Both Qtrade Direct Investing and Wealthsimple are excellent platforms to use for implementing your DIY investing plan. This page will explain some of the reasons why. They have many things in common. However, there are also some differences that may cause you to lean towards one or the other. I use both platforms for our investing, and this is based on my opinion and observations. I have also tested multiple brokerages over the years and settled on Qtrade and Wealthsimple to partner with, as my favorites.
Below is a detailed review, and I have also included a visual aid at the end that highlights some high-level differences that may nudge you towards one or the other.
Are Wealthsimple & Qtrade Safe?
Both Wealthsimple and Qtrade are Canadian-owned. Qtrade has been around since 2000 and is now owned by Aviso Wealth, which manages $740 billion in assets. Wealthsimple has been around since 2014, but has been rapidly growing. Since 2020, Wealthsimple has rapidly expanded its offerings and reported $100 billion in AUM in 2025.
CIPF Coverage for Investments
They are both regulated by the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO). That means that they are subject to strict regulation and are also members of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF). The CIPF covers up to $1 million in losses per account group. So, that could be up to $3 million if you have general accounts, an RESP, and retirement accounts. That is per person, so double if you are a couple with your own accounts.
While it is reassuring, it is likely moot because multiple things would have to go majorly wrong for assets to go missing. Even if a brokerage goes bankrupt, your assets should remain available and be transferred to a successor brokerage. They did not own your assets; they were just custodians (like a warehouse holding them). CIPF does not protect against losses due to bad investment decisions, crypto, or market losses. I have written more about CIPF elsewhere.
Wealthsimple Coverage for Chequing & Savings Accounts
In addition to investments, Wealthsimple also has savings and chequing accounts. While they are not a bank, they spread your money out amongst their banking partners. Those partners are covered by the Canadian Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC). Normally, CDIC covers up to $100K per account type per person per institution. Because Wealthsimple uses multiple institutions, they effectively bump the coverage to a million dollars per person per account type. When I previously wrote about CDIC insurance, one downside of spreading out money to get more coverage was added complexity. Wealthsimple makes that seamless for you! Any US dollar funds are covered using their CIPF membership.
Opening Accounts: Qtrade vs Wealthsimple
Personal Accounts
The account opening process at either Qtrade or Wealthsimple is pretty straightforward. Especially for personal accounts. If you use my referral code for Qtrade or Wealthsimple, it takes you directly to their landing page, where you create a login & password. For Wealthsimple, there is an additional small bonus for using the link, but you may have to sign up in-app to access their additional bonus offers. For Qtrade, using my link automatically applies their best bonus offer.
The landing page then takes you to their account-opening “wizard”. You have to select an account type to open. The first account you open takes the longest time because you have to answer the usual “know your client” questions about income, assets, and knowledge level. That takes about fifteen to thirty minutes if you have done this sort of thing before. Qtrade takes a little longer because they verify your identity with a government photo ID. That is a plus in terms of security, but also takes a few more minutes.
Once you have opened your first account, you can open more accounts from within the app or on the desktop dashboard. The basic information auto-populates from your previous account opening. So, this takes only a few minutes unless you get stuck on a question. I have common answers to questions, along with education, in my Wealthsimple-specific or Qtrade-specific guides. Qtrade asks important questions during onboarding, such as naming your successor holder or beneficiary for registered accounts. With Wealthsimple, you have to think of that on your own and do it.
Corporate Accounts
I have to give the edge here to Wealthsimple for corporate accounts. They have made this an online process. With corporate accounts, there is additional work and compliance questions to answer. This is done using DocuSign with Wealthsimple. Wealthsimple also commonly applies its bonus offers to corporate accounts, while that is variable for Qtrade.
Qtrade still has a paper process. Either way, there are a few questions about US tax status that people commonly get stuck on. I answer those in my guide. I also streamlined the paper process with a page that has a step-by-step guide for opening a corporate account at Qtrade, links to the relevant forms, partially filled-in common answers, and a mailing address to the people there who handle corporate accounts.
Informal Trust Account for Kids
This is an option that Qtrade has, but Wealthsimple currently does not. An informal trust is an account owned by an adult “in trust for” a minor, usually a parent for a kid. Similar to how kids can open bank accounts via their parents (actually an informal trust). I have written more about informal trusts, including the paperwork for Qtrade. We have used these for our kids to learn about saving and ETF investing using money they’ve gotten as gifts or from student jobs.
Transferring To Qtrade vs Wealthsimple
By far, the part of making the switch to DIY investing that intimidates and frustrates people the most is getting their assets out of the clutches of other institutions and transferring them.
