Costs Associated with Stocks

So the only real cost associated with stocks is trading expenses. The more services offered by the brokerage handling your stock trades, the higher the cost of each trade. Hence, the more responsibility you take on yourself, the more money you’ll save.

A full service broker will charge you the most, anywhere from $100 to $200 a trade, or even a percentage of the amount being invested. Discount brokers have created a secondary market through competition, where per trade fees range from $5 to $15 and that price continues to drop. 

Both full-service and discounted brokers may offer bigger discounts to large volume, active traders and to clients who maintain a specified minimum in their accounts.

The cheapest route is to use an online account and make trades where you can buy stocks for as little as $5 per trade.