eOption
is a discount online brokerage firm with some of the lowest commissions in the industry. Stock and ETF trades are just $3 per trade. Unfortunately, extended hours trades are extremely expensive, and start at a hefty $25, which is a deal-breaker for many traders.
As the name suggests, eOption's primary focus is on options traders. Options commissions are some of the best ($3 ticket charge plus $0.15 per contract) and simple options trading is implemented well. But there are some issues that need to be worked out with complex options trading. The option exercise and assignment fee is not cheap at $9.00.
New account setup takes a while and often involves calling customer service. If you want to deposit money through ACH, you will have to mail the Authorization form and wait for around 10 business days for the activation of ACH. Prospective clients will need a lot of patience before they can start trading with eOption.
The firm offers live streaming quotes for free only to customers making 100+ trades per month. They charge $35 per month for live streaming quotes for customers making 0-50 trades per month, and $15 per month for customers making 51-99 trades per month.
Their web-based trading, which is very basic, is also free. Third-party trading platforms come with an additional fee. There is a $50 annual inactivity fee for accounts with less than two trades in the past 12 months or less than $10,000 in credit or debit balances.
eOption has been given the third lowest ranking in Barron's magazine annual broker surveys in 2013-2015. It got horrible results in all categories except Costs and Ranges of Offerings.
Low commissions come at a cost: eOption's functionality is crude and basic, and desperately needs to be upgraded. Their customer service is spotty at best. We recommend eOption only for very self-reliant and adventurous options traders. For everybody else, especially Beginners and Active Traders there are better and safer online brokerage companies.
eOption Pros
eOption Cons
| Status | |
| Foundation Year | 2007 |
| License | |
| Trading Platforms | eOption Trader, eOption Mobile |
| Reliability Rate | BB |
| Authorised Capital | |
| Brocker Fee | 3 |
| Exchange Fee | |
| Withdrawal Fee | |
| Minimum Deposit | 0 |
| Mobile Trading | |
| Daily Analytics | |
| Seminars, Education |
| Phone: | 1-888-793-5333 |
| Address: | eOption 950 Milwaukee Ave., Ste. 102 Glenview, IL 60025 |
| Website: | http://www.eoption.com |
I was set up on Auto Trade through a stock advisory options membership group. The first month was okay but then the group who was doing the trades were providing members feedback on a few successful trades and I realized my account balance didn't change. I found out EOption cancelled my auto trade option without notifying me. Per SEC regulation brokerage firms must provide you adequate notice to increase funds or remedy any situation in your account to meet guidelines etc. I never received any notification. And get this the advisory group who were doing the trades for me were not doing risky naked option trading so I required very little funding. When I talked to them they told me "we don't have to do that because we are a small company." It got worse from there. They froze my account for no reason so I couldn't even do any manual trades and they charged me $50 for inactivity! Moreover, the trading platform is so old and antiquated. I lost over $2k bucks due to their botch up. Just remember the old saying, you get what you pay for.
  Alan   2016/10/11 11:43    
Sent them completed application and 50k check twice and was sent back application and check twice by regular mail. Would' not speak to me on the phone, Since my application showed 50 years of brokerage experience and 7 figure liquid assets, my only conclusion is that they were Afraid I would learn too much and go to regulators.BEWARE ! ! !
  Bob   2016/10/11 11:43    
I am really wondering if all these negatives are "planted". I have been using them for some time. My orders get filled at the limit I set. There are no surprise fees. Notice - All these grips are about customer service. Sure, if you are a complete idiot and need someone to hold your hand as you trade - then sure - this might not be for you. But if you know what you are doing and can speak ENGLISH - then I recommend Eoption for sure.
  Doug   2016/10/11 11:43    
Of course, NO GOOD!!!. Cheap site so slower than other site. Also support services are very sucks!!!. NO ANSWER OTHERWISE LATE RESPONSE. In additional, account is suddenly blocked and can not trade without any problem. I do not recommand Eoption!!!
  Don   2016/10/11 11:43    
this place is bad bad its not even a company
  eldorado   2016/10/11 11:43    
Remember Yugo car? You can look it up if you don't, and please trust me on this: A brand new Mercedes 600S to Yugo would be any broker out there to Eoption. Try them, tell me if I am wrong please. It is exactly what all the single stars tell you here. There should be no star or negative 6 star to properly convey the outrageous place eoption is. What experience!
