Brokerage Revenue Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Sarah Davis, Digital Finance & Fintech | Last updated: September 20, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Three US brokers custodied $14.38 trillion of client assets on June 30, 2026 and pulled $41.1 billion of annualized revenue off it. Charles Schwab took 21.6 basis points per dollar held. Robinhood took 141.8. The commission line explains almost none of the gap — interest on client cash and margin does.
Quick Answer
Axis Intelligence Research measured what US brokers actually earn per dollar of client money using the Zero-Commission Spread (ZCS), built from Q2 2026 filings. The readings: Robinhood 141.8 bps ($141.79 per $10,000 of client assets, annualized), Interactive Brokers 81.5 bps, Charles Schwab 21.6 bps. Net interest is the largest single revenue line at Schwab and IBKR. Commissions are the largest only at Robinhood, where they are not commissions at all.
Key Findings
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that Robinhood earned 6.6 times more revenue per dollar of client assets than Charles Schwab in the second quarter of 2026 — 141.8 basis points annualized against 21.6.
- Schwab paid an average rate of 0.19% on bank deposits in Q2 2026 while the Federal Reserve’s target range sat at 3.50%–3.75%, per its own earnings release.
- Interactive Brokers paid 2.23% on customer credit balances and earned 3.32% on segregated cash in the same quarter, a disclosed spread of 109 basis points.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds that net interest income supplied 55.8% of Interactive Brokers’ and 47.5% of Schwab’s Q2 2026 net revenues, against 29.7% at Robinhood.
- Interactive Brokers generated $1,463 of annualized revenue per customer account, roughly eight times Robinhood’s reported $187 ARPU, on accounts holding 13 times more equity.
How Much Do Brokers Earn Per $10,000 of Client Assets?
Commission schedules stopped being the answer to this question in October 2019. What replaced them is not on any rate card, so we built the measure.
The Zero-Commission Spread (ZCS) is annualized broker net revenue divided by end-of-period client assets, expressed in basis points and in dollars per $10,000 held. Quarterly net revenue is multiplied by four; the denominator is the asset measure each firm reports to investors. Every input is a line in a Q2 2026 filing.
| Broker | Client assets, Jun 30 2026 | Annualized net revenue | ZCS (bps) | Per $10,000 | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robinhood Markets | $369.0B | $5.232B | 141.8 | $141.79 | Robinhood Q2 2026 results |
| Interactive Brokers | $930.3B | $7.584B | 81.5 | $81.52 | IBKR 2Q2026 results |
| Charles Schwab | $13,084.9B | $28.288B | 21.6 | $21.62 | Schwab 2Q26 earnings release |
Formula: ZCS = (quarterly net revenues × 4) ÷ client assets × 10,000. Robinhood: (1,308 × 4) ÷ 369,000 × 10,000 = 141.8. Interactive Brokers: (1,896 × 4) ÷ 930,300 × 10,000 = 81.5. Schwab: (7,072 × 4) ÷ 13,084,900 × 10,000 = 21.6.
The spread between the top and bottom reading is 120 basis points. On a $250,000 portfolio, that is $3,000 a year of difference in what the platform extracts — before the client pays a single stated fee.
Sarah Davis: The instinct is to read the low number as generosity and the high number as predation. It is closer to a difference in client mix. Schwab’s denominator includes $6.7 trillion of advised and custodied assets that barely trade and hold little idle cash; the take rate falls because the denominator is enormous, not because the machine is idle. Robinhood’s denominator is $369 billion of engaged, levered, option-trading balances. The comparison worth making is not which broker is cheaper, but which revenue line each one is actually pulling — because that tells you what the firm needs you to do.
Source: Axis Intelligence Research — How Brokers Make Money 2026
Where Does Brokerage Revenue Actually Come From in 2026?
Decomposing ZCS by revenue line is where the business models separate.
| Revenue line, annualized bps on client assets | Robinhood | Interactive Brokers | Schwab |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transaction / commissions | 84.1 | 28.9 | 3.7 |
| Net interest | 42.2 | 45.4 | 10.3 |
| Asset management & administration | — | — | 5.6 |
| Fees, subscriptions, other | 15.5 | 7.1 | 2.1 |
| Total ZCS | 141.8 | 81.5 | 21.6 |
Source: Axis Intelligence Research calculation from Q2 2026 filings of each issuer; components may not sum exactly because of rounding.