Attempts to “Save the Account”
If under advisor management, there are often attempts to save the account. Common arguments used to save an account include comparing its performance to a carefully chosen benchmark and timeframe to make it look good. There is overwhelming evidence about how and why active managers fail to consistently beat comparable benchmarks over long periods. They may also try to scare you into thinking investing is more complicated than it should be. Read the DIY investing basics section, if you haven’t already.
Another strategy is to scare you about taxes from selling in a personal or corporate taxable account. With a corporation, it is not usually an issue. Half of a large capital gain can be paid out as a tax-free capital dividend. That is usually a bonus because you can use it pay off personal debt, catch up on RRSP/TFSA room, or invest personally. If your goal is to keep as much as possible in the corporation, you could spend the capital dividend and reduce salary and/or taxable dividends, leaving more in the corporation! People often harvest corporate capital gains on purpose for these reasons. For a personal account, changes to reduce fees and improve your portfolio moving forward usually overcome capital gains taxes quickly. Then you pull ahead, hopefully compounding over many years – your investing timeline is usually your lifespan. You don’t just sell your portfolio the day you retire.
You Don’t Need to Have an Awkward Conversation
Most financial advisors are nice people. If you have been working with them for a while, you probably have a relationship with them, and breaking up is hard to do. When you transfer an account, you submit the request through Qtrade or Wealthsimple, and they contact your old brokerage to arrange the transfer. You don’t have to talk to them if you don’t want to. However, you can if you want to.
If you do talk about leaving your old advisor, a professional will usually be gracious about it. It isn’t a personal slight – especially if they understand the literature around active vs passive management (shockingly, many do not). If you feel guilty, remember that they would not work for you at a low cost because they like you; you should not pay excessively for their services because you like them. They may present arguments for the value of their services in planning and support. Those may be valid arguments. However, consider the cost (in dollars) versus your ability to do the tasks, and the value of your time.
The Account Transfer Process & Timeline
This is often where people get a little antsy and frustrated. You’ve worked up the courage to DIY, maybe you had an awkward conversation, and you are chomping at the bit to get going. The process is shown below. The industry standard to complete that timeline is 20 business days (basically a month). Having used multiple brokerages myself and helped many people transfer to DIY, I can tell you that it is not usually faster than 20 business days unless you get lucky. That is the same across all brokerages, and most hang-ups seem to happen on the sending brokerage side. I have noticed that transfers from other online brokerages tend to be quick. Transfers from the big banks can be slower and more prone to internal communication problems that no one wants to take responsibility for. I find it helpful to contact my new brokerage’s customer support after a couple of weeks to follow up and confirm that things are on track.
The time to complete the transfer request can vary. If it is a full transfer all-in-kind (like stocks, ETFs, or non-proprietary mutual funds) or all-in-cash (proprietary mutual funds, like from the banks, get sold and the cash transferred), it is simple and quick.
For Qtrade, you just need to enter the sending account number and approximate account value. They suggest you upload a picture of the account statement – that is optional, but helps a smooth transfer. For Wealthsimple, you can do the same process. Sometimes, Wealthsimple’s site can connect directly to your sending brokerage site and select the account and assets to transfer, which is pretty slick and helpful if you are doing a partial transfer. That works for most of the online brokerages, but often not for those using older technology (eg. MD Management and some of the big banks).
Transfer Fee Reimbursement
Both Qtrade and Wealthsimple will reimburse transfer fees.
For Qtrade, it is up to $150 plus HST (the usual fee) per account if you transfer $15,000 or more to that account. Importantly, CAD is reimbursed in $CAD and $USD to $USD accounts. To get this, you send a copy or photo of the fee on your sending institution’s account history or statement to their customer support email.
For Wealthsimple, it is also up to $150 plus HST per account if you transfer $25,000 or more to that account. They automatically apply the transfer reimbursement to a CAD account, which is nice. However, I also had to contact them to get reimbursed for both the CAD and USD sides of my accounts – they had just reimbursed one of my two transfer fees.
Customer Support
I have had to use customer support at some point with every platform that I’ve tried. Some glitch or trying to do something less common that you can’t figure out is basically inevitable – for me anyway. This is a key requirement for me. Qtrade has consistently ranked higher than Wealthsimple according to Surviscor and the Globe and Mail. That said, I have used both, and they have worked well for me. We’ll see how Wealthsimple moves up the rankings as they are around longer. There are some differences in their customer service.
Qtrade offers email and phone customer support (you get their premier support if you use my affiliate link). My preference is email because I like to send it at my convenience and use the reply when I am ready to deal with it. As opposed to using a phone. Wealthsimple has a chatbot and phone option. I have found the chatbot useful for informational questions, but the phone line is needed to fix issues. There is no published email support anymore. I have found the chatbot surprisingly useful for simple questions. When I have called customer support, they have been responsive.
