Scalable Capital review 2026: fees, interest and safety

Scalable Capital is a German bank and broker with over 1 million clients and more than €60 billion in client assets. It lets you buy stocks, ETFs, funds, bonds and crypto ETPs from €1, with free savings plans and a flat rate plan for active investors.

The broker is available in six countries: Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. A lot changed in 2025 and 2026. Scalable now holds its own banking licence, moved its orders to the European Investor Exchange ahead of the EU ban on payment for order flow, opened local branches in Italy and Austria and pays 2.60% on cash in a separate Overnight account.

In this review we look at the fees of each plan, where your orders are executed, how your cash and securities are protected, what you can invest in and who Scalable is a good fit for. All figures were checked on Scalable's own website and price list in October 2026.

Summary

• Fees: €0.99 per trade on the free plan, €0 on orders of €250 or more with PRIME+ (€4.99 per month). Savings plans are free on both plans.
• Free ETF purchases: on the free plan, buying ETFs from Amundi, iShares, Vanguard and Xtrackers costs €0 from €250.
• Interest: 2.60% a year on unlimited cash in the Overnight account, paid monthly. Fixed-term accounts pay 2.75% for 6 months or 3% for 12 months.
• Safety: licensed German bank supervised by BaFin and the Bundesbank. Cash is covered by deposit guarantees up to €100,000 per bank (up to 5 x €100,000 with PRIME+).
• Best for: long-term ETF investors in the six supported countries who want low costs and a simple app.
• Less suited to: investors who want direct access to US exchanges, more than one base currency or a broker outside these six countries.

If Scalable fits what you need, you can open an account on the Scalable Capital website.

Scalable Capital at a glance

^{Sources: Scalable Broker, Scalable List of Prices and Services (from 1 September 2026) and Scalable factsheet (September 2026). Checked in October 2026.}

Overview

Scalable Capital was founded in December 2014 in Munich by Erik Podzuweit, Florian Prucker, Adam French and Prof. Dr. Stefan Mittnik. Erik and Florian both came from Goldman Sachs and still run the company as co-CEOs. It started in 2016 as a robo-advisor and later added its own broker, which is now its main product.

Today the group has three main products:

• Scalable Broker: the investing account you manage yourself, which we review here.
• Scalable Wealth: a managed portfolio (robo-advisor) from €20, with a fee of 0.75% a year up to €100,000. It is only offered in Germany and Austria.
• Save: Overnight and fixed-term accounts that pay interest on cash.

Scalable has raised €470 million in equity over five funding rounds. Its investors include BlackRock, Tencent, HV Capital, Balderton Capital and Sofina. Banking and investment services are provided by Scalable Capital Bank GmbH, which also holds your securities in custody.

Pros and cons of Scalable Capital

Pros

• Free savings plans from €1 on stocks, ETFs, funds and crypto ETPs
• €0 per trade from €250 with PRIME+, and free ETF purchases from €250 on the free plan
• 2.60% on unlimited cash in the Overnight account
• German bank, with up to 5 x €100,000 deposit guarantee on PRIME+
• Orders run on a regulated exchange (EIX) from 6:00 to 23:00
• Kid's account and AI agent connection (Agentic Investing)

Cons

• Only available in six countries
• EUR is the only base currency and the FX markup is not published
• No direct access to US exchanges
• Cash in the broker account earns 0%: you need to move it to the Overnight account
• Instant deposits cost 0.99% (0.69% with PRIME+) on the first €5,000

Fees

Scalable has two plans for new clients: FREE and PRIME+. On FREE you pay €0.99 per trade. On PRIME+ you pay €4.99 a month and then €0 on every trade of €250 or more.

