Walnut vs Interactive Brokers: Which Is Better in 2026?

Prices checked October 2026. A price marked (Oct 2026) was read on the vendor's own pricing page; others are described without a number because we could not verify one.

The AI that knows your portfolio. Ask anything in plain English, research any stock or fund, and get an honest second opinion, on the broker you already use. Read-only by default, you approve every trade, and it never holds your money. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

How it works: You connect the brokerage you already use, read-only by default, so your login stays with your broker and your money never moves. Walnut gives each holding a keep, trim or exit read from its one-year price return against the S&P 500, its momentum and its size, and flags any position above a quarter of the portfolio. You ask follow-up questions in Walnut's own assistant, or inside Claude or ChatGPT through its connector, which only reads. You can turn a thesis into a basket with target weights, and when you decide to act Walnut drafts the trades and places the ones you approve at Public plus eight other brokers including E*Trade, tastytrade and Webull.

In practice, Walnut’s AI reads your real holdings, rates each one against the S&P 500, builds baskets and drafts trades. It is an AI investing app that connects the brokerage you already use, best suited to a keep, trim or exit read on the stocks you already own, and placing the trades you approve. On connecting an account: yes (the brokerage you already use, read-only by default). On execution: places the trades you approve at Public and eight other brokers. Cost: free; Walnut Unlimited $9.99/mo on the web; no fee on assets.

One honest limitation: It has no cost basis or tax lots, so returns are one-year price returns rather than profit and loss, and it is read-only at Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard.

Broad market access with AI-integration options and community-built MCP connectors. Best for advanced and international investors.

How it works: Interactive Brokers gives you broad global market access through professional platforms (like Trader Workstation) and a deep API. AI integration is possible by wiring tools to that API or using community-built MCP connectors, but there is no polished, official consumer AI assistant, so the AI layer is something you or a developer assemble.

In practice, Interactive Brokers’s AI AI-integration options (community MCP). It is a brokerage API for people building their own AI agent, best suited to advanced and international investors. On connecting an account: IBKR accounts. On execution: read + trade. Cost: brokerage fees.

One honest limitation: Powerful but complex; AI connectors are mostly community-built.

The honest framing: Interactive Brokers is about developer-level, programmatic control for building your own AI agent, while Walnut is about a no-code experience across most US brokers. Interactive Brokers is built for developers who write code, whereas Walnut is a no-code app that sits on top of your broker.

Every tool gives something up for what it does well. Here is the honest give-and-take on each, so you can weigh the specific strengths against the limitations that come with them rather than judging on the headline category alone.

For AI investing tools, the distinction that matters most is whether the tool works from your actual, connected positions or reasons from something else: a separate account it manages for you, or the tickers and numbers you feed it. It decides how personal the answers can be, and where your money physically lives.

• Walnut: reads your real connected holdings. Walnut connects your real brokerage (Yes (the brokerage you already use, read-only by default)) and works from your actual positions, so its answers reflect what you genuinely own rather than a generic model.
• Interactive Brokers: connects specific supported accounts. Interactive Brokers connects a defined set of accounts (IBKR accounts), so whether it can see your holdings depends on whether your money is at one of them.

This is where they diverge most. One works from your real, connected account while the other does not, so if you want an assistant grounded in the exact positions you already hold, that gap is the thing to weigh first. This holdings-aware angle is the one Walnut is built around: it connects the brokerage you already use and reasons from your live positions, read-only by default, with any trades left for you to approve.

Each one wins a different job, so the answer is committed per job rather than overall.

• Choose Walnut if you want a keep, trim or exit read on the stocks you already own, and placing the trades you approve. Its AI reads your real holdings, rates each one against the S&P 500, builds baskets and drafts trades, and it costs free; Walnut Unlimited $9.99/mo on the web; no fee on assets. It is built for investors who already own stocks at a broker and want an AI investing app to tell them which to keep, trim or exit, without moving their money. Keep in mind: it has no cost basis or tax lots, so returns are one-year price returns rather than profit and loss, and it is read-only at Schwab, Fidelity and Vanguard.
• Choose Interactive Brokers if you want advanced and international investors. Its AI AI-integration options (community MCP), and it costs brokerage fees. It is built for advanced or international investors who want breadth and are comfortable with complex tools. Keep in mind: powerful but complex; AI connectors are mostly community-built.

Because they sit in different categories, this is not strictly either-or: some investors use one for a keep, trim or exit read on the stocks you already own, and placing the trades you approve and the other for advanced and international investors, and watch for overlapping costs.

Cost is easy to misread when two tools charge in different shapes, so compare the model, not just the number. Walnut: free; Walnut Unlimited $9.99/mo on the web; no fee on assets. Interactive Brokers: brokerage fees. A percentage-of-assets fee scales with your balance, a flat subscription does not, and a “free” tier usually earns elsewhere (on cash, order flow, or premium upgrades), so the cheapest headline is not always the cheapest outcome for your situation.

Prices checked October 2026. Pricing and tiers change, so confirm the current numbers on each provider’s own site before you decide.