“Investing is risky, but not if you have the right broker beside you”. To understand this statement we have come up with the most interesting comparison: Upstox vs Zerodha. 

No doubt when it comes to investment in the stockbroker, the choice of the stockbroker becomes essential. To get a better understanding of this let’s take the example of Mr. Nirmal. Mr. Nirmal is a retired colonel. He had heard about the stockbroking industries but was only aware of the bank-based stock brokers.

But now when he thought of entering into the market, he got amazed and confused seeing so many stockbrokers in the market. To ease things, he thought of spending some time considering different parameters and picking the one that can offer him multiple benefits and at the minimum cost.

To experience something new, he shortlisted two famous discount brokers; Zerodha and Upstox. Before analyzing stocks he did a proper analysis of both the stockbrokers on the basis of the following points:

• Company background
• Demat Account Opening Charges
• Brokerage plans
• Trading platforms
• Algo trading 
• Margin trading facility
• Account features, and
• Customer support

Let’s see what differentiates Zerodha from Upstox. 

Difference Between Zerodha and Upstox

Founded in May 2011, Upstox was started in Mumbai by the three founders, Ravi Kumar, Kavitha Subramanian, and Shrini Viswanath.  

With the idea of providing unlimited trading at fixed prices, owned by RKSV securities Pvt. Ltd. Upstox offered a cheap and easy trading platform to its investors.

Zerodha was founded in 2010 in Bangalore by the two brothers Nithin Kamath and Nikhil Kamath. It was the first broker to bring the concept of discount brokerage into the Indian trade market. 

And as numbers play a major role in deciding the dependability of a company, building trust factor and thus its sustainability it becomes even more important to look into the past records of the organization.

So let’s quickly look into the P&L statement of both the brokers. We all know that Zerodha is a bootstrapped start-up and that it does not depend on funding as it holds a 100% stake in the company, they efficiently utilize the company’s money towards its growth and development. 

On the other hand, never to miss, veteran industrialist, Mr. Ratan Tata is known to be the prominent investor of Upstox along with Tiger Global Management. 

Both of these stockbrokers are popular among traders. When one is self-dependent the other is backed by the strongest personalities and organizations. Choosing one among two is surely the toughest call. And also partially depends on your trading needs.

 

Also, Zerodha has seen steep growth since 2019, with a net profit of Rs. 442.3 cr to Rs. 1000 cr in FY2020 with the revenue of Rs. 1096.64 cr.  After the profit of Rs. 13.06 cr with the revenue of  Rs. 77.5 cr in FY2019, the company Upstox had seen a 100% increase in the revenue in FY2020 with losses of Rs. 37.05 cr. This is known as the second-largest stockbroker in India just after Zerodha.

Both Upstox and Zerodha are registered with CDSL and have a membership of NSE, BSE, and MCX giving opportunities to investors to trade in equity, currency, commodities, IPO, mutual funds, etc. 

You may look at the table below to understand the basic background of the two stockbrokers with clarity as explained by Mr. Nirmal and his son

Clearly, Zerodha is winning in the league with amazing growth, not just in terms of brand equity but also in the form of a reliable organization. After understanding the background, you would want to know about various charges that you would have to pay when you start trading with either of these brokers.

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Upstox vs Zerodha Charges

The first and the foremost fact that one needs to know is that both Zerodha and Upstox offer a 3-in-1 account facility which means that they facilitate a Demat account, a Trading account along with Savings account with IDFC FIRST bank and Indusind bank respectively.

After account opening comes to the charges associated with it. This is a crucial parameter of comparison that will decide how well and long you’ll be staying with the broker.

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Upstox vs Zerodha Demat charges

Both of these discount brokers offer minimum charges on reliable trading technologies they facilitate, as compared to the other brokers in the market. However, let’s see what distinguishes them.

Upstox charges Rs.249 for your Demat account opening along with your trading account. Also, you’ll need to pay account maintenance charges, also called (AMC) to keep your Demat account active. Rs. 25+18% GST is imposed by Upstox every month as AMC.  

Zerodha has a charge of  Rs. 200 if the investor wishes to trade in segments like equity, currency, etc. but if one desires to trade in commodities as well along with equity and currency, then an amount of Rs. 300 is charged for account opening. 

Coming to account maintenance charges of Zerodha, they charge Rs. 300 + GST (charged quarterly).

Clearly, it is the same as that of Upstox, the advantage here is that in Upstox Mr. Nirmal will not have to pay the entire amount in bulk. Paying monthly can be convenient. 

But does he make the decision looking at the account opening charges? Well! These are the initial fees, he considered other charges and parameters too before making a final decision. 

Let’s look further into the brokerage plans offered by both of these stockbrokers. Please keep in mind that with Upstox, you can open a Demat account along with a trading account for just rs 249. 

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Upstox vs Zerodha Brokerage Charges

Now, anyone who is looking for a stockbroker to start trading in stocks should know about Brokerage charges. A smart decision-maker would never want to pay high brokerage charges and earn minimal profits. 

