Pros and cons of discount brokerages vs established brokerages

I am speculating that banks benefit more from the assets they have under management than from commission on trades. Banks will not get a more favorable stock price unless they are also acting as trader in the stock, in which case they will benefit from the spread.

Full service (commission) brokers provide more services than discount brokers. These include research, tax and retirement planning, investment advice, IPOs, managed money, and personal interaction.

Discount brokers offer low to no commissions and fewer services than a full service broker. They are for the self directed investor/trader.

There's a wide spectrum of offerings from both with some degree of overlap. For example, discount brokers offer annuities and managed money but these are usually less sophisticated products than offered by full service brokers.

Big banks do not get you more favorable stock prices when making trades. Orders are sent to a stock exchange and they are filled at prevailing prices.

Wealthsimple is a robo-advisor that charges a percentage of assets. Basically a full fee financial advisor that uses computer models instead of humans to save money and charge lower fees.

Robinhood is a US broker unavailable in Canada. The no fee model is based on exchanges paying to fill your orders or internal matching.

TD Webbroker is not a broker but a trading platform of a discount broker now called TD Direct Investing. As a discount broker they can't give you trading advice and charge 9.95 or 6.95 per trade regardless of trade size. Most people go with a big bank broker out of simplicity since they already have a bank account. They are all almost identical.

AFAIK all brokers will get some payment for order flow and do some internal matching. This is supposed to be regulated to make sure you get the best available price at a given time.