The model applies the same published framework to all ten platforms. It estimates dollar value under a scenario; it does not declare one brokerage universally best.
Invested assets, uninvested cash, and margin debit are average balances held for twelve months. Monthly card spending, options contracts, and ATM fees are multiplied by twelve. IRA contributions and retirement-account transfers are annual flows. Results are pre-tax.
Set & forget uses the broker's automatic sweep or core position. Yield optimized uses the user-selected split between that automatic position and the highest-yield broadly accessible affiliated vehicle modeled for each broker. The default optimized split is 10% automatic and 90% highest-yield. Current yields are annualized for twelve months without forecasting future rate changes.
The model uses a mainstream linked card when a brokerage relationship has one and prices only published rewards and credits that can be tied to the entered spending. Category-specific rewards use the disclosed standardized spending basket. High-fee, travel-oriented premium cards and preference-dependent travel benefits remain outside scope.
Published asset tiers, enrollment requirements, subscriptions, checking-account requirements, approval rules, and benefit caps are applied when they can be represented consistently. Relationship assets include modeled invested assets and cash. A benefit is not priced merely because a customer might negotiate it.
Ongoing annual excludes temporary acquisition offers. Year one + offers includes the highest eligible overlapping incentive instead of stacking promotions on the same transferred assets. Matches are capped and conditioned according to published terms, including subscription and holding-period requirements.
Options costs use annual contract volume and published per-contract pricing. Margin interest uses published debit tiers. Merrill uses the public relationship-assets and margin-debit estimator. When a broker requires a custom quote, the nearest public rate is carried forward rather than inventing an unpublished discount.
The graph uses a logarithmic asset scale from $25,000 to $3 million. Cash declines gradually from 20% to 8% of assets, monthly card spending rises gradually from $2,000 to $8,000, and annual IRA contributions rise gradually from $1,500 to $7,500. Promotion thresholds remain discrete in the first-year view.
Execution quality, service, research, platform experience, tax-lot tools, securities-lending income, IPO access, security availability, and international-market breadth can be material. Their value depends on behavior, preferences, or specific holdings, so they are disclosed in caveats instead of assigned a universal dollar value.
Material model inputs link to official broker or issuer pages. Each release records its verification date in the interface. If a page becomes unavailable, the last verified value can remain temporarily only when its date and limitation stay visible.