^{Sources: Scalable List of Prices and Services (Netherlands, from 1 September 2026) and Scalable special conditions. PRIME ETFs are all ETFs from Amundi, iShares, Vanguard and Xtrackers. Product costs, spreads and inducements may apply. Checked in October 2026.}

A few details are worth knowing before you choose:

• Sells are not free on FREE. The €0 offer on FREE only covers purchases of PRIME ETFs. Selling them still costs €0.99.
• Orders below €250 always cost €0.99, even with PRIME+. Small one-off purchases are better done through a savings plan, which is free.
• Currency conversion: your account is in euros. When you receive dividends in dollars, Scalable converts them at a reference rate plus a surcharge that is not listed as a number in the price list.
• Funds and bonds: active funds can carry a fund surcharge of up to 5% and bonds a spread surcharge of up to 5%, according to the price list. Most ETFs have no surcharge.

Is PRIME+ worth it?

It depends on how many orders of €250 or more you place each month.

On FREE, each of those orders costs €0.99 (except PRIME ETF purchases). Six orders cost €5.94, which is already more than the €4.99 of PRIME+. So PRIME+ starts to pay off from six orders of €250 or more per month.

^{Monthly cost on the European Investor Exchange, based on the Scalable List of Prices and Services, October 2026. Excludes spreads and product costs.}

For most ETF investors who use savings plans, FREE is enough. PRIME+ makes sense if you trade single stocks several times a month, buy crypto ETPs often or keep more than €100,000 in cash at Scalable and want the extra deposit guarantee.

Where your orders are executed

Until July 2026, Scalable and most neobrokers earned part of their income from payment for order flow (PFOF): the exchange paid the broker for sending it orders. The EU banned this practice from July 2026 under the revised MiFIR (Regulation (EU) 2024/791).

Scalable prepared early. In December 2024 it launched, together with the Hanover Stock Exchange, the European Investor Exchange (EIX), a trading segment of the Börse Hannover. The exchange is operated by BÖAG Börsen AG, Scalable runs the technology, and Scalable Capital Bank and mwb fairtrade act as market makers. EIX is now the default venue and the one where the €0 and €0.99 fees apply. You can also choose gettex (Munich) or Xetra (Frankfurt) for up to €1.99 per order.

^{Sources: Scalable client documentation (execution policy and price list, from 1 September 2026) and Scalable help centre (trading hours, October 2026). Before 9:00 only securities traded on EIX are available.}

How does this compare with Trade Republic? At Trade Republic, the default Best Price order is filled off exchange with Trade Republic as the counterparty. At Scalable, the default order is executed on a regulated exchange segment, although one of the market makers quoting prices there is Scalable Capital Bank itself. In practice, both aim for a price close to the main market, so for long-term ETF investors the difference in cost is small. We compare the two brokers in detail in Trade Republic vs Scalable Capital.

All trading is in euros. Scalable does not offer direct access to US exchanges, so US stocks are bought through their German listings in EUR.

Interest on cash

Scalable pays interest through separate savings products, not on the broker account itself. Cash left in your broker clearing account earns 0%. To earn interest you move it to the Overnight account, which takes a tap in the app and is available 24/7.

^{Sources: Scalable Overnight account, Scalable Fixed-term account and Scalable interest overview. Rates as of October 2026. The ECB deposit rate is 2.50% since 16 September 2026.}

Example: you keep €10,000 in the Overnight account for a year at the current rate. You earn about €263 before tax, because interest is paid monthly and compounds. With a 12-month fixed-term account you would earn exactly €300, but you cannot touch the money before the end of the term.

How the cash is held depends on your plan. On PRIME+, Scalable spreads it across its own bank and four partner banks, so up to 5 x €100,000 is covered by statutory deposit guarantees. On FREE, the cash can go to banks with the €100,000 guarantee or to qualifying money market funds, which are protected by UCITS rules instead of a deposit guarantee. If you hold more than €100,000 in cash, PRIME+ gives you clearly stronger protection.

Looking for the highest rate in your country? See our savings accounts comparator.

Is Scalable Capital safe?