  Horrified   2016/10/11 11:43    
Imagine MF Global all over again. Imagine wanting to die, waiting and waiting for their new ATARI platform to respond, or their phone answering, or your email getting a response, just so that you can die. But no, you will have to stay alive and wish it again the next day and the day after, and ... This place is designed not for trading but to get you ready for insane asylum, unf...g believable experience!!! Just go back home to your family and try to die from natural causes my friend, this will be too painful a manner., cruel and unusual indeed!
  Horrified   2016/10/11 13:02    
You will become speechless, angry, sad, hopeless, ...wishing you had never wanted to save money in the first place.
  Mike   2016/10/11 13:02    
These people have no shame and will just steal your money and not care about it. I don't care how much you think you will save and what your reasons are, IF YOU WANT MORE MONEY INSTEAD OF LESS MONEY, DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THESE PEOPLE!
  Andrew_Scott   2016/10/11 13:02    
I traded options for 5 weeks with great execution. The 6th week in all my orders went straight to pending with a 10 sec or so delay before it was a working order. When I called in for an explanation of why the change since my trading remained the same I was told its proprietary information and it could not be explained to me why the change. Not acceptable, very unprofessional.
  Derrick   2016/10/11 13:02    
Bunch of clueless morons decided to make a brokerage house. It has to be cheap because you find out RIGHT AWAY, NOBODY HAS ANY IDEA ABOUT ANYTHING GOING ON. They will cost and burn your money and be very rude and apathetic about it. STAY AWAY AT ALL COSTS!!!!!
  Raphael   2016/10/11 13:02    
They try to trap their investors with a seemingly unlimited number of fees that it are impossible to keep track of basically trap investors
  TradeKing   2016/10/11 13:02    
Not recommended for Auto Trade. They may have cheaper commissions but often you get a partial fill or sometimes no fill at all, when other Auto Trade Brokers not only get filled but also get filled at a better price. I plan on changing brokers.
  GilbertLong   2016/10/11 13:02    
Emailed customer service to inquire about transferring my stock; what is the process? what are the fees? etc...and I receive a reply a week later with a basic, "no, we dont do that." huh? what, do you mean "you dont do that?" it says it on you site. So I called and the rep who pick up sounded like I just woke him up from a nap and had no clue what I was talking because he kept putting me on hold after I asked the simplest questions! No thanks! The cheap fees are a plus but not the hassle of dealing with incompetence. I told him I changed my mind and he said, "okay" and hung up. He couldn't have cared less.
  Jen   2016/10/11 13:02    
WORST customer service EVER! I faxed what the company told me to correct my account, only to receive an email saying its still not all there see the attachment. There was no attachment so I call "customer service" and they can't even figure out what I'm talking about. After saying the same story 5 times I ask for a supervisor or someone who actually knows how to work and listen to what I'm saying. Still no solution soooo frustrating!!
  frustrated   2016/10/11 13:02    
Funky, finicky, slow, computer system, my opinion is that their system is slow to move up and fast to move down (option chain) other sites seem to report changes is prices much faster therefore sell orders never quite “take” – if your stock us up $2 or more on Google or Yahoo it isn’t on the eoption chain. I am currently in the process of moving my money, their system has cost more than I have made with it.
  frankenranger   2016/10/11 13:02    
Not sure what all the griping is about - I just opened an account with them as a #2 backup to my higher-commission platform and have had little issues. Went online, filled out the application, transferred $500 using ACH to test drive, and have made three trades - all of which were executed within 1 second. Is it Fido, Schwab or Scottrade? - no. Is it much cheaper? Yes. Is it worth filling out the extra forms to save $5-$7/trade - you bet. This is purely for ticket writing. As account grows and needs change, may move to another platform, but right now fine. If some of the horror stories here do occur, will file a complaint with FINRA and split. Only real issue is that if you're seasoned, you're probably skipping over the "preview order" screen, which you can't get around here. Other nuance is that you keep getting "good faith violation" reminders, so you may just want to deposit $2K and go margin. I do agree that some of the fees beyond ticket writing are outrageous, so just won't use them.
