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I don’t say this lightly — but yesterday I closed my Tastytrade account. After months of watching fills that just didn’t sit right with me, I made the call.
This wasn’t impulsive. It was a slow buildup of irritation every time I placed what should have been a simple trade and ended up with a fill I knew I shouldn’t be getting.
The Fill Problem Nobody Talks About
The thing that finally pushed me over the edge was the fills. Options fills on Tastytrade haven’t been good for me at all, and I’m not talking about minor slippage — I mean consistently getting filled at the bid when I sell, never better, not even once.
And honestly? It feels like Tastytrade is trading against you. It shouldn’t feel like your own broker is the counterparty working against your interests, yet that’s exactly how these fills started to feel.
Now, to be fair — technically, Tastytrade isn’t trading against you. Like Charles Schwab, they’re a broker, not a market maker, and they route orders to firms like Citadel Securities, Virtu or G1 Execution Services.
The reality is those firms pay for order flow, and the market maker becomes your counterparty. Their goal isn’t to “beat” you — it’s to capture the spread between the bid and ask.
Where the difference shows up is in execution quality. As of early this year, Charles Schwab has consistently ranked higher in price improvement statistics, with reports showing a large majority of equity orders receiving some level of price improvement.
If you want to verify this yourself, look up any broker’s “Rule 606 Disclosure.” This is the mandatory receipt that shows exactly which market makers your broker routes orders to — and who’s paying for that order flow.
What made it worse for me is that whenever I ran the exact same setup somewhere else, the difference was night and day. Compare that to what happens when I run the same setup through Charles Schwab — I put in market orders and consistently get fills improved somewhere inside the spread.
Why the Fills Actually Feel Different
When you sell, the bid is the floor — the price someone is willing to pay you. So when you get filled “closer to the ask,” what’s really happening is the broker is negotiating inside the spread on your behalf.
That’s where the routing philosophy starts to matter.
Tastytrade tends to prioritize speed and certainty of execution, which often means hitting the natural bid or ask immediately to make sure the trade goes through without delay.
Charles Schwab, on the other hand, uses a more aggressive price-improvement engine. If a spread is $1.00 bid and $1.10 ask, instead of instantly filling at $1.00, their system may work the order and find a fill at $1.05 or $1.07.
Over hundreds of trades, that difference — even just a few dollars per contract — adds up quickly and becomes the real money traders often overlook. If you’re running something like a wheel strategy, even $0.02 of slippage on a 10-contract position is $20.00 — enough to wipe out any commission savings from not being charged on the closing side.
What I’m Using Now and Why It’s Easier Than You Think
So where did I go? I’m now using the web-based Thinkorswim platform through Charles Schwab — not the heavy desktop version, and honestly, it hits a sweet spot.
People love to say Thinkorswim is complicated. The downloadable platform is, and I can’t stand it, but the simple web-based version is a piece of cake — clean, intuitive, and straightforward.
You don’t need advanced screens, complicated tools or a learning curve that feels like studying for the bar exam. You just need a platform that doesn’t skim from you on the fills and quietly eat into your returns.
If you’re an active trader — especially if you’re running wheels or selling premium — your fills matter more than you think. A broker that consistently gives you worse fills is costing you real money trade after trade.
So take a hard look at your fills. If something feels off, trust that feeling — there’s almost always a reason.
Trade well,
Jack Carter
Jack Carter Trading
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