Scalable Capital Bank GmbH is a credit institution licensed under section 32 of the German Banking Act (KWG). It is supervised by BaFin and the Deutsche Bundesbank, the same supervisors as any German bank.

^{Sources: Scalable security, Scalable Overnight account and Entschädigungseinrichtung deutscher Banken. October 2026.}

The most important protection for investors is segregation. Your ETFs and stocks belong to you, not to Scalable. If the bank failed, they would be transferred to another broker rather than used to pay its creditors. The €20,000 investor compensation only matters in the rare case that securities are missing, for example after fraud.

A few other points:

• Securities lending: Scalable does not lend out client securities.
• Partner banks: the depositor information sheets currently list Deutsche Bank, HSBC Continental Europe and Münchener Hypothekenbank.
• Past incidents: Scalable reported a data breach in October 2020 and has had technical outages on some busy trading days. We found no regulatory sanctions against the bank.
• Security: two-factor authentication is available and information security is certified under ISO 27001.

What you can invest in

^{Sources: Scalable Broker and Scalable crypto ETPs, October 2026.}

The ETF range is large and covers all the main UCITS providers, so you will find the usual world, S&P 500 and bond ETFs. If you are new to this, our guide to the best European brokers for ETFs explains what to look for.

Crypto works differently than at Trade Republic. Scalable does not sell crypto coins directly. You buy exchange-traded products (ETPs) that track Bitcoin, Ethereum and other coins, with no wallet to manage. Our guide to the best Bitcoin ETFs in Europe explains how these products work. You pay the trade fee plus a spread surcharge of 0.99% on FREE or 0.69% on PRIME+, and the ETP's own annual cost (for example 0.15% for the CoinShares Physical Bitcoin ETP).

Savings plans

Savings plans are Scalable's strongest feature. You can invest automatically in ETFs, 4,500 stocks, funds and crypto ETPs from €1, with no order fee on either plan. You choose the amount and the frequency, and the plan runs from your clearing account or by direct debit.

Example: you invest €200 a month in an MSCI World ETF for 20 years. That is 240 executions. At Scalable they cost €0. With a broker charging €1 per order you would pay €240 over the period, or about €1,000 at a broker charging €4 per order.

Other features

• Kid's account: all legal guardians open an account first, then a Kid's account with free savings plans. Scalable refunds the annual cost (TER) of selected iShares and Xtrackers ETFs as "Pocket Money".
• Agentic Investing: you can connect ChatGPT, Claude or another AI agent to your account through Scalable's MCP server, to analyse your portfolio or prepare orders. Orders still need your approval in the app.
• Credit: a loan secured by your securities, from €1,000 to €250,000, only available in Germany.
• Insights: PRIME+ adds portfolio analysis, unlimited price alerts and CSV export of your transactions.

Taxes

How Scalable handles tax depends on where you live:

• Germany: Scalable withholds the 25% flat tax plus solidarity surcharge, applies your exemption order (Freistellungsauftrag) and issues an annual tax certificate.
• Italy: since September 2026 Scalable has an Italian branch with an Italian IBAN and offers the regime amministrato, so it can handle the tax for you.
• Austria: since October 2026 a Vienna branch calculates, withholds and pays the KESt for new clients, with an Austrian IBAN. Existing clients can switch later. In Italy, too, existing clients are being moved over gradually.
• France, Spain and the Netherlands: Scalable does not withhold local tax. It provides an annual report prepared by a service provider to help you file your own tax return.

Scalable does not offer tax-advantaged accounts such as the French PEA. If tax handling is a priority, compare this with what Trade Republic offers in your country.

Opening an account

You need to be resident in one of the six supported countries, be at least 18 and have a valid ID and a tax identification number. The process takes about 10 minutes in the app or on the web, including a video or online identity check. Most accounts are ready within one to three business days.

There is no minimum deposit. Standard SEPA transfers are free. Instant deposits, which let you invest before the money arrives, cost 0.99% (0.69% with PRIME+) on the first €5,000.

