Scalable Capital review: €0 savings plans, FREE or PRIME+

Scalable Capital is a low-cost choice for ETF savers in Germany and the Netherlands: savings plans cost €0, and the FREE broker charges €0.99 per order on its main venue. The catch is that it only trades on German venues, it isn’t available in Belgium or Ireland, and you can only get crypto through exchange-traded products.

This Scalable Capital review covers fees, plans, protection and tax for European investors, with a focus on Germany and the Netherlands. We checked the Dutch cost page, the German price list and the BaFin and ESMA registers on 23 October 2026. We haven’t opened a Scalable Capital account ourselves; the facts come from official documents. Investing involves risk, and past performance doesn’t predict future returns.

What is Scalable Capital?

Scalable Capital is a Munich-based bank, founded in 2014. Scalable Capital offers a self-directed broker app, a wealth management service (robo-advice) and an interest-bearing cash account. Scalable Capital Bank GmbH has been a licensed bank with deposit-taking authorisation since 10 September 2025.

The broker and the robo-advisor are two different products:

• Broker: you choose your own stocks, ETFs and savings plans, on a FREE or PRIME+ plan.
• Wealth (robo-advice): Scalable manages an ETF portfolio for you for 0.75% a year up to €100,000, 0.69% above €100,000 and 0.49% above €500,000. It suits a hands-off approach, but the yearly fee is higher than the broker’s.

Scalable Capital serves residents of Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, France, Italy and Spain. It’s not available in Belgium or Ireland, and it closed its UK retail platform in February 2021.

Is Scalable Capital safe? Regulation and asset protection

Scalable Capital is a German bank supervised by BaFin, the ECB and the Deutsche Bundesbank. BaFin first authorised it for investment services, including portfolio management, on 2 July 2015, extended that to custody, own-account trading and lending in 2023, and granted deposit-taking authorisation in 2025. For crypto, it notified BaFin under MiCA on 2 March 2026, but only for advice on crypto-assets.

Deposit guarantee scheme and securities custody

Your investments are client assets, not deposits. German securities sit in collective custody at Clearstream Banking AG, with you as co-owner; foreign securities are held in trust for you. If a bank can’t return securities, the German EdB covers 90% of claims from securities business up to €20,000.

Cash is protected by the deposit guarantee scheme:

• deposits with Scalable Capital Bank are covered up to €100,000 through the EdB;
• trust cash held at partner banks (including Deutsche Bank, HSBC Continental Europe, Münchener Hypothekenbank and NordLB) is covered up to €100,000 per bank, and PRIME+ spreads cash over up to five banks;
• without PRIME+, cash may also sit in UCITS money market funds, which have no deposit guarantee.

None of this protects you against falling prices.

Negative reviews and the 2020 data incident

Scalable’s record includes one serious incident. We don’t quote unverified negative reviews from app stores or forums, but this one is on the public record. On 16 October 2020 Scalable found that contact, account, tax ID and ID data had been exposed; it blamed insider knowledge and informed regulators and prosecutors. More than 33,000 customers were hit. In December 2021 a Munich court awarded one customer €2,500 in damages, a ruling that wasn’t final; we found no outcome for later cases. This is why our protection score is 7 rather than 9.

Scalable Capital fees: fee structure and plans

Scalable Capital’s fee structure has two parts: a monthly subscription (or none) and order fees per trade. There’s no custody fee on either plan. These are the fees on Scalable’s Dutch cost page and price list, checked on 23 October 2026:

Cost	FREE	PRIME+
Monthly fee	€0	€4.99
Order on European Investor Exchange (EIX)	€0.99	€0 from €250, else €0.99
PRIME ETF purchases (Amundi, iShares, Vanguard, Xtrackers) on EIX	€0 from €250, else €0.99	€0 from €250, else €0.99
Order on Xetra or gettex	€1.99	€1.99
Savings plans	€0 per execution, from €1	€0 per execution, from €1
Crypto ETP spread surcharge	0.99%	0.69%
Instant deposit (first €5,000)	0.99%	0.69%
Custody fees	€0	€0

Spreads and product costs come on top of every order. For FREE, the price list says “up to €1.99” on Xetra and gettex, while the Dutch cost page shows €1.99. The price list also shows a PRIME plan at €2.99 a month, billed yearly (€35.88), but the Dutch website shows only FREE and PRIME+, so it’s unclear whether Dutch clients can choose it.

FREE broker or PRIME+: when is the monthly subscription worth it?

Scalable Capital PRIME+ costs €59.88 a year (12 × €4.99), paid monthly. Commission-free purchases of PRIME ETFs from €250 (spreads and fund costs still apply) are already part of the FREE broker plan, so PRIME+ pays off mainly if you place many one-off orders of €250 or more in individual stocks or other ETFs on EIX: at €0.99 saved per order, you’d need about 61 such orders a year, roughly five a month, to break even on order fees alone.

Other PRIME+ extras are a lower crypto ETP surcharge (0.69%), a cheaper instant deposit and cash spread over up to five banks. If you only run savings plans, FREE already costs €0 per execution.

Worked example: €100 a month into an ETF savings plan

• 12 executions × €0 = €0 in order fees a year on FREE.
• On €1,200 invested you still pay the spread and the ETF’s running costs.
• Fractional savings plans run on EIX, so the full €100 goes into the ETF.

