Vested vs INDmoney vs IBKR vs Rovia: best US stock platform for Indians

There are roughly twenty platforms that claim they let Indians invest in US stocks. In practice, four are worth a serious look: Vested, INDmoney, Interactive Brokers (IBKR), and Rovia. The other sixteen are either niche, unregulated, defunct, or thin wrappers over the same underlying US partner brokers as the big four.

This post compares all four head-to-head on the dimensions that actually matter — not the marketing-friendly ones.

Just deciding between two of them? Jump to the focused pairwise comparison: Vested vs IBKR, Vested vs INDmoney, Rovia vs Vested, IBKR vs INDmoney, Rovia vs IBKR, Rovia vs INDmoney. Or browse the full comparison hub.

A disclosure upfront: Vested.blog is the editorial publication of Rovia. We've tried to keep this comparison honest — Rovia is the newest of the four and there are dimensions where the more established platforms are still ahead. We'll flag those as we go.

How the platforms are actually structured

Before comparing them, it helps to understand the underlying plumbing.

Vested and INDmoney

Both are SEBI-registered Indian platforms that act as intermediaries. When you buy AAPL on Vested or INDmoney, the trade actually flows through:

You → Vested or INDmoney (Indian platform) → US partner broker (DriveWealth, Alpaca, or similar) → NYSE/NASDAQ

Vested's US broker is VF Securities, Inc. (a FINRA/SIPC member that operates as an introducing broker), with DriveWealth as the clearing and custody firm. INDmoney partners with both Alpaca Securities and DriveWealth. DriveWealth and Alpaca are licensed US broker-dealers. Your shares are held at the US clearing broker, in your name, in a sub-account. The Indian platform provides the UI, customer support, KYC, and the regulatory wrapper that makes it work for Indian residents.

This means:

• Your shares are real, in your name, at a real US broker.
• If Vested/INDmoney goes under, your shares stay at the US broker — but you'd have to deal with that broker directly to access them.
• The Indian platform takes a cut on FX and sometimes commissions; that's how they make money.

Rovia

Rovia follows the same architectural pattern as Vested and INDmoney, but partners exclusively with Alpaca Securities.

You → Rovia (Indian platform) → Alpaca Securities (US broker) → NYSE/NASDAQ

Alpaca is a US-licensed clearing broker (think of them as the AWS of US brokerage — they provide white-labeled brokerage to platforms). The structurally interesting bit is that Alpaca supports inbound ACATS for non-US-resident accounts. That means if you have RSUs at Fidelity, E*TRADE, or Morgan Stanley, you can transfer them into your Rovia account without selling first. We covered the details in the share-transfer post.

Rovia's positioning is narrower than the others: built specifically for Indian residents holding US RSUs, with lot-level tax tooling as the core differentiator rather than the breadth of US-stock access. If you're a general retail investor without RSU exposure, Rovia is over-engineered for your use case. If you're holding employer stock, the RSU-specific features are why it exists.

Interactive Brokers

IBKR is a direct US broker. You're a customer of IBKR — there's no Indian intermediary.

You → Interactive Brokers (US broker) → NYSE/NASDAQ/global exchanges

IBKR has an Indian entity (IBKR India Pvt Ltd) for legal and tax service purposes, but for US stock trading you onboard with the US arm directly. You sign W-8BEN with IBKR. You receive 1099 forms from IBKR. You handle tax filings yourself.

The comparison, dimension by dimension

Onboarding time and difficulty

Platform	Time to first trade	Difficulty (1-5)
Vested	30 min - 2 days	1
INDmoney	30 min - 2 days	1
Rovia	1 - 3 days	1
Interactive Brokers	5 - 10 business days	4

Vested and INDmoney are paved roads. PAN, Aadhaar, bank account, video KYC — all of it lives in their app. Most users are trading within 24–48 hours.

IBKR's onboarding is rigorous because IBKR is a serious US broker treating you as a serious investor. Expect:

• Detailed financial questionnaire (income, net worth, investing experience).
• W-8BEN treaty form upload.
• Source of funds documentation.
• Possibly back-and-forth with IBKR's compliance team if you put numbers they want to verify.

This is not bad. It's just slower.

FX markup — where the real cost lives

This is the biggest cost differential between the four. When you remit Rs 10 lakh to your broker, the platform converts INR to USD at some rate. The difference between the rate they give you and the live interbank rate is the FX markup, and it's where most of the platforms make their money.

