Are you going to start investing and trading? If yes then welcome to a new world where you can make fortune by developing trading skills or simply create wealth with disciplined periodic investments. In this post, I will be listing best trading platforms in India recommended for beginners to advanced traders.
It is very important to choose a stock broker wisely because trading is subject to various charges including brokerage. Therefore, it’s always recommended for newbie traders to open their demat account with a discount broker instead of full service brokers because their brokerage and account maintenance charges are very reasonable as compared to full service brokers.
One thing that must be noted that despite listed top trading platforms in India are from discount brokers, their services and trading platform are as advanced as most of the full service brokers.
In fact many advanced traders including institutional prefer discount brokers because of the reasonable charges. After all trading is all about saving and growing money.
Generally, retail traders struggle to cope with brokerage and similar charges due to low volume trades. Therefore, it becomes crucially important for them to find a stock broker who can provide them an affordable and advanced trading platform.
By the way, those of you who do not know, there are two types of stock brokers in India: Full Service Brokers and Discount Brokers. Discount brokers provide an affordable trading platform to everyone especially to retail traders.
And on the other hand, full service brokers provide a complete, advanced and full of tools platform to traders; but they charge accordingly.
Mentioned top stock brokers in India are trusted by millions and their trading platform, indicators and tools indeed help traders execute profitable trades. I am recommending you these stock brokers on the basis of user rating, customer service, trading platform, reasonable brokerage and annual maintenance charges.
Also, I personally use these platforms for trading therefore I confidently recommend these platforms.
There are many best trading platforms in India and many provide comparatively inexpensive trading solutions. But here new traders and investors need to know that they need not to only focus on how much a discount broker charges but also how good their trading platform is.
In my initial days of trading I too struggled to find a best trading platform in India. And I was skeptical whether to choose full service broker or discount’s platform. Of course the word ‘FULL’ is fascinating and insists us to go with full service broker but the charges, considering new retail traders including me who come with very low capital and high expectations, are the barrier.
So I went with discount broker option and later on (now too) I realized that I misjudged discount brokers, they are as good as full service brokers.
Of course if you can afford there is no substitute of full service brokers in India but if you’re a retail trader like me then you really need to take care of brokerage charges.
To save your precious time, I have compiled this list of top trading platforms in India. You can rest assured, none of the mentioned stock brokers in India will let you down. You will get everything, actually more than that, you need to start trading.
What should we check before opening demat account?
- Advanced trading tools and indicators.
- Low brokerage charges.
- Satisfactory customer support to resolve issues.
- A range of trading options including equity, commodity and currency.
- Complete online trading platform.
- Online account opening.
Here is a list of top stock brokers in India
- Angel Broking: Especially recommended for trading from mobile.
- Zerodha
- Upstox
Angel Broking
Angel Broking is one of the early birds who started providing an affordable but advanced trading platform in India to retail investors. With more than 2.15 million clients, Angel Broking becomes one of the top stock brokers in the country.
I am a big fan of Angel Broking app, very easy to use bundled with lots of handy features. Whenever I am out or have not access to my laptop I prefer trading using their app. Their app based trading platform is indeed advanced and equipped with all advanced trading tools and indicators.
Angel Broking is strongly recommended for trading from mobile.
What I observed is their web based trading platform is not as good as app and they really need to work on this to compete with other discount brokers in India.
I think they are working on this very aggressively because I noticed many improvements in their website section (for example Profit and loss update in real-time time) and Angel Broking app too.
I don’t know why but I like trading on their platform; perhaps due to the fact that it is the first trading platform I used.
The Angel Broking ARQ is a leading investment suggestions based service with real-time data. Through ARQ, clients get buy and sell alerts pertaining to potential stocks. Its accuracy is around 60-70% (Out 10 trades 6-7 will be winning and 3 will be losing) which is considered very impressive in trading community.
They also have comparatively a large number of physical branches across the country. Click to watch Angel Broking demat account opening process.
Open Free Angel Broking Account Now
Pros
- Easy to use mobile trading platform with many advanced tools and indicators.
- Flat ₹20 brokerage for buy as well as sell orders.
- Angel Broking annual maintenance charges are ₹450 excluding taxes.
- No brokerage for delivery orders. (Means if you buy and hold a stock for long term then you pay zero brokerage to buy and sell it.)
- Direct mutual fund investment options along with SIP feature.
- Free webinars for teaching investment.
