Financial research concept

Brokerage Client Assets

Brokerage client assets measure customer assets associated with a brokerage platform under the issuer's reported scope.

By Lee BaileyPublished Sep 22, 2026
Research context

See what supports this page, how current it is, and where comparable or historical context is available.

Research date
Sep 22, 2026Use the dated article and cited sources for the definition, examples, and stated limitations.
Operating-model context
12 connected conceptsPart of the reviewed Online Brokerage Operating Model; issuer definitions remain distinct where disclosed.
Company examples
3 reviewed companiesRelationships reflect supported examples, not a normalized cross-company KPI ranking.
  1. Why it matters
  2. Investor caution
  3. Part of the Online Brokerage Operating Model
  4. See It in Company Research
  5. Continue Research

Brokerage client assets measure customer assets associated with a brokerage platform under the issuer's reported scope.

Schwab reports client assets. Interactive Brokers reports customer equity. Robinhood reports Total Platform Assets, which includes assets held by users plus qualifying assets managed by RIAs using TradePMR that are not necessarily custodied by Robinhood.

Why it matters

Client assets provide a scale measure for the economic base from which a broker can earn asset-based fees, interest-related revenue, lending income, trading revenue, or subscriptions.

Investor caution

Client assets, customer equity, and platform assets are not interchangeable accounting measures.

Custody scope, advisory assets, leverage, receivables, RIA assets, and product coverage differ across issuers.

Sources:

Client assets measure platform scale under issuer-specific definitions, not brokerage revenue.

Part of the Online Brokerage Operating Model

Connect customer and asset growth, trading engagement, margin and cash balances, and recurring or per-customer monetization to understand online brokerage economics.

How the model fits together
  • Customer scale and asset gathering: Account count shows customer-base scale, client assets show the economic base on platform, and net new assets or net deposits show customer funding flows under issuer-specific methodologies. Market appreciation can increase client assets without new customer funding, so asset growth should not be read as pure organic gathering.
  • Trading engagement and transaction monetization: Daily average revenue trades measure trading flow, trades per account normalize activity by the eligible customer base, and commission per order measures one form of per-trade monetization. These measures are not fully comparable across brokers because order-counting rules and monetization channels differ.
  • Cash, lending, and customer monetization: Client cash balances and cash sweep balances describe different customer-liquidity channels, while margin loans show collateralized customer borrowing. ARPU and paid subscription customers add customer-level and recurring monetization context. None of these measures alone captures total brokerage profitability, and issuer scopes remain distinct.

See It in Company Research

These companies are examples of how the concept is reported or discussed in public filings. Definitions can differ by issuer; these links open company research rather than a normalized metric comparison.

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