As a share of revenue rather than of assets, the picture inverts. Net interest income supplied 55.8% of Interactive Brokers’ $1.896 billion of Q2 net revenues and 47.5% of Schwab’s $7.072 billion, but only 29.7% of Robinhood’s $1.308 billion. Schwab’s trading revenue of $1.215 billion — a record quarter, up 28% year over year, on record daily average trades of 11.9 million — still amounted to 17.2% of the firm’s revenue. Its revenue per trade fell to $1.64 from $2.03 a year earlier.
That last pair of numbers is the whole retail brokerage industry in miniature: trades up 57%, revenue per trade down 19%.
How Much Interest Do Brokers Keep on Idle Cash?
This is the least visible line and the largest one. Uninvested cash in a brokerage account is swept to a bank or held as a free credit balance; the broker earns the market rate and passes through a fraction.
The Idle Cash Pass-Through (ICP) is the rate a broker paid on client cash divided by the federal funds target midpoint for the same period. The FOMC held the target range at 3.50%–3.75% through the first half of 2026 before raising it to 3.75%–4.00% on September 16, giving a Q2 midpoint of 3.625%.
| Broker | Rate paid on client cash | Rate earned | Spread | ICP | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interactive Brokers | 2.23% | 3.32% on segregated cash | 1.09 pts | 61.5% | Disclosed average yields, Q2 2026 |
| Charles Schwab | 0.19% | 3.47% on interest-earning assets | 3.28 pts | 5.2% | Disclosed average yields, Q2 2026 |
| Robinhood (Gold) | 3.60% posted APY | not disclosed | — | 92.9% | Posted rate, Sep 17 2026, vs 3.875% midpoint |
Schwab’s average cost of bank deposits — $114 million of interest expense on $246.3 billion of average balances — works out to 19 basis points. Its transactional sweep cash stood at $485.7 billion at the end of June. Schwab’s own client notice in July 2026 put the posted yield on both Bank Sweep and Schwab One Interest at 0.01% APY, which is consistent with the filed average. The firm simultaneously ran $690.5 billion of client money in its money market funds, where the yield is market-level and the fee is an expense ratio rather than a spread. Same client, same broker, two different economics, one opt-in away.
Interactive Brokers is the outlier in the other direction, and it discloses the arithmetic itself: 2.23% paid on $171.7 billion of average customer credit balances, 3.32% earned on $97.6 billion of average segregated cash and securities.
Robinhood’s Gold tier posts 3.6% APY as of September 17, 2026, per its own High-Yield Cash Program disclosure — the pass-through is high, but it is gated behind a $5 monthly subscription, and Gold subscribers were 4.8 million of 28.4 million funded customers. Robinhood also moved over $6 billion out of Cash Sweep in February 2026 to fund margin lending growth, which is the clearest possible statement of where idle cash earns its keep.
Sarah Davis: Read the sweep spread as a fee schedule, because that is what it is. Three and a quarter points on idle cash is not a rounding error at a firm holding $485.7 billion of it. The difference between the brokers here is not rate policy, it is who has to ask. At one, market rate is the default; at another, it is a product you subscribe to; at a third, it is a money fund you must go buy yourself. Defaults are the fee.
How Much Do Brokers Make From Payment for Order Flow?
Order-flow economics show up under different labels depending on who is filing.
Robinhood’s transaction-based revenues reached $776 million in Q2 2026, up 44% year over year, split as options $342 million, event contracts $156 million, equities $129 million and cryptocurrencies $100 million. Equity notional volume hit $956 billion and options contracts traded reached 774 million. Against $956 billion of equity notional, the $129 million equities line is roughly 1.3 basis points of notional — thin per trade, large in aggregate, and entirely invisible on a trade confirmation.
Interactive Brokers reports the line explicitly and small: other fees and services rose 40% to $87 million, of which a $9 million increase came from payments for order flow under exchange-mandated programs. Its commission revenue of $673 million, at $2.64 per cleared commissionable order, is the stated price instead.
The two models are not a moral contrast; they are a routing contrast. One firm is paid by the venue, the other by the client, and the client’s all-in cost depends on execution quality that has never been comparable across brokers — which is exactly what changes next.
What Changes for Broker Disclosure on August 1, 2026?