- Angel Broking ROBO order facility lets you place buy, sell and stop loss orders at once. This is a very handy feature for those who do job.
Cons
- Web based trading platform needs some enhanced.
- Sometimes customer service agents even assigned relationship manager are not available in busy hours to resolve queries.
Zerodha
Without any second thought it is one of the best trading platforms in India. Zerodha due to its up-to-the-date services and trading platform has become India’s top share market broker in discount category. Majority of retail investors prefer Zerodha as their default trading platform, institutional as well.
Read this post to know step-by-step Zerodha account opening process.
The trading platform is equipped with advanced charting services. It has two options for studying charts: TradingView and ChartIQ. Both charting platforms are very advanced and Tradingview is my favorite one.
After launching the platform in 2010, its founder Nithin Kamath took this platform to next level and provided a cost-effective trading platform to Indian trading community. It’s also one of the successful startups in India.
Zerodha has more than 3 million clients and most of them are from retail category. It alone contributes 15% retail trades by volume in India.
With Zerodha demat account, you get access to many Tradingview paid tools such as multi-time frame window on same screen. For trading in options, you can take help of Sensibull which is integrated with Zerodha account.
You get free access to many nice Sensibull features such as price alerts on WhatsApp. And of course, to get access to all paid services you can choose Sensibull paid plan.
Zerodha Kite mobile app is also nicely designed and gives you access to all trading tools available on the website.
Zerodha GTT (Good Till Trigger) order facility is worth mentioning. It gives you kind of a Algo Trading experience. You set your buy, sell and stop loss prices and all set. You don’t need to sit front of your system all the day. Everything will be happened automatically.
Zerodha GTT order is a paid service, but with new Zerodha account you get complementary access to GTT orders service for first 3 months. It’s recommended to avail this service to enhance your trading experience.
Pros
- Zerodha has a large client base over 3 million in the country which makes it one of the best stock brokers in India.
- Its advanced charting services Tradingview and ChartIQ are indeed helpful and technologically very advanced.
- You get free access to GTT orders facility for first 3 months.
- Zerodha’s AMC charges are also very reasonable.
- Like other share brokers in India, it charges flat ₹20 for buy and sell orders and delivery orders are immune from brokerage.
- Zerodha AMC charges are ₹300 for equity and commodity section.
- One online platform to invest in stocks, derivatives, mutual funds,IPO and more.
Cons
- Sometimes Zerodha customer care agents become unresponsive to queries; usually during rush hours. Though in today’s electronic trading environment you hardly need to talk to service agents but when needed they should be there to resolve clients’ issues.
- Sometimes very occasionally charts miss very recent highs or lows.
Upstox
RKSV, founded in 2009, launched their trading platform in India with a vision to provide easy and cost effective trading platform. Upstox is growing at a much rapid pace and acquiring thousands of clients everyday due to its advanced trading platform, a range of indicators and drawing tools. It also offers its own charting service and Tradingview as well.
In the year of 2020, Indian stock market witnessed a massive downpour of traders. Old statistics show that only 1-2 percent Indians actively invest in stock market but, in my opinion, this percentage is going to skyrocket in upcoming days.
This is the reason that many new stock brokers in India are emerging. Upstox backed by Mr. Ratan Tata has been emerged like a pro.
Upstox offers 3-in-1 trading account at very reasonable charges. And just like other best stock brokers in India, Upstox charges a flat brokerage ₹20 for per executed order.
Their app, Upstox Pro, is very simple and easy to use.
Pros
- Web based platform is impressively advanced and has all the leading indicators you can think of.
- Upstox Pro mobile trading platform is very simple and easy to use and for new traders it is very handy.
- Flat ₹20 brokerage for futures, options and day trading. As expected they don’t charge for delivery trades.
Cons
- Their mobile app requires some improvements.
- Account maintenance charges are applicable on monthly basis which is quite confusing for clients. Majority of India traders prefer to pay yearly charges than monthly because it’s unreasonable to pay it on monthly basis.
- In heavy trade hours, customer care support will take time to respond due to limited staff.
Above were the best trading platforms in India I recommend. I have been actively trading using these platforms and use them equally. It’s always recommended to have more than one Demat accounts because if a broker faces technical issues and goes offline for sometime then your day will not get spoiled.
It’s obvious that these are digital platforms backed by electronic devices and subject to technical issues; which arise many a times, therefore a trader should have accounts with more than one brokers so if one goes offline other is available to continue trading.