Best trading apps for beginners in India

A first portfolio in India is usually small and is usually built from monthly purchases. Small purchases are where fixed costs hurt most. A ₹20 brokerage charge on a ₹1,000 purchase is 2% of the money gone before the share price moves, while the same ₹20 on a ₹50,000 purchase is 0.04%. So the first thing to check is what one modest purchase costs, not the headline rate on a large one.

The second thing to check is what happens around the trade. Every app here charges a depository participant (DP) fee when you sell shares out of your demat account, and most charge an annual maintenance charge (AMC) after the first year. Someone who buys every month and rarely sells pays mostly AMC. Someone who sells often pays mostly DP charges.

The third thing is what the app puts in front of you. All four apps in this guide offer futures and options alongside plain share buying, and SEBI's own research (covered below) shows that is where most individual losses happen. An app that makes options one tap away from your portfolio screen is not neutral for a first-time investor, even when its fees are low.

The figures below are for a resident individual on each broker's standard plan, taken from each broker's own site in October 2026. Brokerage is per executed order.

A few details sit behind the table. Zerodha's AMC on a Basic Services Demat Account (BSDA) is free for holdings up to ₹4 lakh and ₹100 plus GST a year between ₹4 lakh and ₹10 lakh; the ₹300 figure is for non-BSDA accounts. Groww waives its DP charge when the debit value is under ₹100. Interactive Brokers charges 2 bps on the portion of an order above ₹10 lakh, and lists NSE stocks as available only to Indian residents.

A common way to start is to buy shares or an ETF for a fixed amount each month. Take ₹5,000 a month, bought in one order, held for the year. Brokerage per purchase works out like this:

• Zerodha: ₹0 on delivery, so ₹0 a year.
• Groww: 0.1% of ₹5,000 is ₹5, which is lower than ₹20 and equal to the ₹5 minimum, so ₹5 an order and ₹60 a year (12 x ₹5).
• Interactive Brokers India: 1 bps of ₹5,000 is ₹0.50, below the ₹6 minimum, so ₹6 an order and ₹72 a year (12 x ₹6).
• Upstox: ₹20 an order, so ₹240 a year (12 x ₹20).

On ₹60,000 invested over the year, Upstox's ₹240 is 0.4% of the money put in, Interactive Brokers' ₹72 is 0.12%, and Groww's ₹60 is 0.1%. GST is added on top of brokerage at every broker. From year two, Zerodha and Upstox add ₹300 plus GST in AMC on a non-BSDA account, which is about ₹354 a year with 18% GST. For someone who buys once a month and never sells, that puts Zerodha above Groww's ₹60 from year two, unless the account qualifies for a BSDA, where Zerodha's AMC is free on holdings up to ₹4 lakh. If you split the ₹5,000 across three stocks instead of one, multiply the per-order figures by three, since brokerage is charged per executed order.

These three are the apps most first-time investors in India compare, and they differ less on features than on where each one puts its charges.

• Zerodha: ₹0 delivery brokerage and ₹0 commission on direct mutual funds. You pay ₹15.34 per scrip when you sell, and ₹300 plus GST a year in AMC from year two on a non-BSDA account. Zerodha says it has more than 1.8 crore clients.
• Upstox: ₹20 per delivery order, ₹0 on mutual funds and IPO applications, free account opening, and the same AMC structure as Zerodha. Upstox says it crossed 2 crore customers in August 2026 and that close to 70% are first-time investors.
• Groww: ₹20 or 0.1% per order with a ₹5 minimum, ₹0 account opening and ₹0 account maintenance, and direct mutual funds at zero charges.

The arithmetic decides most of it. A buyer of large, infrequent lots pays least at Zerodha. A buyer of small monthly lots pays little at Groww per order, and nothing in maintenance. Upstox costs the most per delivery order of the three, and charges nothing on mutual funds or IPO applications. Zerodha's and Upstox's own pages, Zerodha with Walnut and Upstox with Walnut, cover each in more depth.

Interactive Brokers enters this comparison for a different reason: people who also want markets outside India often look at it first. On NSE stocks its rate is 1 basis point, with a ₹6 minimum and ₹20 maximum per order. That makes it cheaper than Upstox on most delivery orders and more expensive than Zerodha, which charges nothing on delivery.

• Small orders: on a ₹2,000 purchase, Zerodha charges ₹0, Interactive Brokers ₹6 (the minimum) and Upstox ₹20.
• Large orders: on a ₹5 lakh purchase, 1 bps is ₹50, so Interactive Brokers' ₹20 maximum applies. Upstox is also ₹20, and Zerodha is still ₹0.
• The app: Zerodha's Kite and the Upstox app are built for Indian retail investors. Interactive Brokers' platform was built for active and international traders and shows far more than a beginner needs.
• AI connections: Zerodha runs Kite MCP and Upstox runs Upstox MCP, both free connectors that let an assistant such as Claude read your account. Upstox MCP is read-only; Kite MCP is read-only apart from setting up GTT orders. Interactive Brokers offers an AI integration that drafts instructions you submit yourself. See which brokers have an AI assistant.

