(Update 1/14/11: OptionsHouse recently increased their commission from $2.95 to $3.95)

Thats how much itll cost you to make a trade at OptionsHouse .

Thats pretty cheap. TradeKing is currently my go-to broker and they charge $4.95 a trade, 67% more than OptionsHouse. Zecco. which is free if you meet their stringent requirements, is the only one thats cheaper and they can never seem to get their customer service issues resolved.

Background

OptionsHouse is member of SIPC. which means your investments are protected by SIPC insurance up to $500,000 and $100,000 of it can be in cash, and they have excess SIPC Insurance of $200,000,000 in aggregate across all customer accounts. They were founded by PEAK6 Investments, L.P. an options-trading firm and they claim to be one of the largest in terms of volume.

Prices

Ive already mentioned the $2.95 stock trades, which is one of the cheapest around, but what about options trades? OptionsHouses $9.95 flat-rate is competitive with many other discount brokers and beats all the full service ones. OptionsXpress charges $12.95 and TradeKing charges $4.95 plus $0.65 per contract. Whats interesting about OptionsHouse is that their price is a flat-rate, whereas most others charge a base fee plus a smaller fee for each contract.

Tools

I dont have an account there so I cant do any further digging but their tools all appear to be very options-centric:

You can watch a video tour of the site here. One quick warning, it auto-plays so watch the volume on your computer. Also, a look at the tools starts about 35 seconds in of the three and a half minute video.

Awards

In terms of awards, which I dont think is ever a good way to judge a bank, OptionsHouse recently was awarded four and a half stars by Barrons and considered the best for options traders. They beat out thinkorswim, optionsXpress, E*Trade. and Charles Schwab. From the article:

As its name suggests, OptionsHouse has a lot of great tools for the options trader. Backed by market maker PEAK6, this broker lets its retail customers use quite a few professional-level tools. Building a spread is very intuitive on this system, as is rolling a call or put from one strike to another. The sites motto is Fast matters, and that goes for everything from finding possible trades to populating an order ticket to executing the trade itself.

Its spawned a discussion on Fatwallet with a handful of people stating theyve been happy with the service. People have reported good experiences with their customer service (one person even calling out Zecco) and calling it a good alternative to Scottrade. As more people use the service, that thread will likely grow with more anecdotes and opinions.

Have you used OptionsHouse? Ive been looking to get more into options trading so Id love to hear your feedback if youve used OptionsHouse.