Update 8/6/25: Back down to $50 now
Update 3/4/22: Offer has increased from $50 to $101 (ht mangorunner)
The Offer
Direct Link to offer | Press Release
- Schwab Starter Kit offers new Schwab investors a
$50$101 bonus when they open a new Schwab account and fund it with $50 within 30 days from opening.
Schwab will deposit an additional $101 to invest in fractional shares ($10 in each of the top five S&P 500 companies by market cap) through Schwab Stock Slices. Schwab will automatically make that investment unless you instruct otherwise.
The Fine Print
- The Schwab Starter Kit™ offer is only available to eligible new customers.
- To be eligible to receive the $50 cash bonus, you must be an individual who does not have a Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (“Schwab”) account (other than a Schwab Stock Plan Services account) and who: (1) opens a Schwab One individual taxable retail brokerage account and (2) deposits at least $50 into that account within 30 days of enrolling in the offer (only outside assets new to Schwab qualify; assets transferred from affiliates other than Schwab Retirement Plan Services are excluded).
- The Schwab Starter Kit is intended to help you start investing. So with this offer, when you open your brokerage account, you will instruct Schwab to use the $50 cash bonus to place orders for you in the future to buy $10 fractional shares of each of the top 5 stocks by market capitalization in the S&P 500® Index through Schwab Stock Slices™ (unless the orders are cancelled by you -see details below). The top 5 stocks will change from time-to-time. To see the top 5 stocks at any time, go to www.schwab.com/starterkit.
- After you enroll in the offer, here’s what will happen: Two business days after your account is opened, Schwab will begin checking for qualifying deposits every business day. Once your qualifying deposit has been received, Schwab will credit the $50 cash.
- Schwab will place the 5 orders for you ($10 fractional share orders for each of the top 5 stocks in the S&P 500) at approximately 8:00 pm Eastern Time the day the cash bonus is credited to your account, provided you maintain at least $50 in your brokerage account at that time. You will have a short period of time (from approximately 8:00 pm Eastern Time until approximately 9:25 am the next trading day) to cancel the orders. To cancel the orders, you will need to go to the Order Status page on schwab.com or on any of Schwab’s other trading platforms or call a Schwab representative at 800-435-4000. If you cancel your orders, you will keep the $50 cash bonus and can save or invest it however you want. If you take no action, the orders will be executed shortly after market open the next trading day. You will then see the stocks reflected in your account and Schwab will send you trade confirmations for the trades.
Our Verdict
Nice, easy bonus here, especially for someone interested in opening a Schwab brokerage account. This is only for new Schwab customers and won’t work for existing users.
There’s also a separate Schwab offer for a bonus of between $100 – $1,000; that one requires large deposits to get. I don’t think you’d be able to do both of these offers so you’ll have to choose this easy $101 offer or the capital-intensive $100/$1,000 offer. We’ll add this offer as well to our List of Best Brokerage Bonuses.
Hat tip to reader Ryan