Utility & Ease of Investing
Overview
Both platforms are easy to use once you get set up. However, there are some important differences in process and capability. The big takeaway is that Qtrade has a really mature and deep suite of investment accounts and tools. That would appeal to someone looking to conduct research, tweak their portfolio, and take advantage of nuanced efficiencies. In contrast, Wealthsimple has a simplified interface that is extremely user-friendly and less intimidating for someone looking to get started and stick with basic ETF investing. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have been able to point out multiple gaps in Wealthsimple’s self-directed offerings. However, they have filled most of them over the past year. I was part of Beta Testing for many of the accounts, and while newer, the execution has been excellent.
The App & Desktop Interface
Wealthsimple is famous for its nice app. Qtrade did a major app upgrade in 2024. Honestly, I have to give them a tie on this one. They are both easy to use, aesthetically pleasing, and highly functional. That said, I am not a fan of using a mobile device for investing. I don’t think people should invest on the fly, and I personally like to see things on a big screen, like a desktop. A larger screen helps me have better situational awareness, and I am less prone to errors when typing on a real keyboard.
The Wealthsimple desktop interface is more aesthetically pleasing. It has lots of whitespace, large fonts, and nice curves and shadowing. Wealthsimple also has ads for its various products and promotions on the dashboard. The Qtrade dashboard is also clean-looking, but it is more utilitarian. That is a positive for some of the functionality. For example, on Qtrade’s account summary view, you can see the balance of the holdings and any uninvested cash across accounts at a glance. With Wealthsimple, I have to click through each account to see if there is cash lying around. I manage multiple accounts for my family, and this helps keep the cash drag to a minimum. Both platforms can show your accounts and the accounts in your family for which you have trading authority.
Tools & Research
Both platforms have easy-to-use, visible watchlists. Beyond that, Qtrade has a bunch of other portfolio analysis and research tools, while Wealthsimple does not.
The front-facing data for buying and selling on Wealthsimple is level 1. Qtrade has that, plus level 2 data that shows the order flow, including bids and asks.
Qtrade has a news feed, market commentary, analyst reports, and fund research tools. I personally use broad index ETFs and try to ignore news, market commentary, and analyst reports. However, this would be useful for more active investors who want that type of information. That said, I have to confess to using their portfolio analyzer tool now and then for entertainment purposes.
Qtrade also has a suite of some fun and useful planning tools. For example, their life insurance needs analyzer compares your projected liabilities with your projected portfolio growth. That is probably my favorite, but there are other simple, use-saving, and retirement-planning tools. Not to the level of sophistication of planning software, but fun and easy to use for some high-level projections.
Available Account Types
Qtrade has long offered a full range of account types you may want to use. Wealthsimple recently expanded its offerings to address some gaps that it previously had. With the exception of an Individual Pension Plan (IPP), which Qtrade used to offer, and a Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP), both Qtrade and Wealthsimple offer the account types you would want for investing.
Canadian & US Dollar Accounts
Both have $USD and $CAD accounts. At Wealthsimple, you have to opt-in on their app. That costs $10 per month or is free after you reach their premium tier ($100K). At Qtrade, there is only a fee for USD registered accounts (TFSA/RRSP/FHSA) of $15US/quarter/account, but it is waived if you qualify for Investor Plus ($500K across household accounts, including a corporation if at your home address). Honestly, you likely do not need a $USD TFSA or FHSA, and a $USD RRSP is mostly useful when you have a large enough account to make holding US-listed ETFs to save on foreign withholding taxes worth the effort (generally, a few hundred thousand dollars).
Wealthsimple uses a single account that can hold both currencies, while Qtrade uses a separate account for each currency. Wealthsimple allows conversions between USD and CAD, but the cost is higher than using Norbert’s Gambit on Qtrade. Norbert’s gambit costs up to 0.2% hidden in the bid-ask spread. Currency exchange on Wealthsimple currently uses its corporate exchange rate, which is the spot rate plus a spread. There is a currency exchange fee on top of that. The fee varies between 0% for over $100K to 1.5% for under $10K conversions. Wealthsimple plans to implement a Norbert’s gambit option later this year.
Trading Fees & Execution
Both have no commissions for buying or selling publicly traded securities. Again, Wealthsimple is a bit easier, while Qtrade offers more details for buying and selling.