Platform	Typical FX markup vs. interbank (inbound LRS)
Vested	75 - 100 paise per USD
INDmoney	50 - 80 paise per USD
Rovia	50 - 60 paise per USD on inbound LRS; 0 platform fee on outbound repatriation
Interactive Brokers	1 - 5 paise per USD

On a Rs 10 lakh remittance (~$11,976 at Rs 83.5):

Platform	FX markup cost (inbound LRS)
Vested (75p)	Rs 8,982
INDmoney (60p)	Rs 7,186
Rovia (55p inbound)	Rs 6,587
IBKR (3p)	Rs 359

The inbound LRS leg (INR to USD) is where most Indian-aware platforms make their FX revenue. Rovia is roughly comparable to INDmoney here, slightly tighter on average.

Where Rovia diverges structurally is on the outbound repatriation leg (USD to INR), where Rovia takes 0 platform fee on the conversion — you pay only your Indian bank's FX rate (which you can negotiate, especially with HNI banking) or whatever the wire-provider charges. Vested and INDmoney bundle FX markup into both directions; Rovia and IBKR don't.

For a long-hold investor, FX is a one-time-per-remittance cost on the inbound leg and a one-time cost again on outbound — not a recurring drag like brokerage commissions. The cumulative round-trip impact is meaningful for larger deployments: on a Rs 50 lakh annual investing budget, IBKR saves roughly Rs 40,000 a year vs. Vested over the inbound leg alone.

Brokerage commissions

Platform	Equity commission	ETF commission
Vested	0.25% per trade	Same
INDmoney	0.25% per trade	Same
Rovia	0.15% per trade	Same
IBKR (Tiered plan)	$0.0035/share, min $0.35	Same
IBKR (Fixed plan)	$0.005/share, min $1	Same

For most retail-sized trades (a few hundred shares), IBKR's commission is negligible — on a 100-share VTI buy, you pay $0.35, about Rs 30. The Indian-aware platforms (Vested, INDmoney, Rovia) all charge a percentage commission on top of the FX markup; Rovia's 0.15% versus the others' 0.25% works out to roughly 40% lower commission per trade. On a Rs 10 lakh deployment, that's a difference of Rs 1,000 in commissions per buy.

The important caveat on IBKR: the per-order minimum cuts the other way for small or frequent trades. On the Tiered plan, the $0.35 minimum equals Vested's 0.25% commission at a trade size of $140 (~Rs 11,700). On the Fixed plan, the $1 minimum equals it at $400 (~Rs 33,300). Below those crossovers, the percentage-based platforms are cheaper than IBKR. So for an investor making weekly $50–$100 SIP-style buys, IBKR ends up materially more expensive on the brokerage line than Vested or INDmoney — even though IBKR keeps the FX advantage. Where IBKR's commission structure shines is one larger, less-frequent trade per remittance.

Asset universe — what you can actually buy

Platform	What's available
Vested	Full US universe: all NYSE/NASDAQ-listed stocks and ETFs, including small- and mid-caps. No options, no OTC (pink-sheet) stocks, no international exchanges.
INDmoney	All NYSE/NASDAQ-listed stocks and ETFs, plus OTC (pink-sheet) stocks — the OTC access is its main breadth edge. Still no options or international exchanges.
Rovia	Most major NYSE/NASDAQ stocks and ETFs at launch. UCITS funds and global stocks on the Q2/Q3 2026 roadmap. No options or OTC at launch.
IBKR	Everything. NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, OTC, plus 80+ international exchanges. Options, futures (margin permission required, not for most retail), bonds, mutual funds.

All three Indian-aware platforms (Vested, INDmoney, Rovia) give you the full set of NYSE/NASDAQ-listed US stocks and ETFs, including small- and mid-caps. INDmoney's distinct edge is OTC (pink-sheet) stocks, which Vested and Rovia do not carry. For London-listed ETFs or any non-US exchange, IBKR is the only path among the four.

Fractional shares

Platform	Fractional shares?
Vested	Yes — buy as little as $1 of any supported stock
INDmoney	Yes
Rovia	Yes
IBKR	Yes (added in November 2019)

All four now offer fractionals. Used to be a meaningful Vested advantage; not anymore.

Tax document handling

Platform	Year-end tax docs
Vested	INR P&L statement, Schedule FA helper, capital gains breakdown — all India-friendly
INDmoney	ITR-format reports with dividend breakdowns and lot-level capital gains; Schedule FA helper
Rovia	INR P&L per lot, Schedule FA helper, dividend tracking with Form 67 prep (being renumbered Form 44 from TY2026-27), plus realized loss schedule for harvesting
IBKR	US-style 1099 forms (1099-DIV for dividends, 1099-B for sales). You convert to INR and prepare Schedule FA yourself.

This matters more than people think. If you're filing your own ITR, the difference between "download a Schedule FA helper PDF" and "manually compute peak value across 200 trading days from a US-format 1099-B" is real. For users with IBKR, hiring a CA familiar with foreign equity is essentially mandatory; with the Indian-aware platforms, you can DIY if you're patient. Rovia is the only one of the four that surfaces lot-level realized-loss reporting in a format ready for the loss-harvesting workflow we covered separately.