The Interactive Brokers review covers its global pricing and platform.

Upstox lists its prices per executed order. Equity delivery is ₹20, equity options are ₹20 flat, intraday is ₹20 or 0.1% (whichever is lower), and equity futures are ₹20 or 0.05% (whichever is lower). Mutual funds and IPO applications carry ₹0 brokerage.

Account opening is free, though Upstox notes that an account processing fee may apply during onboarding. AMC is ₹0 in the first year for newly onboarded customers and ₹300 plus GST a year after that on a non-BSDA account. Selling shares from your demat account carries a DP charge of ₹20 plus GST per scrip per day, split between CDSL and Upstox; intraday, futures and options trades carry no DP charge.

For a beginner, the line that matters most is the ₹20 on delivery, because that is the charge every monthly purchase pays. The broker fees guide sets Upstox next to the US brokers Walnut connects.

The fee table answers what each app costs. It does not answer which one fits a particular person, and the four apps here were each built with a different first-time investor in mind.

• Buying a few stocks or ETFs and holding them for years: Zerodha's ₹0 delivery brokerage means monthly purchases cost nothing in brokerage, and the BSDA rules keep maintenance free on holdings up to ₹4 lakh.
• Starting with very small monthly amounts: Groww's ₹5 minimum brokerage and ₹0 maintenance keep the fixed cost of a ₹1,000 or ₹2,000 purchase low, and there is no annual charge to wait out.
• Mutual funds first, shares later: Zerodha, Upstox and Groww all list zero commission on direct mutual funds, so the deciding factor is which app's fund screens and SIP setup feel clearer to you.
• Wanting markets outside India in the same account later: Interactive Brokers is the one built for that, at the cost of a much busier platform on day one.

Switching later is possible, since shares can be moved between demat accounts, but a transfer is paperwork and each account carries its own AMC while it stays open. Picking with some care at the start saves that step.

Buying shares in India takes two accounts that most apps open together. A trading account sits with a SEBI-registered stock broker and is where orders are placed. A demat account sits with a depository participant and is where the shares are held once they are bought. Zerodha, Upstox and Groww open both in one online application. Zerodha lists account opening for an individual as free.

SEBI's investor material on KYC and account opening sets out what the application involves:

• PAN. The PAN card is a mandatory document, and it also serves as proof of identity. No PAN, no account.
• KYC. Proof of identity and proof of address, submitted once. SEBI's guidance says investors are supposed to submit KYC documents only once, and the same record is used when you open an account somewhere else later.
• In-person verification. Compulsory for a trading or demat account, but it can be done online by webcam, and individuals completing e-KYC can do it over a video call. It is not required when KYC is completed through Aadhaar authentication with UIDAI.
• Nomination. The form lets you name the person who can claim the securities if something happens to you. It is a short step at sign-up and a much longer process for a family later if it is skipped.
• Your own email and mobile number. SEBI asks investors to give their own contact details, because that is where contract notes and depository statements arrive.

A bank account is linked during sign-up so money can move in and out. Once the account is live, the first statement from CDSL or NSDL is worth keeping: it is the independent record of what you own, separate from what the app shows.

Every delivery trade carries securities transaction tax. Zerodha's charges page lists STT on equity delivery at 0.1% on both the buy and the sell, along with stamp duty of 0.015% on the buy side, and these are the same at every broker because the government sets them. On a ₹5,000 purchase, STT is ₹5.

Profit on a sale is taxed as a capital gain, and how long you held the shares decides the rate. The rules below come from the Union Budget 2024-25 speech, which simplified capital gains taxation from July 2024:

• Held for more than a year: long term. Listed financial assets held for more than a year are classified as long term, and long-term gains are taxed at 12.5%.
• The yearly exemption. The budget raised the exemption on gains from certain listed financial assets to ₹1.25 lakh a year, so long-term gains on listed shares up to that amount in a financial year are not taxed.
• Held for a year or less: short term. Short-term gains on these assets are taxed at 20%.

The practical effect for a beginner is that patience is rewarded twice. Holding past the one-year mark moves a gain from 20% to 12.5%, and a modest portfolio's yearly long-term gains can fall entirely inside the ₹1.25 lakh exemption. Selling within a few months to lock in a small profit gives up both. Tax rules change from budget to budget, so the Income Tax Department's current guidance or a chartered accountant is the place to confirm the treatment for the year you sell.

Many first-time investors in India start with a mutual fund SIP rather than individual shares. A direct plan is bought from the fund house without a distributor, so it carries no distributor commission inside its expense ratio, and all three of Zerodha, Upstox and Groww let you buy direct plans for no charge from the app.

