Best-Of Awards 2026 Methodologies

Best Online Broker for IRA Investors

How we picked the companies to evaluate:

NerdWallet reviewed 21 online brokerages that offer self-directed accounts between July and September 2025. These brokerages constitute the majority of that market based on their assets under management. Some of the providers are NerdWallet partners, but this did not influence our selection of the winner.

How we chose the winner:

NerdWallet evaluated each provider across the weighted criteria below to determine the winner for individual retirement account (IRA) investing:

• Retirement planning tools (15%).
• IRA match offer (15%).
• Customer service, including hours of availability, ease of finding key information on the provider’s website and educational support offerings (20%).
• Access to target date mutual funds (20%).
• Number of no-transaction-fee mutual funds (10%).
• Educational support, which includes what educational resources are available online, whether they offer free webinars, if the broker conducts its own research and whether it has physical branches (10%).
• Research and data, including number of third-party providers and quality of research tools (10%).

In the event of a tie, we directly compare the number of no-transaction-fee mutual funds. The broker with more no-transaction-fee mutual funds wins.

How we verified our data:

NerdWallet writers sent detailed questions to all reviewed companies. NerdWallet writers and editors also confirmed fees, rates, policies and other key features on each company's website.


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