Stake vs CommSec: Fees Compared for ASX and US Shares

Search for this pair and you get a wall of forum threads, most of them long on opinion and short on numbers. So here are the numbers, read off both platforms' own fee schedules on 19 September 2026, GST included.

This pair is unusual, because the two things a broker comparison normally turns on are identical. Both are CHESS sponsored, so your ASX shares sit in your own name under your own HIN. Both charge 0.55% to convert Australian dollars into US dollars, with no minimum. Neither charges an account fee. That leaves the shape of the brokerage, and that is where they separate.

The short version

Stake charges one flat fee whatever the order size. CommSec charges in tiers, and the tier your order lands in decides the bill. On the four order sizes priced below, Stake is the smaller number every time, and the gap opens widest in the middle of the range: A$3 against A$19.95 on a A$5,000 ASX order.

Over ten years at A$1,000 a month, ASX only, that is A$360 at Stake against A$600 at CommSec. On a US-only plan it is A$1,165 against A$1,502. This page does not tell you which to open. It tells you what each one charges.

What one purchase costs on each

All figures in Australian dollars, GST included. The US columns are the full cost of the purchase, brokerage plus the 0.55% currency conversion, with US dollars converted at the RBA rate of 0.7126 for 18 September 2026.

CommSec's ASX fee is tiered by order value: A$5 up to A$1,000, A$10 up to A$3,000, A$19.95 up to A$10,000, A$29.95 up to A$25,000, then 0.12% above that. Its US brokerage is the greater of US$5 or 0.12% of the order. Stake charges A$3 on ASX orders up to A$30,000 and US$3 on US orders up to US$30,000, then 0.01% above those points.

Where the two are identical

How your shares are held. Both are CHESS sponsored, so your ASX shares go on the ASX register in your own name under your Holder Identification Number rather than into an account the platform owns. Moving brokers later is a transfer of your holdings, buy dates and cost base, not a sale. CHESS sponsorship explained covers the register.

Currency conversion. Both charge 0.55% with no minimum, so a US purchase costs the same in conversion at either one. That rate does a lot of work on US trades, and the full nine-platform comparison sets out the mechanics in one place.

Account fees. Neither charges one. No monthly fee, no inactivity fee, no subscription. That is every usual tiebreaker settled before the fee schedules even come into it.

So the difference is the shape of the brokerage

A flat fee is one number whatever you buy: A$3 on a A$500 order and A$3 on a A$20,000 order. A tiered fee moves in steps, and the step is set by the order value. CommSec has four thresholds, at A$1,000, A$3,000, A$10,000 and A$25,000. Land a dollar above one and the whole fee moves. Land a dollar below and it does not.

That is the entire difference. Not a better rate here and a worse one there, but two different machines for pricing an order. A flat fee shrinks as a share of the trade as the order grows. A tiered fee jumps at the thresholds and sits still in between.

The gap is widest in the middle

The pattern is not gradual. At A$500 and A$1,000 the two are A$2 apart. At A$5,000 it is A$16.95, and that jump is the tier boundary doing the work: once an order passes A$3,000, CommSec moves from A$5 to A$19.95 in one step and stays there until the order clears A$10,000. Stake charges A$3 on both sides of that line.

From A$1,000 to A$5,000 the order grows five-fold while the gap grows more than eight-fold, from A$2 to A$16.95. That is the sharpest widening on the ladder, and it lands squarely on the order size a lot of people put through as a lump sum.

Push the order to A$20,000 and the dollar gap reaches A$26.95, but as a slice of the trade it is smaller than the A$5,000 gap: about 0.13% against 0.34%. The tier ceilings flatten it out again.

Ten years of investing, three ways

A$1,000 a month, 120 purchases, buy and hold, no sales. These totals count brokerage plus the 0.55% conversion on the US portion. Because both charge that same 0.55%, conversion adds the same dollars to both columns and separates nothing. Every gap in that last column is brokerage.

Keep the number in perspective too. Across the decade you have contributed A$120,000, and the fees run from A$360 to A$1,502 depending on platform and mix, a small slice of the total either way. The mix matters more than the platform: a US-only plan costs more than an ASX-only plan on both of these, because 0.55% applies to every dollar converted.

There is also a cost this table cannot show: the sell side. Both platforms charge brokerage when you sell, same as when you buy. On the ASX, waiting at least 12 months before you sell is what qualifies you for the 50% CGT discount, and that clock runs from the buy dates your HIN keeps a record of.

What the figures leave out

Not included anywhere above: US regulatory and exchange fees, which show up on the contract note; dividend withholding tax and the W-8BEN form that gets you the reduced treaty rate; and funding or withdrawal costs. Those apply whichever platform you use, and none of them shows up in a brokerage comparison.

Why anyone would still pick CommSec

Plenty of people do, and rarely because of the fee schedule. Three non-price reasons come up repeatedly, and none of them appears in a fee table.

• Banking integration. CommSec is Commonwealth Securities Limited, ABN 60 067 254 399, AFSL 238814. Settlement can run through a Commonwealth Bank account and holdings sit alongside your banking. If your money already lives there, that is convenience you cannot buy elsewhere.
• Research. CommSec publishes market research, reports and tools next to the trading platform. If you use them, they are part of what you are paying for.
• The account you already have. Many Australians opened a CommSec account years ago and still hold shares through it. That means a HIN in your name and a cost base already on the register. Moving across is a transfer rather than a sale, so it is not a tax problem, but it is paperwork.

None of that changes the numbers above, and this page is not making a case for CommSec over its fee schedule. It is here because it is true, not because it settles anything.

What each one asks of you

Stake asks you to remember one number. No tier to track, no threshold to avoid, no arithmetic before you place an order. The trade-off is that the same A$3 is 0.6% of a A$500 order and 0.06% of a A$5,000 one, so the fee weighs more on small orders.

CommSec asks you to know which rung you are on, because crossing A$1,000, A$3,000, A$10,000 or A$25,000 moves the bill. On a A$500 order the A$5 tier is 1% of the trade. On a A$5,000 order the A$19.95 tier is just under 0.4%.

Both keep your ASX shares in your own name and neither charges an account fee, so there is nothing left to weigh on structure or upkeep. If you would rather work through the decision as questions than as fees, how to choose a share trading platform does exactly that. One boundary note: CommSec Pocket is a separate app with its own pricing, so that is a different comparison and it is not covered here.