Zecco Review
21:39 America/Los_Angeles 08 Jan 2009 
6 Comments
Zecco.com is an American online investor portal. Zecco stands for “Zero Commission Cost”. Zecco’s stated philosophy was to eliminate commission fees. Zecco was among the first online investing websites that allowed for any trades without a commission. Currently, Zecco Trading allows for ten free trades a month. However, Zecco requires a minimum balance of $25,000 OR execute 25 trades a month to be able to receive the 10 free trades. If either of these is not met, or the 10 trades are exceeded, the price is $4.50.
Zecco is a relatively new kid on the block and initially started out with a very aggressive campaign in late 2007. In that campaign they offered 40 free trades a month, which was amazing. As time has passed they have narrowed the free trades, but have added more functionality and tools to the site.
Below are some snapshots from an account and followed with some commentary:
- First is a snapshot of what you see when you first login to your account
- Second is a snapshot of the “Positions” page
- Third is a snapshot of a page on their website explaining how they are able to offer free trades
- Here is one of the “Zecco Sirens” instructional videos… Technical Analysis never looked so good!
Pros:
- The user interface is the easiest to use out of all those reviewed. Interface is very clean and concise, without a maze of extra tabs and links that you find with other online brokers
- Free trades! with conditions mentioned above.
- Very cheap trades after freebies are gone … $4.50 (same with options!)
- Money transfer process is very easy to use
- Trade Execution is on point never had any problems: Zecco Trade Execution Info
Cons:
- Although I never have had any problems with customer service I have heard horror stories.
- Bare bones on Tools. In order to get things such as streaming quotes you have to pay a monthly charge for that premium item.
- Changing pricing structure. Although they have had this latest pricing structure for almost a year now, it was pretty depressing when they changed the free trades policy to what it is now. Bait and Switch anyone?
Overall Zecco is a great online broker if you are a person looking to just make trades. It also helps if you are a low maintenance kind of person and don’t need to deal with the customer service. With the free trades and low price point thereafter Zecco is definitely very tough to beat for a reputable online broker. As a suggestion a strategy a lot of us here use is having multiple accounts where you get all the great tools from say a TD Ameritrade and use Zecco to make all the trades on the cheap.
If you do end up planning on opening a Zecco account please do us a favor and use our link on the right sidebar (its the pink Zecco box) so that we can get a kickback of some sort to keep the wheels turning over here at NHF. Greatly appreciated!
Also be sure to check out our Online Broker Promotions to be sure that you have any promo codes that are currently available.
Leave your rating and any comments below on any experiences that you have had or other information that others may find valuable.
[ratings]
Zecco is a great online broker for the low prices. Very clean user interface as well. You do have to pay extra for tools such as streaming quotes though, which is a bummer but you can get streaming quotes from other places to avoid the cost.
Worst site in the business. The interface is great, but takes a while to load and is not guaranteed to work if there are too many users online. Great potential, but wait until the servers mature.
Definitely was the cheapest when they had 40 free trades per month for free. Now its 10 free only if you have 25k or trade 25 or more times a month. Even with those changes $4.50 a trade is definitely still saving me money from trading with someone else.
Bummer that streaming quotes costs extra per month.
TERRIBLE customer service. The main objective appears to be to find a reason why they can't answer your question.
Im not sure why someone would really uses their online brokers customer service all that much…. I mean its an online broker! What do you expect.
Zecco is a steal for trades even with all the changes they have made to their pricing structure.
If your a low maintenance customer looking to save as much money as you can … zecco is the place.