The same discipline we apply to real estate brokerages, applied to where you invest: commissions are nearly solved, but FX spreads, maintenance fees, and — above all — percentage-of-assets advice quietly decide what you keep. A 1.5% advisory fee is a "split" on your portfolio, every year, forever.
Modeled: average ticket $5,000; USD share converts once at the platform's FX rate; maintenance applies only below each platform's waiver threshold. Active-trader rebates, premium tiers, and promos excluded. Fees change often — verify on the provider's pricing page. Not investment advice.
Percentage-of-assets fees compound against you. Same portfolio, same 6% gross return, 25 years, $10K/yr added — only the fee changes.
Commissions are a solved problem. Questrade, Wealthsimple, and National Bank Direct are at $0 for stocks and ETFs; even the big banks are $6.95–$9.99. For a passive investor making a dozen trades a year, the platform commission difference is lunch money.
FX is the real per-trade cost for Canadians. A typical 1.5% conversion on USD trades dwarfs any commission: one $10,000 USD purchase costs ~$150 in FX at a retail platform versus ~$2 at Interactive Brokers. If you trade US markets seriously, FX policy should drive your platform choice — or use Norbert's Gambit.
Percentage-of-assets fees are the industry's cap-free split. Exactly like an uncapped brokerage royalty, a 1.5% advisory fee scales with your success and never stops. On a $500K portfolio that's $7,500 every year — and the compounding chart above shows what it does over decades. Robo-advisors cut that by two-thirds; DIY ETFs cut it by ~90%.
Watch the small print: quarterly maintenance fees below asset thresholds ($25/quarter is $100/yr on a starter portfolio), transfer-out fees of $50–$150 (usually reimbursed by the receiving platform), and short-term mutual fund redemption fees inside 30–90 days.