Alpaca vs Firstrade Comparison: Fees, Features, and More (2025)

Alpaca and Firstrade are two leading discount brokerages offering commission-free stock and ETF trading. Use this head-to-head comparison table to evaluate fees, features, trading tools, and account options to help you decide which broker is right for you in 2025.

Head-to-Head Comparison: Alpaca vs Firstrade (2025)
Feature Alpaca Firstrade
Website https://alpaca.markets/ https://www.firstrade.com/
Broker Type API-Only Discount
Trading: Stock & ETF? Yes Yes
ETF & Stock commission No fee No fee
Fractional Shares? Yes No
Percent Allocations? Yes; via API No
Crypto Trading? Yes No
Crypto Fees 0.35% not applicable
Options Trading? No Yes
Options Fee not applicable No fee
Bond Trading Available? No Yes
Pays for Order Flow (PFOF)? Yes Yes
Interface: Web trading? No Yes
Desktop trading? No No
API Trading? Yes; Alpaca Trading API No
Mutual Funds: Offered? No Yes
Total Mutual Funds None Over 4,000
NTF Mutual Funds None Over 700
Non-NTF Fund Fee not applicable $19.95
Early Redemption Fee? not applicable Yes
Redemption Hold (Days) not applicable 90 days
Early Redemption Fee not applicable $19.95
Accounts: Margin Accounts? Yes Yes
IRAs Offered? No Yes
HSAs Offered? No No
Money Market Sweep? No No
CDs Offered? No Yes
Robo-Advisor: Offered No No
Robo-Advisor Service none none
Robo-Advisor Fes not applicable not applicable
Basics: Headquarters San Mateo, CA Flushing, NY
Year Founded 2018 1985
Clearing Firm Apex Clearing Apex Clearing
Local Branches? No No
New Account Minimum $0 $0

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