W-8BEN handling

The W-8BEN is the IRS form that establishes you as a non-US person and reduces dividend withholding to 25% under the US-India treaty.

• Vested / INDmoney / Rovia: handled at signup. You sign once digitally; renewal every 3 years is automated.
• IBKR: you upload W-8BEN yourself. Renewal reminders come from IBKR. Slightly more work.

If you don't have a valid W-8BEN on file, your dividend withholding is 30%, not 25% — and the extra 5% is not recoverable via FTC. Make sure your W-8BEN is current.

Customer support

Platform	Support quality
Vested	India-based, in-app chat, English/Hindi, IST hours. Responses within 24 hours typically.
INDmoney	Similar — India-based, multi-channel.
Rovia	India-based, IST hours, in-app chat plus email. The newest of the four; team is small and response times reflect that, but engineering and product responses are direct.
IBKR	US-based, email + chat. Strong on technical broker issues; weaker on Indian-specific tax questions. Hours overlap awkwardly with IST.

For most retail users, India-based support is meaningfully better. You can call when you're confused about a TCS deduction. With IBKR, you'll Google or pay a CA.

Account safety and stability

Platform	Underlying broker	Safety
Vested	VF Securities (introducing broker); DriveWealth clearing/custody (US, FINRA-regulated)	SIPC insurance up to $500k per account
INDmoney	Alpaca Securities / DriveWealth	Same SIPC coverage
Rovia	Alpaca Securities (US, FINRA-regulated)	Same SIPC coverage
IBKR	Interactive Brokers (US, FINRA-regulated, public company)	SIPC + supplemental excess insurance up to $30M

SIPC is the US equivalent of investor protection — it covers you if the broker fails (not if your stocks go down). SIPC insures up to $500,000 per account, including up to $250,000 in cash.

IBKR adds proprietary excess insurance through Lloyd's of London, taking total coverage to $30M. For a high-net-worth investor with millions at the broker, this matters. For most retail accounts under $500k, the standard SIPC is plenty.

What about the Indian platform itself failing? Vested, INDmoney, and Rovia are all private companies. If any of them go bankrupt, your shares remain at the US broker (DriveWealth or Alpaca, depending on the platform) in your name. You'd contact the US broker directly to claim them. Not zero-friction, but not catastrophic.

Repatriation — getting money back to India

When you sell US stocks and want to bring INR home, the flow is:

1. Sell shares (USD lands in your broker cash account).
2. Withdraw to your Indian bank account.
3. Bank converts USD → INR.

Platform	Repatriation friction (outbound USD to INR)
Vested	3 - 7 business days, FX markup applies
INDmoney	Similar
Rovia	3 - 5 business days; 0 platform fee on outbound FX (bank or wire-provider charges only)
IBKR	2 - 5 business days, best FX (near-interbank)

On the outbound leg, Rovia is structurally different from Vested and INDmoney: rather than bundling FX markup into the platform's economics, the conversion happens at your Indian bank under whatever rate you've negotiated. For HNI banking customers this can be the cheapest path of the three Indian-aware platforms; for a standard retail bank account it's roughly comparable to INDmoney. IBKR remains the cheapest in absolute terms on outbound because the conversion happens internally at near-interbank rates.

Share transfer (ACATS-in)

This is the dimension where the three Indian-aware platforms diverge sharply.

Platform	Inbound ACATS from US employer brokers?
Vested	Supported via DriveWealth. RSUs at Fidelity, E*TRADE, Schwab, Morgan Stanley can be transferred in.
INDmoney	Supported via both Alpaca and DriveWealth. Same coverage of US employer brokers.
Rovia	Supported via Alpaca. RSUs at Fidelity, E*TRADE, Schwab, Morgan Stanley can be transferred in.
IBKR	Technically supported, but IBKR India accounts cannot receive ACATS from US brokers; only IBKR US (LLC) accounts can, and those are essentially impossible for Indian residents to open.

If you have meaningful vested RSUs at an employer broker today and you want to move them rather than sell first, all three Indian-aware platforms now support it: Vested via its DriveWealth partnership, INDmoney via both Alpaca and DriveWealth, and Rovia via Alpaca. The choice between them comes down to what happens after the shares arrive: brokerage fees, the depth of Indian-tax tooling, and how the platform handles lot-level tracking and loss-harvesting workflows. Rovia is built around the RSU-holder workflow specifically; INDmoney offers it as part of a broader retail-investing product; Vested keeps it simpler. We covered the mechanics in the share-transfer post.