The cost that remains is the fund's own expense ratio, which is published on each scheme's factsheet and taken from the fund's assets rather than billed to you. Comparing two index funds that track the same index usually comes down to that ratio and to how closely each fund has followed its index. Zerodha's charges page lists ₹0 in both commission and DP charges on direct mutual funds, so a fund SIP there avoids the per-scrip fee that applies when shares are sold from a demat account.

SEBI's August 2026 study, Profitability of Individual Traders in the Equity Derivatives Segment (FY25 to FY26), is the clearest data on what happens when individuals trade F&O. Its findings:

• 87.7% of individual traders made net losses in FY26, down from 90.9% in FY25.
• Aggregate net losses for individuals were ₹91,685 crore in FY26, against a revised ₹1.12 lakh crore in FY25.
• Options trading accounted for 92% of aggregate individual losses, and 93% of individuals in the segment traded only options.
• Traders under 30 made up 43% of individual traders in FY26, and 89% of them were loss-makers.

The same apps that charge ₹0 or ₹20 to buy a share also offer options for ₹20 an order, a few taps away. The low price of an options order says nothing about the odds attached to it. This is why most beginner guides, including this one, compare apps on delivery investing and treat F&O as a separate decision.

Shares bought on delivery are credited to a demat account in your name, held at a depository: CDSL or NSDL. They are not the broker's assets. Zerodha lists its SEBI stock broker registration (INZ000031633) and depository participant registration (IN-DP-431-2019) on its site, and Upstox lists SEBI registration INZ000315837 and CDSL as its depository.

Before funding an account, the useful checks are that the broker shows a SEBI registration number, that it is a member of the exchanges it trades on, and that your holdings appear in the depository statement sent to you directly, not only inside the app. None of this protects against a fall in the value of what you own.

Some beginners want US companies as well as Indian ones. Money sent abroad to buy overseas shares falls under the Reserve Bank of India's Liberalised Remittance Scheme, which lets a resident individual remit up to USD 2,50,000 per financial year (April to March) for permitted transactions, including buying shares outside India. That limit is shared with travel, education and gifts, and a PAN is required.

For a beginner, the costs on a US purchase from India tend to sit in currency conversion and remittance charges rather than in brokerage. They vary by provider, so the provider's own fee disclosure is the place to read them before any money moves.

• Comparing brokerage and ignoring AMC and DP charges. A buyer who never sells pays more in AMC than brokerage at Zerodha; a frequent seller pays DP charges on every scrip sold.
• Splitting a small amount across many stocks. At ₹20 an order, ₹5,000 spread across five stocks costs ₹100, which is 2% of the purchase.
• Treating F&O as a faster version of investing. SEBI's data shows close to nine in ten individual traders lost money in each of the last two financial years.
• Missing the BSDA option. A small demat holding may qualify for a Basic Services Demat Account, which at Zerodha is free up to ₹4 lakh.
• Opening several apps at once. Each demat account carries its own AMC, and holdings spread across apps are harder to see as one portfolio.

Walnut is an AI investing app that connects to the brokerage you already use. It does not hold your money and is not a broker. With Zerodha, Upstox or Interactive Brokers connected, it reads your holdings in full, shows how each one has done against the S&P 500, flags any single holding above a quarter of the portfolio, gives a keep, trim or exit read on each position, and lets you ask the assistant about what you actually own. You sign in at the broker, and Walnut never sees the password.

Two limits are worth knowing. Walnut's benchmark is the S&P 500, so an all-Indian portfolio is measured against large US companies rather than the Nifty 50. And holdings from Zerodha, Upstox and Interactive Brokers arrive without cost basis, so Walnut shows price returns rather than profit and loss. Groww is not one of the brokers Walnut connects.

Trades at Zerodha, Upstox and Interactive Brokers stay at the broker: you place them in Kite, the Upstox app or Interactive Brokers' platform. Walnut places orders you approve at Public and Robinhood (through a Robinhood Agentic account), and also at E*Trade, tastytrade, Webull (US and Canada), moomoo, Questrade, Wealthsimple, Trading 212 and Stake Australia. The portfolio analysis guide shows what a read of your holdings looks like.

Fees are from each broker's own site, checked October 2026: Zerodha charges and about Zerodha; Upstox brokerage charges, about Upstox and its 2 crore customers press release; Groww pricing; Interactive Brokers India NSE commissions. Derivatives figures are from SEBI's Profitability of Individual Traders in the Equity Derivatives Segment (FY25 to FY26). Account opening requirements are from SEBI's investor presentation on KYC procedure for opening trading and demat accounts. Capital gains rates and the ₹1.25 lakh exemption are from the Union Budget 2024-25 speech; STT and stamp duty are from Zerodha's charges page. The remittance limit is from the Reserve Bank of India's LRS FAQ. Walnut is not a registered investment adviser, and this guide is educational, not personalized financial advice.