowest charges.

The company has about 352,313 followers on LinkedIn. As per the NSE reports it has 6.39 M active clients and 10M+ app downloads from google play store. The company’s website has seen 46.6 M visits over the previous month where people explore about 11.27 pages per visit and spend approximately over 15 minutes per visit on the website. The average time spent alone shows the level of interactivity and engagement on their online platforms. All this has helped this youngest player in the run, the biggest discount broker in India.

Conclusion:

With the rise of popularity of discount brokers due to its lower charges, the market also saw many full-service brokers jumping into the bandwagon and giving similar offerings at low rates. The competition in the market is making the players more innovative and supportive in terms of trade and customer service. After around a decade since these brokers started getting attention, discount brokers are becoming more and more popular. So as an investor you can choose where to park your money and trust depending on what kinds of services and support you are looking at. Or simply choose to take control of your own financial portfolio and you will learn on the trade run.