The SEC adopted amendments to Rule 605 of Regulation NMS in March 2024, expanding monthly execution quality reporting beyond market centers to broker-dealers that introduce or carry 100,000 or more customer accounts, adding six statistical measures, and requiring a plain summary report. The compliance date was extended from December 14, 2025 to August 1, 2026; SEC staff issued interpretive FAQs on the amended rule in April 2026.
From August 1, 2026, the large retail brokers began collecting the data. For the first time, price improvement, effective spread and fill statistics will be published on a comparable basis by the firms routing retail orders, not only by the venues receiving them. Order-flow revenue has been disclosable for years under Rule 606; what it buys or costs the client has not been measurable at broker level. It is about to be.
How Much Are Brokers Earning From Margin Lending?
Margin is the fastest-moving line in the industry this year.
| Broker | Margin balances, Jun 30 2026 | YoY change | Margin as % of client assets | Disclosed margin yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Schwab | $165.1B | +98% | 1.26% | 5.68% on client receivables |
| Interactive Brokers | $108.5B | +67% | 11.66% | 4.10% |
| Robinhood | $21.6B | +127% | 5.85% | not disclosed |
Source: issuer Q2 2026 disclosures; percentages calculated by Axis Intelligence Research.
Schwab’s margin book nearly doubled in twelve months and rose 30% in a single quarter. Its receivables from brokerage clients yielded 5.68% on average balances of $112.1 billion. Interactive Brokers earned 4.10% on $96.6 billion of average customer margin loans. The three brokers together carried $295.2 billion of client borrowing at quarter end.
Margin intensity — borrowing as a share of assets held — separates the platforms more cleanly than any other ratio here. Interactive Brokers’ clients borrow against 11.7% of their equity; Schwab’s against 1.3%. Leverage behaviour at the account level is covered in our retail investor statistics dataset.
What Does Securities Lending Add?
Lending customer shares to short sellers is the quietest revenue line and, per dollar of assets, one of the more profitable.
Schwab recorded $178 million of securities lending revenue in Q2 2026, up from $96 million a year earlier. Interactive Brokers states that if interest on cash collateral tied to securities lending were included, total net interest income from its securities lending activity would have been $343 million for the quarter, against $251 million a year earlier — with securities loaned on its balance sheet at $45.4 billion, up from $24.8 billion at year-end 2025. Robinhood’s securities loaned balance reached $20.5 billion at June 30, 2026, from $11.6 billion six months earlier.
Robinhood attributed part of the modest 9% growth in its net interest revenues to lower securities lending activity, which is a reminder that this line moves with short interest, not with client growth.
Which Broker Monetizes a Customer Hardest?
Per-dollar and per-account monetization point in opposite directions.
| Broker | Accounts / customers | Annualized revenue per account | Assets per account |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interactive Brokers | 5.185M accounts | $1,463 | $179,422 |
| Charles Schwab | 39.802M active brokerage accounts | $711 | $328,750 |
| Robinhood | 28.4M funded customers | $187 (company-reported ARPU) | $12,993 |
Source: issuer Q2 2026 disclosures; per-account figures for IBKR and Schwab calculated by Axis Intelligence Research as annualized net revenue ÷ end-of-period accounts. Robinhood’s $187 is its own annualized ARPU, computed on average funded customers.
An Interactive Brokers account produces roughly eight times the revenue of a Robinhood customer while holding roughly fourteen times the assets. Schwab opened 1.4 million new brokerage accounts in the quarter and gathered $119.8 billion of core net new assets, yet its revenue per account sits at less than half IBKR’s. Account counts and per-platform asset depth are covered in our investment app statistics dataset; execution venue and volume data live in retail trading statistics.
Sarah Davis: Per-account revenue is the number the platforms would rather you looked at, because it scales with balance and reads as fair. Per-dollar revenue is the number that tells a client what the relationship costs. A broker can be cheap on one and expensive on the other, and most of them are.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure comes from a Q2 2026 issuer disclosure fetched between September 17 and September 19, 2026: Schwab’s earnings release and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026; Interactive Brokers Group’s 2Q2026 results release; Robinhood Markets’ Q2 2026 results release and condensed consolidated statements. Policy rates come from the Federal Reserve Board. Rule 605 dates come from the SEC adopting release and the Federal Register extension notice. Posted retail cash rates come from each broker’s own published disclosure, captured with the date shown.
Formulas.
- ZCS (bps) = (quarterly net revenues × 4) ÷ client assets × 10,000.
