How much do I need to open a brokerage account with Vanguard?

There is no specific account minimum to open a brokerage account with Vanguard. However, since Vanguard doesn't allow fractional share investing except with its own ETFs, you'll need at least enough money to purchase one share of a stock or a fractional share of an ETF, or the minimum investment amount for a mutual fund you want to invest in.

What are the disadvantages of a Vanguard brokerage account?

There are a few things Vanguard doesn't offer for investors. Fractional share investing of stocks is a big example -- if a stock is trading for $500 per share, you'd need $500 to invest in it. Many competitors would allow you to directly buy a piece of a share. Plus, as a platform focused on long-term, buy-and-hold investing strategies, Vanguard's trading platform isn't as feature-packed as many other traditional brokerages.

Vanguard Review: An Old Favorite for Mutual Fund Investing

Vanguard might be for you if: You're a hands-off investor who wants low-cost index fund ETFs and mutual funds. This broker is a longtime industry leader in passive investing, offering thousands of low-fee or no-fee diversified stock and bond ETFs and mutual funds, a wide range of investment account types, and an easy-to-use platform. Read our Vanguard review to see if this brokerage is the right choice for your investment goals.

Ratings Methodology

2025 Award Winner

Vanguard

Our Rating:

Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars.

4.5/5

Bottom Line

Vanguard is one of the best brokerages for passive investors who want to buy low-cost index fund ETFs. It also offers thousands of no-transaction-fee mutual funds, and excellent zero-commission options for buying stocks online, with no account minimums for brokerage accounts. Vanguard tries to keep its costs and expense ratios low so investors (like you) can keep more of your returns.

Fees:

$0 online; $25 broker-assisted fee for some phone trades of stocks and ETFs from other companies (Less than $1 million)

Account Minimum:

$0

Alternatives to Consider

We recommend comparing brokerage options to ensure the account you're selecting is the best fit for you. To make your search easier, here's a short list of our best trading platforms of 2024.

Broker	Best For	Commissions	Learn More
Rating image, 4.0 out of 5 stars. 4.0/5 Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor.	Easy fractional investing in stocks and bonds.	$0 commissions, 1%-2% crypto markups	Learn More for Public On Public's Secure Website.
Rating image, 4.0 out of 5 stars. 4.0/5 Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor.	Low mutual fund fees.	$0 per trade	Learn More for J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing On J.P. Morgan Self-Directed Investing's Secure Website.
Rating image, 4.5 out of 5 stars. 4.5/5 Our ratings are based on a 5 star scale. 5 stars equals Best. 4 stars equals Excellent. 3 stars equals Good. 2 stars equals Fair. 1 star equals Poor.	Long-Term Investors, Stocks and Options Traders	Commission-free; other fees apply	Learn More for ETRADE On ETRADE's Secure Website.

Full Vanguard review

We tried it: Our team's experience

Here at Motley Fool Money, we pride ourselves as real users of most of the products across our site. Fellow writer Kimberly Rotter uses Vanguard. Here's a summary of her experience with this broker:

Kimberly's review

It's easy to get a knowledgeable person on the phone at Vanguard, and they walk me through every question I have. They score highly in my book for their ability to help novice investors like me who want to learn more. Also, I'm very sensitive to fees and pay zero whenever possible. Vanguard has given me all the fee-free options I've needed.

Investment offerings

Vanguard offers a wide range of investment products and account types, and you can buy Vanguard ETFs with a minimum investment of $1 in your brokerage account. Vanguard is owned by its investors, so it keeps its costs low -- the average Vanguard ETF and mutual fund expense ratio is 82% less than the industry average.

Investments

Bonds
CDs
ETFs
Money market
Mutual funds
Stocks

Brokerage accounts

Cash Plus
Individual brokerage
Individual 401(k)
IRA
Joint brokerage
Organization accounts
Roth IRA
SEP IRA
SIMPLE IRA
Trust accounts
UGMA/UTMA
529 savings

TIP

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Commissions and fees

Vanguard, like most major online brokers, offers commission-free online stock trades. Although Vanguard's per-contract options commissions are not free, they're close: only $1. Vanguard charges $0 commissions for Vanguard ETFs and mutual funds, but it does charge commissions for some ETF and mutual fund trades from other companies. Both the options and mutual funds commissions can be waived for accounts with more than $1 million invested in Vanguard funds.

Investment Product	Cost
Stocks	$0 online, $25 for broker-assisted trades by phone if you have less than $1 million invested with Vanguard
ETFs	$0 for Vanguard ETFs, $25 for broker-assisted trades by phone for ETFs from other companies (if you have less than $1 million invested with Vanguard)
Mutual funds	$0 online for Vanguard mutual funds and no-transaction fee (NTF) mutual funds from other companies; up to $20 for others. Extra fee of up to $25 for broker-assisted trades by phone for mutual funds from other companies (if you have less than $1 million invested with Vanguard)
Options	$0 plus $1 per contract (less than $1 million invested with Vanguard)

Data source: Vanguard.

Margin rates

Vanguard offers margin loans that let investors borrow against the stocks, bonds, ETFs or other eligible securities that they hold in a brokerage account. Borrowing on margin can be risky, but it gives you a flexible line of credit.