  JimBvt   2016/10/11 13:02    
worse customer service ever. but they are cheap. ACH hold are up to 10 business days - even though they says otherwise. very poor response to complaints. like they are retarded or something.
  Chris   2016/10/11 13:02    
Don't bother with this company - unless you will be placing simple, large quantity orders during market hours to take advantage of their pricing. They don't have basic features like trailing stops on options, or rolling 2-leg option strategies. Not sure why their name is eOption since they can't cater to basic option trader needs. Their system is full of bugs (trades appear out of nowhere and disappear, options strategies get unlinked and then you can't close them without calling customer service, weird errors blocking you from trading, erroneous margin calls... the list goes on). I'm closing my account shortly to try a more expensive option with a better service.
  Robert   2016/10/11 13:02    
I have been with them for over a year. Customer service is very bad. I rarely ever need help but their website is simply subpar relative to its competitors. If I close the positions before the end of the year I will close the account manually; otherwise, it is ACAT to another broker. I have 15 years of online brokerage experience and a long list of brokers I am either currently with or have been in the past. If execution is good--and eOption has been good at plain vanilla-type execution--and fees are low, I trade more with that broker. However, it comes a point where there is more to a broker than low fees. In hindsight, I wouldn't have opened an account with them.
  Lee   2016/10/11 13:02    
EOption has horrible customer service. I just lost $50 for their inactivity fee, so I just closed my account. They were very rude, as usual. I am waiting to see if they deducted a $100 account closing fee from my check. I would strongly recommend NOT working with EOption.
  David   2016/10/11 13:02    
I was leary of trading with them after reading all of the negative reviews, but was pleasently surprised. I had several emails and phone calls all answered promptly and professionally and had no issue with their customer service. Their interface is outdated, but I really only use them for my larger monthly income option trades because of their reduced comissions. If u are looking for a lower cost secondary broker I would recommend them. I still love my TOS platform for options, but these guys are not as bad as some of the reviews led me to believe. I can't bring myself to move over to IB as I don't like the idea of paying for cancelling option orders so I moved my larger orders here to save on TOS comissions. Run a TOS paper money version of your account here to manage the greeks and you have the best of both worlds. ACH money into the account does take an exceedingly long time to clear, but withdrawls via ACH were no problem with the money transferred into my bank account the next day. Hope this helps.
  Mike   2016/10/11 13:02    
worst cs, impossible ACH setup...I mean its possible , but very very painful. u will lose interest in trading by the time ur money in the account...web interface is the worst, well, I can write a book about its cons. So, stay away.
  Ali   2016/10/11 13:02    
For $.25 per contract, their site says you get Direct Access via third-party trading platforms, including Sterling Trader Pro. But you must pay $250 per month for use of Sterling Trader Pro regardless of trading volume. I suppose for very active traders, eOption is THE best deal out there -- $3 ticket plus $.25 per contract is the lowest I have seen anywhere! I am considering opening an account here, so I look forward to reading posts by anyone having experience with eOption and the Sterling Trader Pro platform.
  John   2016/10/11 13:02    
i saw that there are several blatantly fake 5star reviews with random words... so i figured id bring the star average back down.
  Bob   2016/10/11 13:02    
eOption offers great rates on option trades but the website is so bad it's going to cost you money. I tried them because I do options trades with sometimes 100s of contracts. Their rates saved me up to $200 per trade vs ThinkorSwim or OptionsXpress. Among the many problems I've had with the eOption site are: - They supposedly offer a "Live Help" service. I tried it several times over a week and it would never connect. - The balance of your account is only updated over night, so if you're making intraday trading decisions, you never know exactly where you stand. - If you're doing more complex option strategies where you leg into something like Iron Condors or Butterflies, the site has no ability for you to link the trades to show how the complete strategy is working. - worst of all, since the site isn't smart enough to link legged into iron condors, the margin calculations don't calculate properly. An Iron Condor on eOption is going to cost you twice as much margin as on most other brokerage sites. I've spoken with several of their management people trying to find someone who cared about their customer experience. It was a waste of my time and I'm closing this account. I've tried several other online brokerages and all were MUCH better than eOption. Supposedly eOption is updating their website in the summer of 2010. Until that is done, I would stay away.
  DEKE   2016/12/02 10:48