Worked example: €1,000 of a US stock

Scalable doesn’t route orders to US exchanges. US shares trade on German venues (EIX, gettex or Xetra) in euros, at the same tariff as European shares:

• FREE on EIX: €0.99 in order fees (0.10%), plus the spread.
• PRIME+ on EIX: €0, because the order is over €250, plus the spread.
• Xetra or gettex: €1.99.

Currency conversion is a separate cost: foreign-currency transactions at Scalable Capital, such as US dividends, are converted at its buy or sell rate plus a surcharge that the price list doesn’t quantify.

Worked example: €2,000 of a European share

Scalable has no direct Euronext access. A €2,000 order in a share that trades on a German venue costs €0.99 on EIX with FREE (0.05%), €0 with PRIME+, or €1.99 on Xetra. If a Dutch or Belgian small cap isn’t listed on those venues, you can’t buy it here.

Other costs

• Deposits: SEPA transfer and direct debit are free; instant deposits cost 0.99% (FREE) or 0.69% (PRIME+) on the first €5,000.
• Withdrawals: no fee listed.
• Securities transfer out: €0 plus third-party costs; a change of depository costs €24.99.
• Securities-backed credit: up to €250,000 at 3.75% with PRIME+ or 4.75% without (variable). Borrowing to invest magnifies losses.

Interest on uninvested cash

Scalable pays 2.60% a year, variable, on its Overnight account, with no cap, since 1 September 2026. The broker clearing account pays 0%, so you have to move money to the Overnight account to earn interest.

Worked example: €10,000 in the Overnight account for a year at an unchanged 2.60% earns €260 before tax. A German resident whose allowance is used up pays 26.375% withholding (€68.58), leaving €191.42 before church tax.

ETF savings plans

Scalable Capital offers ETF savings plans starting from €1, at €0 per execution, which makes automated savings plans the core part of the offer. Plans buy fractions on EIX, so small amounts are fully invested, and you can run them on FREE without a monthly fee. The ETF’s own running costs and the spread still apply.

Investment range for European investors

Scalable Capital offers stocks, ETFs, bonds and savings plans, with fractional shares, but only on German venues. What you can and can’t buy:

• Stocks and ETFs, including the PRIME ETFs from ETF providers Amundi, iShares, Vanguard and Xtrackers.
• Bonds.
• Crypto: only exchange-traded products (ETPs), with a 0.69–0.99% spread surcharge; Scalable doesn’t hold coins for you.
• No options, futures or CFDs.

Order flow and execution venues

Scalable Capital sends orders to three German venues. Its terms list the European Investor Exchange in Hanover as a category 1 venue and gettex and Xetra as category 2. Orders on EIX have the lowest order fees, but the price you get depends on the spread there.

The EU ban on payment for order flow applies from 30 June 2026. We haven’t found independent data on Scalable’s execution quality, so we can’t say how its spreads compare with traditional exchanges.

Tax reporting in Germany and the Netherlands

Scalable handles tax for German residents and gives Dutch residents a ready-made report.

• Germany: Scalable withholds German tax for German tax residents and issues a tax certificate. The rate is 26.375% including Soli, plus church tax where it applies. A Freistellungsauftrag lets you use the €1,000 Sparer-Pauschbetrag first.
• Netherlands: no Dutch tax is withheld, but you get a free annual tax report prepared by KPMG in the app inbox. You still declare your holdings in box 3; for 2026, the notional return on investments is 6.00%, taxed at 36% above €59,357 per person.
• Belgium: not offered, so there’s no TOB handling to worry about.

Account opening, mobile app and customer support

Account opening runs online and in the mobile app; the minimum savings plan is €1, and we found no other minimum.

Customer support runs through a support form in the app and on the website, a Dutch phone number, and email for non-clients (support-nl@scalable.capital). The help centre is available in German, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch. We haven’t tested the mobile app or support ourselves, and we don’t quote unverified negative reviews; if a complaint isn’t resolved, ask for a written answer and keep a record.

Who should use Scalable Capital?

Scalable Capital fits regular ETF savers in Germany and the Netherlands who want €0 savings plans and tax handled for them. It also suits investors who place several one-off orders of €250 or more a month and would earn back PRIME+.

Look elsewhere if you:

• live in Belgium or Ireland;
• want individual stocks that only trade on Euronext or US exchanges;
• want real crypto coins in your own wallet;
• trade options or futures.

Scalable Capital alternatives

These brokers fit better for some goals. Our ETF broker ranking compares the €0 savings plan brokers side by side.

• Trade Republic: also €0 savings plans, €1 orders, real crypto and branches in the Netherlands and Belgium.
• DEGIRO: around 50 exchanges, including Euronext, for €3 per order there, but no German tax withholding.
• Interactive Brokers: for advanced investors who want global markets, options and futures.
• Saxo: Dutch and Belgian branches, a wide range of exchanges and bonds.
• eToro: stocks and crypto in one app, with mostly dollar balances and a 0.75% conversion fee.
• Bitpanda: real crypto under MiCA licences in Austria and Germany.

By country, see the best brokers in Germany and the best brokers in the Netherlands.

Final verdict: who should use Scalable Capital?

Scalable Capital is a strong, low-cost route for ETF savers in Germany and the Netherlands: €0 savings plans, €0.99 orders on FREE and German tax withheld. The catch sits next to it: only German venues, an unquantified FX surcharge, crypto only via ETPs, and no service in Belgium or Ireland. That’s why it’s “turn here” for us rather than “this way”. Our methodology explains how we score brokers.