Hi. Scottrade is free.. $500 min to open an account. To use Scottrade Elite you need to have $25,000 in your account.. You get charged $10 a month for Level 2 at Scottrade. However I think it's free if you do 10 trades a month.. Call the National Customer Service number 1-800-888-1980 or go to WWW.Scottrade.com and locate a branch near you and call them for answers to your questions.. Hope this helps. FFB-Fish