Hello wannabe traders and investors, if you are just starting out in the investing or trading world or even if you are on an advanced level of your trading or investing journey. Zerodha app review will definitely help you decide some of the key things that you need to consider when switching platforms or the basic charges that you need to keep in mind.
If you have just started out or you are in the market for some time working with the traditional brokers then there is a fair chance that you may have already heard of Zerodha which has changed the scenario of trading and investing and introduced it to the young crowd of our nation.
Before jumping right into the pros and cons of the platform let us get a basic history check of Zerodha and how it came into existence and what was the reason.
Zerodha was founded by Nithin Kamat in the year 2010 with a single motive of breaking the barriers which is also the translation behind the term and name “Zerodha” in Sanskrit. It was the idea and urge to make trading and investing easier for the whole nation which fueled the drive of Nithin to create a platform that does not act as a barrier for anyone like he himself faced in his trading career till now.
Zerodha is the number one broker for stock market trading and investing and I am not the only one saying this but, the data shows that Zerodha acted as a revolution with its platform for the people who were interested in trading but were bounded by difficulties like high brokerage charges, lack of proper trading terminal and also sometimes the lack of support from the brokerage house itself.
According to the statistics, Zerodhas client to complain ratio is the lowest if compared to other brokerage houses be it online or Traditional brokers.
They have the best in category pricing model which we will discuss in detail later in the review.
They built a platform from scratch for both the web based traders and for the mobile based traders.
According to the data, more than 5 million clients do their trading with Zerodha on day to day basis placing billions of orders without any issues. The founder and CEO of Zerodha Mr Nithin Kamat was also featured in an article by Economic times “Top 10 businessman to look out for” in 2016, since then Zerodhas team and customer base never looked back.
Zerodha offers to trade and investing in all of the segments with a single account, the account opening charges are 200rs and 300rs for the annual maintenance of the Demat account.
The account opening process is totally online without any human intervention and physical documentation, all you will need is the scanned copies of the required documents. KYC is not to mention mandatory.
Zerodha offers a TOTP account security service to avoid frauds and hacks which is mandatory to do intraday trades in illiquid stocks.
They offer an easy to use the web and mobile trading terminal “KITE” which makes the process of trading a lot easier, they used to provide a desktop terminal Zerodha Pi which was later discontinued.
They have their own forum to ask general questions apart from the support desk which carries out ticket based investigation of queries by the customers. The forum is called “Trading QnA by Zerodha” and anyone literally anyone can ask trading related questions on that forum, regardless one trades with Zerodha or not.
People are really helpful and there are also expert members from the Zerodha team itself monitoring the forum to answer everyone’s queries. It is more or less like a serious trading related social media site or forum whatever you want to call it.
Zerodha Varsity is an all in one educational platform for newbie traders and investors and contains each and everything that you will need to advance in your trading career. The educational content created by experts is top notch with youtube videos to make you aware of the features and how to execute certain trades. There are Ebooks available for all kinds of traders and investors starting from equity investing, fundamental analysis and AtoZ of futures and Options to educate users and that is also free for everyone and also you do not need an account for that.
Zerodha COIN is a specially made platform for mutual fund investors.
They have their own tie ups and collaborations with some of the best companies which help in various ways:
They offer No coding Algo trading with Zerodha Streak which is a platform where you can come up with your own strategies and do algo trading, backtesting etcetera without the knowledge of coding which is definitely a feature that nobody provides. Although, this is a chargeable feature and comes with a 7 days free trial.
Zerodha also has a collaboration with Sensibull, it is an easy options trading platform that works seamlessly with Zerodha and one can directly execute orders from the sensibull platform itself, although some of the features are free like the strategy builder, option chain analysis but multistrike options, easy options and other features can only be accessed with a sensibull subscription.
Zerodha also offers Sentinel for free, which is an alert system developed for traders which can alert traders about certain price action which is happening with the stocks on their watchlist.
They also provide fundamentals and news of the stocks in the app and the web platform itself like the latest happenings with the company, results and dividend payouts.
Zerodha has an exclusive Good till triggered (GTT) order type which can be used to place long term orders and is valid for one year. For example- if you want to buy a certain stock at a certain price and you do not care about the timing then just place a GTT order and forget, obviously the funds should be available in your account and once the stock reaches the target price in the next one year, the order will be executed.
These were some of the highlights of using the Zerodha platform.
Let us get to the advantages and disadvantages of Zerodha quick and then we can discuss the pricing model in detail.
Also Read : Groww App Review
Advantages
- Amazing and user-friendly trading terminal “Kite” which is superfast, clutter-free and clean, making it easy for the traders to trade distraction-free. It also provides a dark mode for preference and a floating order window.
- Super educative content production with Zerodha varsity. One can learn all about Derivatives trading on a single platform.
- Best in class pricing model for all kinds of traders or investors.
- Super secured with TOTP service to save customers from phishing frauds.
- Multiplatform Application which follows the same aesthetic and clean user interface as the web platform and is available with the same name “Kite”
- Advanced charting features with the integration of both ChartIQ and Trading view API. Some of the paid trading view features are available to use for free on the platform.
- Integrated apps for technical and fundamental analysis.
- Supports Commodities, Equity, Futures and Options, Mutual funds, and ETFs.
- Instant paperless account opening.
- Responsive and educated customer support.
- Huge customer base, hence liquidity is extremely high.
- Place buy and sell orders from the chart itself if you use the ChatrtIQ charts.
- Different order types like GTT, CO, Basket orders, and Aftermarket orders (AMO).
Disadvantages
No, buy sell option on the chart while using the trading view charts on the platform.
You cannot buy deep out of the money options for indices like Nifty and Bank nifty also, sometimes Zerodha itself blocks out of the money options as the expiry gets near and only at the money options stays available to buy.
No monthly brokerage plans are available for high value traders.
They provide many features on their platform but, most of them are paid features.
Low margin when compared to other same in class platforms.
People have reported that sometimes the chart is inaccurate.
The Pricing model is as below :
- Trading and Demat account opening charges-200
- Demat account annual maintenance charges-300
- Equity delivery charges- zero
- Intraday charges- 0.03% or rs20 whichever is lower
- Future and options-0.03% or rs20 whichever is lower
- Commodity- 0.03% or rs20 whichever is lower
- Mutual fund investment charges- zero
- Auto square off charges-50rs
The intraday margin is up to 6x depending on the stock.
Derivatives margin is 1.3x
STT, ETC, GST, Stamp duty and SEBI charges are extra.
Rating 4.6 out of 5
Although, this is a comprehensive review of the app and the web platform provided by “Zerodha” still this review is in no way or should not be treated as any kind of investment advice, It is always advisable for the users to do their own research and try everything before putting in their hard-earned money. It is also recommended to contact your financial advisor before jumping in on investments.