Wealthsimple users can buy and sell fractional shares. That means you can click a button to spend all of your available cash. In contrast, with Qtrade, you have to divide your money by the share price to calculate how many shares to buy, then enter that number. It is simple math, but it usually leaves a few dollars of cash lying around. While convenient, buying fractional shares is basically Wealthsimple batching some purchases and splitting the shares. So, it is not instantaneous, and there must be some hidden cost (likely bid-ask spread) embedded in doing that.
Qtrade Direct Investing users can buy and sell mutual funds, but Wealthsimple’s direct investing users cannot. While people get hung up on ETFs vs mutual funds, it is not the structure that matters, but the fees and strategy. For example, Vanguard’s VIC1000 holds the VEQT ETF for the same cost and strategy. One advantage of a mutual fund is that you can invest a fixed dollar amount and receive fractional shares. So, a different way of achieving the same outcome as fractional ETF shares. When you place a buy/sell order for a mutual fund, it completes at the end of the trading day. With mutual funds, you can also automate deposits and purchases. That may be attractive for those whose work makes it difficult to find the time to buy/sell during the day, and also reduces the risk of you procrastinating or market-timing.
Consolidating Your Banking & Investing
Underlying many of the differences between Qtrade and Wealthsimple is their focus. Qtrade has been very focused on self-directed investing and has more depth in that regard. Wealthsimple has been building a house for all of your financial needs. Many people are focused on keeping their investments with their bank, even though their direct investing platform may be clunky, customer service is often worse, and they pay higher trading costs. That has been a common theme across independent ratings. Still, there are some advantages. If they are important to you, Wealthsimple offers the best of both worlds.
Advantages of Banking & Investing at Wealthsimple
Here are some advantages of having it all at Wealthsimple. You can see all your money on one platform and move money instantly between your savings or chequing account and your investing accounts. That may take a day, or several days, with other platforms depending on how much you have and how you do it. The remaining missing link for Wealthsimple is a corporate chequing account for your day-to-day corporate business transactions. However, that is in beta-testing. So, it is coming.
Their savings accounts pay attractive interest rates, particularly if you have more assets at Wealthsimple. Even their chequing accounts pay higher rates than the big banks. Plus, you get their innovative solution to get $1MM in CDIC coverage instead of the usual $100K.
Other Wealthsimple Offerings
Wealthsimple has some of the other things you’d expect from a bank. Like a credit card. They also support Interac e-transfers and bill payments. They have tax services for personal tax filing. The filing needs should be “simplish”, not complex, like for a corporation or business. They have a partnership with a mortgage provider. Not my thing, but they can even house cryptocurrencies.
Incentives & Perks
There are some relatively static perks. Plus, limited-time promotional offers from both Wealthsimple and Qtrade. Competition have been fierce, and escalated over the past couple of years. Great news for customers.
Static Perks
Wealthsimple has three tiers: Core ($1), Premium ($100K), and Generation ($500K). I am focused on DIY investing, but the increasing tiers lower the management fee on Wealthsimple’s managed portfolios. Your total cost is that management fee plus the fees embedded in the underlying products. For DIYers, there are still some perks. You get a higher interest rate if you have a savings account with them. Their USD accounts become free once you hit the Premium tier.
Both Wealthsimple and Qtrade also have partner perks. You unlock the better ones at Wealthsimple as you move up tiers. Qtrade also has partners that provide discounts on insurance, credit monitoring, wills etc.
Special Offers For Using My Link
If you use my Wealthsimple referral link you get a $25 bonus in addition to being able to sign up for their active promotion.
If you use my Qtrade partner link, opening an account from that landing page applies their best promotion, and you get access to Qtrade’s Premiere Support number and email (Loonie Doctor affiliated accounts only or if >$500K).
Promotional Offers
These are constantly changing. It is very important to read their terms and conditions. For example, with the cash back offers, there is usually a large number to grab your attention. However, you should read what the required holding period is, when they pay the bonus, and what the maximum cap on the bonus amount. For example, 3% over 5 years may not appeal to you as much as 2% over two years. You should also note which account types qualify, whether it applies to existing customers, and whether it applies to all deposits or just transfers from competing brokerages. The big cash back offers seem to pop up a few times per year and the money can be substantial. In between, there may be smaller offers.
Qtrade vs Wealthsimple: Which One Suits You?
I honestly don’t think that you would go wrong with either option. They are similar in many ways. I personally use both and am happy with them for what I do. To help, below is an interactive visual aid that highlights some of the main differences. For details, you can look back to the preceding sections.
If you use my link by clicking the relevant icon below, I get a referral fee at no cost to you. In fact, you get $25 for Wealthsimple or premier support access for Qtrade in addition to their promotional offers.
