Scalable Capital VS Trade Republic, which is the best investing app in Germany? In this guide I compare both of these trading app’s functions, costs and services. By the End of the guide you would be able to figure out which broker is best, Trade Republic or Scalable Capital!
Scalable Capital vs Trade Republic
Scalable Capital VS Trade Republic : Quick Comparison
| Scalable capital | Trade Republic | |
| Annual costs: | €0.00 euros (Paid Plans also available) | €0.00 |
| Cost per order: | Maximum €3.99(depending on broker, order volume and trading venue) | €1.00 |
| Number of ETFs: | 2400+ | 2400+ |
| Number of stocks: | 7000+ | 9000+ |
| Number of savings plans: | 2000+ | 4900 |
| Minimum rate per month: | €1.00 | €1.00 |
| Costs for savings plans: | €0.00 | €0.00 |
| Bank: | Baader Bank AG | Trade Republic Bank GmbH |
| Trading venues: | Gettex, Xetra | LS Exchange |
| Trading hours: | 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. (depending on trading venue) | 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m |
Scalable Capital or Trade Republic which app is available for you
Both Trade Republic and Scalable Capital are German based but also offer their services in other EU countries as well.
Both of these broker apps are available in
- Germany
- France
- Spain
- Austria
- Italy
- The Netherlands.
Trade Republic is also available in these countries:
- Belgium
- Estonia
- Finland
- Greece
- Ireland
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Portugal
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
Membership models at Scalable Capital and Trade Republic
Scalable Capital and Trade Republic both offer free accounts without any management and account opening fee. However Scalable Capital offers 2 additional paid options.
The Prime Broker at 2.99€/month and the Prime Plus Broker at 4.99€/month. The paid options with Scalable Capital give more options to Investors who wish to have more flexibility compared to Trade Republic.
The Fee Structure of Trade Republic is quite straightforward, each trade costs 1€ fee. No matter what the size of the trade is and whether it’s a buy order or a sell order.
With Scalable Capital the Fee Structure is based on your activity as you will find out by the end of the guide.
Scalable Capital VS Trade Republic : Which exchanges are used
With Trade Republic investors only have the option to buy Stocks and ETFs using the Land und Schwarz exchange, while Scalable Capital allows you to buy using Gettex and Xetra Stock Exchanges.
Gettex, Xetra and Lang und Schwarz exchanges are popular digital Stock Exchanges. Physical Exchanges are available in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Munich and Hamburg-Hannover.
Xetra is the largest exchange in Germany with 90% of all German stock trading carried on it. It is open for trading every trading day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m .
Lang und Schwarz exchange is smaller than Xetra but has the longest trading hours of 7:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. every trading day. This makes it possible to react to movements on the US market more compared to other exchanges.
Similar to LS Exchange, Gettex is also smaller than Xetra but has longer trading hours. Xetra runs from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on every trading day and until 8:00 p.m. for bonds.
As Trade Republic uses LS Exchange, this gives it an advantage of 90minutes of extra trading hours compared to Scalable Capital . On the other hand Scalable Capitals offer 2 exchanges, you get more options to where you can buy Stocks from.
Selection of stocks and ETFs in Scalable Capital and Trade Republic
Scalable Capital and Trade Republic offer a wide range of Stocks and ETFs. Trade Republic offers 9000 Stocks and more than 2400 ETFs where you can invest in.
Each trade you do will cost a flat 1€ fee. The order size does not matter, and the best thing with Trade Republic is that you can buy Fractional Share starting from just 1€.
Scalable Capital offers more than 2400 ETFs and over 7500 Stocks to invest in. The trading fees for Scalable Capital vary depending on the plan you are on. With the Free Broker you don’t pay any monthly fee. With trades starting from 0€ the fee is 99cents if you use the Gettex exchange.
Using the Prime Brokers you pay a monthly fee. On trades upto 249€ there is a 99 cents fee if you use the Gettex exchange but there is no fee if your order is over 250€ using Gettex exchange. Orders using the Xetra exchange cost 3.99€ per trade plus a trading venue fee of 0.001% with all three account options of Scalable Capital.
Meaning that Trading on Xetra is Quite expensive compared to Gettex. Scalable Capital also has the option to go into Margin while this is not available in Trade Republic.
Savings Plans options in Scalable Capital and Trade Republic
A Savings Plan might be a new concept for many people as it was for me. Essentially, A savings plan makes it possible to invest a set amount in a stock or ETF at regular intervals. The intervals vary depending on the provider, usually monthly, quarterly or annually.
With the savings plan you are able to always invest a fixed amount automatically. For example, with a savings rate of 100€, shares or ETFs worth 100€ are purchased. In this way, fractional shares can also be purchased. Both Scalable Capital and Trade Republic offer Free Savings plans.
With Trade Republic you can set up a free savings plan using all of the 2400 ETFs available on Trade Republic. And you can choose from over 2600 Stocks to set up a free savings plan. You can choose between 1€ upto 10 thousand € for the savings plan which you can run weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and Quarterly. And you can also choose the date of execution for the savings plan from the 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd of the month.
Scalable Capital Also has Free Savings plans but offers a bit less than Trade Republic. They have almost 2400 ETFs which is similar to Trade Republic but have 1000 stocks available for Savings Plans. This might be less than Trade Republic but almost all Popular stocks there to set up a Savings plan with Scalable Capital.
