tastytrade (Formerly tastyworks) Review for 2024

Investing your hard-earned towards a better future requires a reliable partner for your trading endeavors. Though other similar platforms may have had more time in the spotlight recently, tastytrade is one of the hidden gems that deserve your attention as well.

The name suggests something straight out of a chocolate factory, but hiding behind it is a platform for experienced investors and traders.

tastytrade Overview

Formerly known as tastyworks, the online brokerage tastytrade has grown into a well-known name in the investment world. Since 2011, the brokerage has provided insights and ran an explanatory tastytrade videocast aimed at traders in the making. In 2017, tastyworks was made to put the knowledge it offered to investors to the test in a real trading environment. In 2023, the company changed its name to tastytrade.

tastytrade has been approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Now that you know that tastytrade is a legitimate, company let’s see how you can trade with it.

The tastytrade platform can be used to trade via browser, desktop, or even smartphone. Each option is packed with useful features to make trading a breeze.

tastytrade is designed to provide its users with reliability, security, and, most importantly, the speed they need, with exceptional features that make trading fun integrated into the platform as well.

While it has been criticized for being too difficult for beginners to comprehend, as there is no demo, there is an informative tastytrade platform tutorial available on their site. Another thing beginners will appreciate is the tastytrade fees or the general lack thereof. The costs you do have to cover are some of the lowest on the market – ideal for small traders.

There is no opening charge nor inactivity fee, so you can test all the features before deciding to trust tastytrade as a trading partner.

Why Should You Choose tastytrade?

First of all, the platform was created by the big names from the industry behind the thinkorswim, so you know this team knows what they are doing.

Another thing setting tastytrade apart is that it’s primarily designed for people looking to trade options, a possibility not common with its competitors. If that’s not what you’re looking for, it also offers a simplistic route for trading US stocks and ETFs.

Unlike its competitors who are struggling to adopt a seamless procedure for wire transfers, tastytrade forwards deposits to your account the very next day.

With exceptionally low trading fees and excellent charting and analysis tools to help traders out, it is undoubtedly the platform to get rich on options. You can use tastytrade for futures and cryptocurrency trading, including E-micro futures and Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Unfortunately, there is no paper trading or penny stocks available here.

Another thing its new users might find useful is the generous offer of affordable derivatives. The standard commission opening fee here is $1, so you can purchase some fantastic derivatives for next to nothing.

The onboarding process is streamlined, but it might take beginners some time to get acquainted with the whole platform. Making an account takes about five minutes, and you can find all the documents you need on the site. You can fund your account either by ACH, wire transfer, check, or transferring funds from another trading account.

Beginners will find the built-in tastytrade viewer very useful: The tastytrade live videocast shows what experienced traders are doing and allows newbies to duplicate their choices and – hopefully – their success.

Beginners and professional investors alike can take advantage of dynamic watchlists. These show what was most frequently traded within the past hour, and there are additional tools, such as Cherry Picks and Futures Insights, to help uncover trade opportunities.

tastytrade Pricing, Discounts, and Fees

Pricing is the aspect of this company that has attracted numerous traders, and it keeps attracting more. In fact, pricing is its main selling point, and why so many people choose to do their trading here – the competition can’t match these rates.

With tastytrade, there is no base cost and no initial commissions. Secondly, there is no opening nor closing commission to take into account when trading stocks and ETFs, and it’s highly doubtful you’ll find such an offer anywhere else. When trading options, the only cost is the opening commission: Ranging from $1 per contract for stocks and ETF options to $1.50 and $2.50 for options on micro futures and futures, respectively.

Commissions on futures are $0.25 for smalls futures, $0.85 for micro futures, and $1.25 per contract for both opening and closing on futures in general. If you are looking to trade cryptocurrency, opening the contract will cost you 1% of your total purchase value, while closing costs 1% of the total sale value.

Let us reiterate that stocks and ETFs have the best commission – none at all! Regardless of how many shares you trade, apart from the clearing fee – mandatory with all broker firms, but amounting to below $1 – you don’t have to pay anything.

All these no-commission deals are exceptional for beginners or small traders, as they ensure the fees won’t eat up your profits. While the platform itself is not particularly targeted at small traders, the price points for trading certainly are. After all, when starting to invest for the first time, baby steps are very much advised.

Ultimately, tastytrade is one of the cheapest online trading venues on the market. For these prices, managing the steep learning curve that comes with using its somewhat complicated and professional-oriented trading platform is definitely worth it.

tastytrade vs. Thinkorswim

The same minds that stand behind thinkorswim and TD Ameritrade are running tastytrade, so this comparison will mostly just be nitpicking.

Both platforms offer ETFs, options, stocks, and futures trading. The only advantage thinkorswim has here is that it provides Forex trading as well. On the other hand, tastytrade wins in terms of accessibility. Both of these offer desktop and mobile trading platforms; however, tastytrade also has a robust browser trading platform.

The most significant difference between the two is that thinkorswim had a headstart when developing its offer, so those reliant on a massive trading toolkit will prefer thinkorswim. However, we are happy to say the younger platform will undoubtedly catch up soon in the future.

Overall, if you rely on tools a lot for your trading, you should go with thinkorswim, which has had more than enough time to develop those fantastic features people rely on for more efficient trading. On the other hand, if you value trading unburdened by the commission, go with tastytrade. In either case, the commission is far from unsurmountable, so you won’t go wrong whichever platform you choose.

tastytrade vs. Robinhood

This comparison is a bit of an apples-and-oranges situation. These platforms cater to specific groups of users, offering them only the best their particular world has to offer.

For example, tastytrade will work wonders for people looking to trade options and futures – something Robinhood doesn’t excel at, unfortunately. What Robinhood does excel at is cryptocurrency options trading, which you cannot find on tastytrade.

But if this is not your thing, you can trade in actual cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin, on the tastytrade platform.

Robinhood is proud of its zero-commission policy, and while tastytrade comes with pretty low commissions and no closing fees, the former is still a better bet if you are looking to trade for free.

Intuitiveness also varies between these two platforms. While tastytrade offers plenty of fantastic tools to help traders make decisions, Robinhood is very easy to navigate and practically does the trading for you.

To compensate for this lack of ease, tastytrade grants access to live financial news for its user network within the trading platform. You can find experts discussing trading strategies and movements on the market or information on any hot topics that may arise during the day.

Further Reading

• Acorns Review
• SoFi Review for 2024
• Top Investment Apps to Consider in 2024

The Bottom Line

If you check out what the internet has to say about tastytrade, you won’t be too impressed. Plenty of people don’t appreciate the level of skill needed to navigate the platform successfully. We would be remiss if we didn’t mention this in our review, but tastytrade is still a trustworthy, reliable platform for experienced traders.

You’re not likely to find fees as low as those offered here on many other venues with similar options trading possibilities. It also features some handy tools to help you on your way to becoming a professional in the trading industry.

Feel free to jump on to their parent platform to find some great insights and useful tips to lead you through the world of trading while you’re there.