Zero commission covers one line of the schedule. Vanguard Brokerage Services' commission and fee schedules, effective 10 July 2026, print $0 for an online stock or ETF trade and then keep going: $1 per options contract, $25 for a broker-assisted trade, $25 a year for account service, $10 per outgoing wire, $20 for an online transaction-fee mutual fund trade and $100 to close an account and transfer the assets out. The condition that moves those numbers is how much sits at the firm. The $25 broker-assisted commission and the $25 account service fee both fall away at $1 million of qualifying assets.
Zero commission is one line of about forty
The advertised line is real and narrow. On that same Vanguard schedule dated 10 July 2026, an online stock or ETF trade costs $0 at every asset level, and so does a Vanguard mutual fund trade placed online. Everything else has a number next to it.
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| Line item | Amount | What triggers it |
|---|---|---|
| Online stock or ETF trade | $0 | The advertised line |
| Options | $0 plus $1 per contract | Every contract, opening and closing |
| Broker-assisted trade | $25 | Placing the order by phone |
| Transaction-fee mutual fund, online | $20 per trade | Funds outside the no-transaction-fee list |
| Secondary-market corporate bonds and CDs | $1 per $1,000 face, $250 maximum | Buying or selling after issue |
| Account service fee | $25 a year | Paper statements rather than e-delivery |
| Outgoing wire | $10 | Moving cash out by wire |
| Account closure and full transfer out | $100 | Leaving the firm |
Every figure in that table sits in the published schedule for clients with qualifying assets below $1 million, and each carries its own waiver conditions in the document.
The basis of the charge decides how it grows
FINRA's investor page on fees and commissions sorts brokerage costs by what the charge attaches to: transaction costs such as commissions and the markups or spreads a firm earns when it sells from its own inventory, advisory fees charged against the size of the portfolio, and ongoing operating and account-level expenses. A per-contract fee scales with activity. An annual fee is fixed. A percentage of assets scales with the balance and keeps scaling after the trading stops.
That page also states that free trading does not mean free investing, and names where the revenue moves instead: interest income from margin loans, robo-advisory service fees and commissions on options and other securities (FINRA, fees and commissions). Margin interest is the largest of those for an account that borrows, and it runs on a balance rather than on a trade, which is part of what separates a cash account from a margin account.
Example: $115 in a year on a $0-commission schedule
This example prices one year of activity against the schedule above. It is a mechanism, not a strategy.
An account places 40 options orders over the year, two contracts each, which is 80 contracts. At the schedule's $1 per contract that is $80. The account wires cash out once, at $10. It still receives paper statements, so the $25 annual account service fee applies rather than being waived for e-delivery. The total is $80 plus $10 plus $25, which is $115.
Stock trades in that same year cost $0, exactly as advertised. The $115 is the part of the schedule the advertisement never quotes, and it is the difference between a gross result and the number that actually lands in the account.
Percentage lines outgrow flat ones
A flat fee stops growing. A percentage does not. On the Vanguard schedule, a foreign or ADR dividend carries a fee of 1 percent of the gross dividend amount, up to $100 per payment, when foreign tax withholding relief is received; the cap binds at a $10,000 dividend and the charge is proportional below that. The class action service takes 20 percent of any settlement funds recovered on the account's behalf. Neither line is a commission, and neither appears in a commission comparison.
FINRA prices the asset-based version: a fee of 1 percent a year for 20 years, on a $100,000 investment earning 4 percent, comes to $28,000. That figure is larger than two decades of the flat lines on a retail schedule combined, and it is the one that never appears in a headline about commissions. Read the percentage lines first, then the per-contract lines, then the flat annual ones; the order matches how fast each grows. The same habit applies to any performance number someone quotes at you.
Source references
Primary sources used for this guide. Follow the links for the original scope, definitions and conditions.
- Vanguard Brokerage Services commission and fee schedules, effective July 10, 2026Accessed 2026-09-17
- Fees and CommissionsAccessed 2026-09-17