Surprised there isn't more love given to Merril Edge. If you have a Bank of America checking account, it links up for instant money transfers (meaning $ available to trade instantly) and if your portfolio is over $50k (including BoA checking, savings, and Meryl money combined) you get 30 free trades a month, with a 100k, 100 free trades a month. For indexers on this site that's more than enough. I haven't paid for a trade in years. Seems crazy to when you can get it free. Been sticking to Vanguard ETF versions mostly, but everything is offered for free trades. The platform is great for my purposes.
Agree that transferring might not be worth it...but something to think about if you trade a lot and are using BoA anyway or have 50k and are looking for free and seamless investing between bank and broker.
Btw, I use this for my taxable account only. Have fidelity for my 401k and Roth IRA. In fidelity accounts you are forced into iShares or their versions of the various index etfs to be free. They have many equivalents to Vanguard etfs as mentioned above so hasn't been too much trouble to avoid fees there either, but it does limit your fee-free choices.