Merrill Edge vs Vanguard Comparison: Fees, Features, and More (2025)

Merrill Edge and Vanguard 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: Merrill Edge vs Vanguard (2025)
Feature Merrill Edge Vanguard
Website https://www.merrilledge.com/ https://investor.vanguard.com/
Broker Type Full-Service Full-Service
Trading: Stock & ETF? Yes Yes
ETF & Stock commission No fee No fee
Fractional Shares? No No
Percent Allocations? No No
Crypto Trading? No No
Crypto Fees not applicable not applicable
Options Trading? Yes Yes
Options Fee 65 cents 0 to 100 cents
Bond Trading Available? Yes Yes
Pays for Order Flow (PFOF)? Yes No
Interface: Web trading? Yes Yes
Desktop trading? No No
API Trading? No No
Mutual Funds: Offered? Yes Yes
Total Mutual Funds Over 2,300 Over 3,000
NTF Mutual Funds Over 800 Over 1,800
Non-NTF Fund Fee $19.95 $50
Early Redemption Fee? Yes Yes
Redemption Hold (Days) 90 days 60 days
Early Redemption Fee $39.95 $50
Accounts: Margin Accounts? Yes Yes
IRAs Offered? Yes Yes
HSAs Offered? No No
Money Market Sweep? Yes Yes
CDs Offered? Yes Yes
Robo-Advisor: Offered Yes Yes
Robo-Advisor Service Merrill Guided Investing Vanguard Digital Advisor
Robo-Advisor Fes 0.30% to 0.45% 0.20% to 0.25%
Basics: Headquarters Charlotte, NC Valley Forge, PA
Year Founded 2010 1975
Clearing Firm Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith Vanguard Brokerage Services
Local Branches? Yes, about 2,800 locations Yes, about 5 locations
New Account Minimum $0 $0

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