Basically, it is the fee that your broker will charge to execute each order or to provide its services such as consultation, negotiation, etc. From the table below you’ll understand segment-wise charges of both Upstox and Zerodha.

 

Zerodha and Upstox both do not charge for trading in equity delivery, as brokerage. Additionally, you’ll also notice that both of these brokers charge a maximum of ₹20  in each of these segments.

Along with that, you can see that in Upstox and Zerodha you get an option to pay less than ₹20, which is 0.05 % and 0.03% of the traded value whichever is lower, respectively. 

Lets us understand it here with the help of an example,

Suppose you execute an intraday trade of ₹25,000. Now as per the brokerage plan of both the brokers, here is the difference in the minimum brokerage you end up paying:

Zerodha charges= 0.03% of 25,000
=₹7.5

Upstox charges= 0.05% of 25,000
=₹12.5

So, along with the flat brokerage, it becomes important to consider the minimum brokerage charges imposed by them to pick the right one. 

Many traders just look at ₹20 and wonder if it is the same for both brokers, but no one thinks that a small percentage like 0.03% and 0.05% can make a huge difference in the profits that you earn.

As per the above example, we can see that Zerodha imposes less brokerage than that of Upstox, and here is when it becomes our first choice.

But again, don’t get carried away, we need to be sure with the other parameters as well to prove the above statement true. Further comes our hidden charges!

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Upstox vs Zerodha DP Charges

Just like the brokerage charges that are imposed on your trade transactions by the brokers, DP charges are kind of hidden charges that are made on all your sell transactions by the depository for managing your Demat accounts. 

But these days some brokers do show these to their customers when the investors place their orders. 

 

In terms of depository participant charges, Upstox charges slightly higher than that of Zerodha, as we see here.

The total sums up to ₹18.50+GST per script, per day, for Upstox. For Zerodha it is just ₹13.5+ GST per scrip. Clearly, when it comes to delivery trading, one must go with the one with the minimal DP charges like Zerodha. 

Till now we have compared the fees brokers imposed on us. But there is something called a margin facility where the trader gets the leverage to trade more with the margin facility. 

So, let’s look at the margin facility provided by the brokers. 

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Upstox vs Zerodha Margin Trading

Earlier, both these brokers were known for offering high leverage facilities to their customers. Talking about Zerodha, the broker offers a 28x margin for intraday trading. But as per the recent SEBI update, many changes have been made in the margin policy.

So, like Mr. Nirmal, it is important for us all to understand the criteria of Margin Trading with the brokers for choosing the right stock broker as a long-term trading partner.

Here let’s take a look at the margins provided by Zerodha and Upstox in various trading segments.

 

Now the selection based on margin facility depends upon the trading needs of an investor. You get a margin calculator on the official website of the brokers based on different stocks and sectors. You can take a look at the margin that would be provided by a stockbroker and choose the best that suits you.

A wise selection would be a broker that has less brokerage and a higher margin for its traders. To give it more credibility despite a slightly lower margin in other segments, Zerodha has a much higher margin in the most important trade segment which is Intraday as compared to Upstox.

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Upstox vs Zerodha Trading Platforms

Who would not want a smooth, user-friendly interface for trading where people invest their capital without any glitches? It becomes increasingly crucial to look at the features your trading platform has, along with the services provided by your broker.

Both of these brokers facilitate web-based and mobile-based trading platforms for a user-friendly hand on experience. Not just that, Upstox offers you desktop-based apps as well, adding another convenient way to trade to its list. However, Zerodha does not offer any desktop-based application or software for trading.

 

Looking at NEST by Upstox is a desktop-based share trading platform that is available for all Upstox traders for Free*. It offers you several features to do seamless trading with a customizable interface and monitor support.

Although Zerodha does not offer any desktop-based application, it does offer smooth and reliable trading apps. Especially, Zerodha kite, Coin, etc, which are for different segments of clients like mutual fund investors, traders, people who wish to gain theoretical knowledge of the stock market, etc.

While Zerodha Varsity is a whole new way of educating and creating awareness among today’s generation with the world of the stock market and the benefits involved with trading and investing. It has all the educational content regarding the concept of the stock in the form of blogs and videos.

Certainly, you see that not just one but Zerodha has a wider variety of services to offer to its customers not just quantitatively but qualitatively as well. Kite is a well-known trading app by Zerodha but along with that Coin is specifically for investors who love to invest in mutual funds and get good returns. 

 

And further to do technical analysis for accurate order placing and getting higher returns you also need advanced indicators and charts, where these two stockbrokers differ. 

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Upstox Vs Zerodha Algo Trading Platforms

Comparatively new, yet an important feature for comparison is the algorithmic trading platforms. 

For investors or traders that don’t have much time to monitor the market the whole day, Algo- trading will be a relaxing yet more profitable option to go for. 