The Savings rate can be between 1€ and 5000€ with an Interval of Monthly, Bimonthly, Quarterly, Every 6 months and Yearly. And you can also choose from 9 individual execution dates to select from.
Scalable Capital VS Trade Republic: Cryptocurrency options
Scalable Capital and Trade Republic both have the option to buy Cryptocurrency in the Trading Platform. But When it comes to Crypto, both of these platforms aren’t traditional crypto exchanges. Meaning that You cannot use the crypto bought with them as currency. As you cannot move the crypto outside the brokers to an external wallet, another exchange or use the crypto to buy anything.
Cryptocurrency options with Scalable Capital
Scalable Capital offers Crypto trading based on exchange-traded crypto products (ETPs). Crypto Exchange-Traded Products, or “Crypto ETPs” for short, track the performance of an underlying cryptocurrency. For example, when an ETP has no issuer costs, it could allow you to profit from the crypto performance. Like a Bitcoin ETP, offers the opportunity to participate in the performance of Bitcoin but you have to pay the ETP issuer fee.
With Scalable Crypto you trade cryptocurrencies similar to stocks or ETFs on regulated trading venues in Germany. At the moment there are 13 Crypto ETPs available on Scalable Capital all of which are physically Collateralized while some of them are also Staked.
When you invest in physically collateralized Crypto ETPs, the company that issued them stores an amount of cryptocurrency equal to your investment with a trusted bank or institution. And As Scalable Capital is offering crypto as ETPs , the best thing here is that taxes are automatically deducted when crypto ETPs are sold so you do not need to do anything at all when it comes to cryptocurrency taxes!
Cryptocurrency options with Trade Republic
Trade Republic on the other hand doesn’t offer ETPs. You have an option to choose from 54 Coins and Tokens. If you buy cryptocurrency using Trade Republic you do not have access to the private keys.
All the crypto you buy is actually held by a third party custodian which is BitGo Deutschland GmbH at the moment for Trade Republic. Here again you cannot move your crypto or use it as a payment but unlike Scalable Capital you do not have to trade crypto within market trading hours. So you can Buy or sell whenever you want.
Trade Republic also does not handle crypto taxes at the moment. So you will have to do your taxes on your own if you trade Crypto with Trade Republic. Maybe in the future Trade Republic could introduce ETPs as well or even start doing taxes for their customers who trade crypto .
What Derivatives are available with these investing apps?
Derivatives are financial contracts or instruments whose value is derived from an underlying asset. These underlying assets can include stocks, bonds, commodities, currencies, interest rates, and more.
Derivatives are essentially bets or agreements between two parties about the future value of the underlying asset. They allow investors to bet on the future price movements of assets without owning the assets themselves. However, they can be complex and risky, and if not used carefully, they can lead to significant financial losses.
Both Scalable Capital and Trade Republic offer more than 350 thousand Derivatives. But as I mentioned earlier these are complex and risky, so please stay away from those if you do not know how they work.
Savings Account with interest
In 2022, interest rates started going up. It is the first time that this has happened in a while. And as a result Banks and financial companies are starting to give us something in return for keeping our money with them. Brokers have noticed this too. They’re offering interest on money you haven’t invested.
The deals are changing all the time, so it’s a good idea to read my article for the newest information. But at the moment Scalable Capital is offering a solid 2.6% interest per year on your cash deposits upto 100 thousand euro. But they are offering it to only users who are on the Prime plus broker, anyone on the Free Account or the Prime Broker are not given any interest at the moment.
Trade Republic on the other hand is giving 4% interest per year on non invested cash, kept with them. However the upper limit is 50 thousand euro. Every euro above this no longer accrues interest.
Support for Customers
When comparing Scalable Capital and Trade Republic, it’s important to consider the quality of customer support on both platforms. Online brokers often struggle to provide good customer service. Whether you’re using the broker’s savings plan or actively trading individual stocks, there may be times when you need assistance.
When that happens, you want to be able to speak with someone right away. Recently, many users have been unhappy with Trade Republic’s new app. But they have worked to bring back some of the features that they had removed. Their phone hotline is now indefinitely unavailable, and some users receive generic email responses that do not solve their problems. This can be frustrating, especially when it involves your money, which the trading app manages.
You can only contact Trade Republic using their Email address and online contact Form In contrast, Scalable Capital offers somewhat better customer support than Trade Republic. They have an online chat function where you can get answers quite rapidly. They also have a phone number but it can be unavailable at times as well.
Scalable Capital vs Trade Republic – Which is better?
Scalable Capital and Trade Republic are both Great Trading Platforms and for most people it won’t make a huge difference if you go with either of them. But Problems might arise based on your Nationality. Just like any financial Platform, you need to verify your identity when opening an account with both of these platforms.
In this case I have found that Scalable Capital accepts more nationalities compared to Scalable Capital. On the other hand Trade Republic offers an easy fee structure which might be the deciding factor for some. For Me , both of these platforms are great and I use both of them.
*Affiliate link, I may earn a commission if you use the link and make an account at no additional cost to you
Disclaimer: None of the content in this article is meant to be considered as investment advice, as I am not a financial expert and am only sharing my experience with stock investing. The information is based on my own research and is only accurate at the time of posting this article but may not be accurate at the time you are reading it.