Margin Balance	Effective Rate
Up to $19,999	13.00%
$20,000-$49,999	12.50%
$50,000–$99,999	12.00%
$100,000–$249,999	11.50%
$250,000–$499,999	11.00%
$500,000 and above	Contact Vanguard for rates.

Data source: Vanguard. Rates as of Nov. 11, 2024.

Research and education

Vanguard publishes extensive original research on the economy, markets, retirement savings, and investing. You can get free insights from Vanguard's experts on topics such as stock market trends, the U.S. and international economies, and deciding whether to invest in different asset categories.

Recent Vanguard research focuses on understanding the municipal bond market, deciding how much cash to have in your portfolio, and Vanguard's fundamental principles of investing success. In addition to its academic-style research, Vanguard offers extensive financial education content to help everyday investors.

Some of its recent educational content on investing strategies includes topics such as:

How to build resilient portfolios through diversification
Understanding robo-advisor performance
How to choose a financial advisor
What to do with your inheritance

Interface

Vanguard lets you open an account, manage your account, invest, and conduct transactions online through its online brokerage platform. Everything you need to buy stocks and ETFs with Vanguard is available through the Vanguard website.

The Vanguard interface is designed more for passive investors and it shows. If you only want to check your investment account balance a few times per year, or perhaps buy investments once per month on payday, Vanguard's interface should give you plenty of functionality to do everything you need.

Vanguard is definitely not a day-trading platform. If you are an active investor who wants more sophisticated trading tools for frequent stock trading and advanced investment strategies, other brokerages will likely be a better fit.

App

The Vanguard mobile app is available for Android and iOS, and lets you invest on the go via mobile device. You can use Vanguard's app to buy and sell investments, deposit checks via mobile check deposit, withdraw funds, check your account balance, track your investment performance, compare investment options, and more.

Vanguard's app gets significantly better reviews on the App Store (4.7 stars) than on Google Play (3.5 stars). Android users have recently complained about login issues and navigation problems; some Vanguard customers said that the Android app worked so poorly that they had to go use the Vanguard website instead.

Customer service

Vanguard customer service seems to be going through a time of struggle. The company is not accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB); the BBB website gives Vanguard a grade of "F," with 223 customer complaints closed in the past 12 months. Trustpilot gives Vanguard a rating of 1.3 (out of 5) stars.

Customers have complained on the BBB website about serious problems with Vanguard's service -- such as:

Vanguard allegedly failing to deposit a check from a 401(k) rollover
A 76-year-old customer having their retirement account frozen because they could only remember one security question
Over $40,000 missing from a customer's account

Vanguard is a major financial institution with more than 50 million clients. Just like the biggest banks sometimes make mistakes, with any brokerage of this size there are going to be a few customers that encounter problems and have bad experiences. But even Vanguard's biggest fans on the Bogleheads.org website (named after Vanguard founder John Bogle) have recently been complaining that Vanguard's customer service has gone downhill.

Maybe you can get better customer service by signing up for Vanguard Personal Advisor®? This service gives you automated investment help (like a robo-advisor), personalized investment planning, and on-demand access to Vanguard financial advisors. But you need a minimum of $50,000 of assets to qualify.

Vanguard Personal investors (which includes brokerage account customers) can contact Vanguard Client Services in the following ways:

Call (877) 662-7447 during Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Eastern Time
Send Vanguard a message through your account in the Personal investors site

Security

Vanguard uses a variety of advanced, industry-standard security techniques to help protect your account. These include:

Account activity alerts
Biometric authentication
Encryption
Masking digits to protect bank account information
Mobile app verification
Two-factor authentication: security codes sent to your phone, or security keys
Security questions for authenticating users
SSL validation
Username and password protection (disabling your password after a number of unsuccessful login attempts)

About

Vanguard was founded in 1975 and has become one of the largest and most influential investment management companies in the world. Vanguard's approach to investing is focused on keeping fees low and encouraging low-cost, long-term, uncomplicated, passive investing.

This brokerage is popular with everyday investors who aren't trying to beat the market, but who want to buy and hold diversified portfolios of stocks and bonds -- without paying unnecessary fees and commissions. As of September 2024, Vanguard had more than $10.1 trillion of assets under management (AUM).

Learn more about Vanguard

Keep reading about Vanguard on these pages:

Review sources

Our brokerage rating methodology

At Motley Fool Money, brokerages are rated on a scale of one to five stars. We primarily focus on fees, available assets, and account types; however, we also take into account features like research, education, tax-loss harvesting, and highly rated mobile apps. Our highest-rated brokerages generally include low fees, a diverse range of assets and account types, and useful platform features.

See our full methodology here: Ratings Methodology

FAQs

There is no specific account minimum to open a brokerage account with Vanguard. However, since Vanguard doesn't allow fractional share investing except with its own ETFs, you'll need at least enough money to purchase one share of a stock or a fractional share of an ETF, or the minimum investment amount for a mutual fund you want to invest in.
There are a few things Vanguard doesn't offer for investors. Fractional share investing of stocks is a big example -- if a stock is trading for $500 per share, you'd need $500 to invest in it. Many competitors would allow you to directly buy a piece of a share. Plus, as a platform focused on long-term, buy-and-hold investing strategies, Vanguard's trading platform isn't as feature-packed as many other traditional brokerages.

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