Customer support

Scalable supports clients mainly through chat in the app and on the web. Its contact page also mentions phone support from Monday to Friday, 8:00 to 18:00, and Austrian clients now have a local phone line. Non-clients can use the FAQ section. Response times vary: some users on Trustpilot report waiting several days during busy periods, which is a common complaint about neobrokers.

Who is Scalable Capital for?

Long-term ETF investor: you invest a fixed amount every month in one or two ETFs. Savings plans are free from €1 on both plans, so the FREE plan is enough and your order costs can stay at €0.

Active stock investor: you place six or more orders of €250 or more per month. PRIME+ at €4.99 a month then costs less than paying €0.99 per order.

Saver with a large cash balance: you keep more than €100,000 in cash. With PRIME+ the Overnight account spreads it across up to five banks, each covered up to €100,000.

Less suited to you if: you live outside the six supported countries, want to trade US stocks in dollars on US exchanges, want real crypto in your own wallet or need a debit card linked to your account.

Alternatives to Scalable Capital

• Trade Republic: pays interest on all uninvested cash, offers a debit card with 1% Saveback and real crypto, and is available in 18 countries. Every trade costs €1.
• DEGIRO: a long-established European broker with access to many international exchanges, including the US. It does not pay interest on uninvested cash.
• Interactive Brokers: the most complete option, with markets worldwide and competitive currency conversion. Its platforms can feel complex for beginners.
• Trading 212: no commissions on stocks and ETFs and fractional shares from €1. Other fees may apply. See terms and fees. When investing, your capital is at risk.

Live in Germany? See our list of the best online brokers in Germany.

Final verdict: is Scalable Capital worth it?

Scalable Capital is one of the cheapest and safest ways to build an ETF portfolio if you live in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain or the Netherlands. Savings plans are free from €1, ETF purchases from €250 are free even on the free plan, and the 2.60% Overnight account is above the ECB deposit rate.

Its limits are the small country list, the single currency and the lack of direct US market access. Active stock traders should look at PRIME+, which pays off from six orders a month. If you want to compare it with its closest rival, read our Trade Republic review, or see more options in our list of the best trading platforms in Europe.

Frequently asked questions

Is Scalable Capital a German company?

Yes. Scalable Capital was founded in Munich in 2014 and its banking arm, Scalable Capital Bank GmbH, is a German bank supervised by BaFin and the Bundesbank. It has offices in Munich, Berlin, Vienna and Milan.

Who is behind Scalable Capital?

The company is run by its co-founders Erik Podzuweit and Florian Prucker, both former Goldman Sachs executives. Its shareholders include BlackRock, Tencent, HV Capital, Balderton Capital and Sofina.

Is Scalable Capital free?

The account, custody and savings plans are free. Single trades cost €0.99 on the FREE plan, except purchases of ETFs from Amundi, iShares, Vanguard and Xtrackers of €250 or more, which cost €0. PRIME+ costs €4.99 a month and removes the fee on trades of €250 or more.

How long does it take to withdraw money from Scalable Capital?

Withdrawals to your reference account are free and are sent by SEPA transfer, which usually arrives within one to two business days. If you sell investments first, allow two more business days for the trade to settle.

Is my money safe at Scalable Capital?

Your securities are held separately from the bank's own assets, so they remain yours if Scalable fails. Cash is covered by deposit guarantees of €100,000 per bank (up to 5 x €100,000 with PRIME+) or held in qualifying money market funds on the FREE plan.

Does Scalable Capital pay interest on uninvested cash?

Not on the broker account itself, which pays 0%. You earn 2.60% a year by moving the cash to the Overnight account, which is free and available at any time.

_{Disclaimer: this article is for information purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Fees, interest rates and features were checked on Scalable Capital's website and price list in October 2026 and can change. Conditions can differ slightly by country. Investing involves risk, and you may get back less than you invest. Crypto ETPs and derivatives carry high risks.}