- ZCS component (bps) = (quarterly revenue line × 4) ÷ client assets × 10,000.
- ICP = rate paid on client cash ÷ federal funds target midpoint for the same period.
- Revenue per account = (quarterly net revenues × 4) ÷ end-of-period accounts.
- Margin intensity = margin balances ÷ client assets.
Comparability. The three firms report client assets on different definitions: Schwab’s total client assets include advised and custodied balances, IBKR reports customer equity excluding non-customers, Robinhood reports total platform assets including TradePMR balances it does not custody. ZCS is a take-rate on each firm’s own reported asset base and should be read that way rather than as a like-for-like fee comparison. Annualizing a single quarter amplifies seasonality — Q2 2026 was a record trading quarter for all three. Fidelity and Vanguard are excluded: as private and mutually-owned firms they publish no comparable revenue statements.
About This Dataset
Dataset title: Brokerage Revenue and Zero-Commission Spread, Q2 2026. Creator and publisher: Axis Intelligence Research. Coverage: three publicly-reporting US retail brokers, quarter ended June 30, 2026, with policy and disclosure reference data through September 19, 2026. The CSV carries every figure in this article with its source organization, document, URL and retrieval date. Licensed CC BY 4.0 — free for commercial and academic reuse with attribution. Updates are triggered by new quarterly filings, a change in the federal funds target, or publication of the first broker-level Rule 605 reports.
Cite this dataset
- APA: Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). Brokerage revenue statistics 2026: Order flow, cash sweep, margin and securities lending. https://axis-intelligence.com/brokerage-revenue-statistics/
- MLA: Axis Intelligence Research. “Brokerage Revenue Statistics 2026.” Axis Intelligence, 19 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/brokerage-revenue-statistics/.
- Chicago: Axis Intelligence Research. “Brokerage Revenue Statistics 2026.” Axis Intelligence, September 19, 2026.
FAQ
If I pay no commission, what am I actually paying?
Three things, none itemized: the spread your broker keeps on uninvested cash, the rate it charges if you borrow on margin, and the execution quality of orders routed to venues that pay for the flow. Axis Intelligence Research measures the total as the Zero-Commission Spread — 21.6 to 141.8 basis points a year on assets held, depending on the platform.
Does a high ZCS mean a broker is expensive for me personally?
Not necessarily. ZCS is a firm-level take rate. A buy-and-hold client with no idle cash and no margin pays close to nothing at any of these firms. A client who holds 15% in cash and carries a margin balance pays most of it. The mix of lines matters more than the headline reading.
Why does my broker pay 0.01% on cash when the fed funds rate is near 4%?
Because the default sweep and the money fund are different products. Schwab’s filed average cost of bank deposits was 0.19% in Q2 2026 while it earned 3.47% on interest-earning assets. Moving cash into a money market fund or a higher-yielding sweep is generally an opt-in the client has to make.
Is payment for order flow banned?
No. It remains legal and disclosed quarterly under Rule 606. What changes from August 1, 2026 is Rule 605: brokers with 100,000 or more customer accounts must produce monthly execution quality reports, making price improvement and effective spread comparable at broker level for the first time.
Which revenue line is most exposed if the Fed cuts?
Net interest, which supplied 55.8% of Interactive Brokers’ and 47.5% of Schwab’s Q2 2026 net revenues. IBKR disclosed that a 25 basis point move in fed funds shifts its annual net interest income by roughly $81 million. The FOMC raised rates on September 16, 2026, so near-term pressure runs the other way.
Do brokers make money when I lend out my shares?
They make money when they lend out your shares. Fully-paid lending programs share some of it back; the default in a margin account generally does not. Schwab booked $178 million of securities lending revenue in Q2 2026 and IBKR estimated $343 million of net interest from its securities lending activity.
How can I check these numbers myself?
Open each issuer’s quarterly release, take total net revenues, multiply by four, and divide by the client asset figure in the same document. Every input and every URL is in the accompanying CSV.
Why aren’t Fidelity and Vanguard in the comparison?
Neither publishes audited revenue statements against a client asset base — Fidelity is privately held and Vanguard is owned by its funds. Any take-rate figure for them would be an estimate, so they are excluded rather than modelled.
Editorial independence: Axis Intelligence has no financial relationship with any broker-dealer named in this dataset. Contact: [email protected]