This is an advanced form of trading that works systematically based on certain indicators that are mentioned by the investor, in the form of codes or algorithms. 

Here, Mr. Nirmal is a new trader and has the least understanding of technology and advanced languages. But since he heard about the popularity of algorithmic trading and therefore dive into the little details of the broker’s algo trading platform. 

To his surprise, it turns out that he doesn’t need to have any programming language knowledge to do algo trading. All he needed to do is pay the monthly algo API charges and decide the indicators and parameters to be executed in the form of codes. 

Just like Mr. Nirmal you too can ease your manual trading stress with the smooth algo trading platforms of Upstox and Zerodha as mentioned here.

While Upstox facilitates a dedicated panel called Algolab to algo trade where you write strategies on Amibroker AFL and place trades with the power of Upstox Amibroker Bridge. From the table, we see that Zerodha offers about five algo platforms namely, Streak, Zerodha Kite Connect, Zerodha Pi, and AlgoZ. 

Understanding Zerodha’s streak is quite important here as  Streak is among the most reliable platforms known for algo. Plus point is that you don’t have to do any sort of coding to place your orders or get the trigger alerts.

While looking for lower brokerage charges, people often forget to look into the services offered. Mr. Nirmal chose the one that offers many benefits along with the minimum brokerage fees. Let’s see some more features and find with whom he opened the Demat account.

Zerodha charges ₹2000 per month for its platform, unlike Upstox that charges only ₹1000 per month. 

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Upstox vs Zerodha Trading Features

The obvious fact is that before getting on with a stockbroker, you would want to know the trading features you get with the trading platforms for smooth navigation and investment experience. The table here shows some categories and features that fulfill the minimum trading needs of any investor be it intraday, delivery, or even swing trading.

 

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Upstox vs Zerodha Research and Advisory

Further, It is obvious that since Zerodha and Upstox are both discount brokers they certainly do not provide any research and advisory services.  

As you’re able to see in the tabulated column, Zerodha’s Stock Reports plus offer financial reports of about 3000+ stocks on a monthly, half-yearly and annually basis. 

 

One can get these paid research tools, which are only recommended for the intermediate and active traders, as the beginners would find themselves paying extra money for something that they do not actually understand.

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Upstox vs Zerodha Account Features

After understanding all the necessary facilities offered by these brokers, don’t you want to know what complimentary stuff they have got in store for you?

Of Course, you do. Advanced with the technology, reliable for almost all age groups, Upstox and Zerodha have much more to offer that might seem usual but are important from the investor’s point of view.

Here look at the table below to understand these, 

This facility is not available in Zerodha, which makes it quite tough to understand if you haven’t had any prior experience with trading platforms. And since you’ll be investing your capital, this makes it all the way riskier to directly jump into it! If in case you’re not confident enough about starting, then you may use the Upstox Pro web platform’s demo version, where you can get the guest demo login to backtest your trade knowledge and analyze the results. 

But as said, our star product Kite will guide you in every way so you can earn more in less time, with a seamless experience as Kite has evolved to be the best of all ever since it came into existence. 

Since today almost every manual task is digitizing, not, many people are really comfortable with trusting these tech processes, so both these firms offer offline account opening facilities. In which you just need to download the Account opening form, full details and send it to the respective head offices.

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Upstox vs Zerodha Customer Support

Mr. Nirmal’s association with his stockbroker has been fruitful which made him stay loyal to that particular broker. Obviously, the customer support service would have been marvelous to him, his queries must have been resolved quickly every time he raised a ticket.  

This factor of comparison is crucial to anyone who is deciding to start trading with a particular broker. Zerodha and Upstox both are renowned brokers so it becomes difficult to pick anyone. 

However, let’s try to understand the kind of support they offer to their customers here in the table below.

Both of them offer customer support via chat box and phone. However, Upstox offers email support to its customers, unlike Zerodha. As the revolutionary brokers, Upstox and Zerodha care about their customers and provide every possible way to solve the queries as soon as possible. 

Other than that, now one should know that Zerodha has a vast offline presence when compared to Upstox. It has branches all over India, in about 75+ cities with 120+ branch offices making it more approachable for the users. 

You don’t just have to wait for a response from the support team, instead, they have a door opened for a face-to-face conversation!

Upstox entirely offers online trading services and has no offline branches as of now.  

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Upstox vs Zerodha Which is Better

Finally, after analyzing both of these brokers, let’s now look at the ratings of the two and get a conclusion overall on how Mr. Nirmal chose his broker.

 To sum it up and see the rating of the two brokers, Upstox and Zerodha, 

 

Here on the complete analysis, Mr. Nirmal chose the one with better facilities, minimum brokerage, advanced trading app, and high margin. Yes, you are right? Comparing both the services he started using the Zerodha trading services by opening an account in no time.

So if you too are confused like him, then do your analysis on the basis of your requirement and get into the stock market trading with one of the renowned stockbrokers discussed above.

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