Lot selection and tax-loss harvesting

Platform	Lot-level INR cost basis	Specific lot identification at sell	Loss-harvesting reporting
Vested	Yes, in INR	Limited; FIFO default	Basic capital gains report
INDmoney	Yes, in INR with lot-level taxation	Surfaced	ITR-ready capital gains and dividend breakdowns
Rovia	Yes, with vest-date SBI TT rates pre-applied	Yes; choose the lot at sell time	Realized loss schedule with carry-forward tracking
IBKR	Yes, in USD	Yes; choose the lot at sell time	US-format only; you compute INR equivalents

The reason this matters is covered in detail in the lot-selection post. Short version: lot selection is the difference between paying tax at the FIFO default and paying tax against the actual highest-cost-basis lots, and it can save Indian RSU holders Rs 1 to 2 lakh in a typical year if there's a meaningful realized gain.

Cost comparison: a 5-year scenario

Suppose you invest Rs 50 lakh over 5 years (Rs 10 lakh per year), buying VTI and holding. This scenario is for the deployment leg only (LRS into the platform, buy ETFs, hold). Costs across the four platforms:

Cost line	Vested	INDmoney	Rovia	IBKR
FX markup on inbound LRS (Rs 10L x 5 yrs x 75p / 60p / 55p / 3p per $)	Rs 44,910	Rs 35,928	Rs 32,937	Rs 1,796
Brokerage commissions (5 buys at 0.25% / 0.25% / 0.15% / IBKR per-share)	Rs 12,500	Rs 12,500	Rs 7,500	~Rs 150
Annual platform/account fees	Rs 0	Rs 0	Rs 0	Rs 0
Wire fees (5 wires)	Rs 2,500	Rs 2,500	Rs 2,500	Rs 2,500
Total 5-year cost	Rs 59,910	Rs 50,928	Rs 42,937	Rs 4,446

IBKR remains the cheapest in absolute terms if you're willing to handle US-format tax docs yourself. Among the Indian-aware platforms, Rovia is roughly Rs 8,000 cheaper than INDmoney over a 5-year cycle for this scenario, mostly from the lower brokerage commission and slightly tighter inbound FX.

The above table is for the deployment leg only. If the user later repatriates the proceeds back to India, Vested and INDmoney charge an additional FX markup on the outbound leg (typically the same 50-100 paise range as inbound). Rovia doesn't — on the outbound leg, you pay only your Indian bank's wire-conversion rate, with Rovia taking 0 platform fee. IBKR is similarly tight on outbound. So the comparison is even more favorable for Rovia and IBKR if you factor in the eventual round-trip.

Across all four platforms, the bigger savings often come from disciplined lot selection and loss harvesting — which we'd estimate is worth multiples of any platform-fee difference for a typical RSU holder with meaningful realized gains.

So which one should you actually use?

Use Vested or INDmoney if:

• You're starting out (under ~Rs 10 lakh deployed).
• You don't want to deal with US-format tax forms.
• You want everything in INR with built-in Schedule FA helpers.
• The FX markup is small in absolute terms because your investing amount is small.
• You value India-business-hours support.
• You don't have RSUs at an employer broker that you want to consolidate.

Between Vested and INDmoney, both give you the full set of NYSE/NASDAQ-listed US stocks and ETFs (including small- and mid-caps), so breadth of listed equities is no longer a real differentiator. INDmoney's remaining edges are slightly better FX (~15p tighter on average), OTC (pink-sheet) stock access, ITR-format tax reporting with lot-level breakdowns, and inbound share-transfer support via Alpaca. Vested is the older brand and a clean, full-universe US-investing product. For most investors the two are close; INDmoney pulls ahead only if you specifically need OTC stocks or its tax-reporting and transfer features.

Use Rovia if:

• You hold meaningful RSUs at Fidelity, E*TRADE, Morgan Stanley, or Schwab and want to consolidate them onto an India-friendly platform without selling first.
• You want lot-level tax tooling — specific lot identification at sell, automated loss-harvesting suggestions, ITR-ready realized-loss schedules.
• You're cost-sensitive on commissions and want the lowest among the Indian-aware platforms (0.15% vs. the 0.25% standard).
• You're okay being on a younger platform (Rovia launched more recently than Vested or INDmoney; the team is small, the product is narrower in scope at launch).

The trade-off is breadth. All three Indian-aware platforms cover the full listed US universe; if you specifically want OTC (pink-sheet) stocks and a fully-featured retail US-investing experience today, INDmoney has the widest catalog. Rovia's roadmap (Q2/Q3 2026 for UCITS and global stocks) is real but unshipped at the time of writing.

Use IBKR if:

• You're investing larger amounts (Rs 25 lakh+ a year) where FX markup adds up.
• You want access to international markets (London ETFs, TSE, HKEX) — IBKR is the only option.
• You're comfortable with US-format tax forms or you have a CA who is.
• You want maximum broker stability and excess SIPC coverage.

A pragmatic hybrid

For investors with a long horizon and growing portfolios, a common pattern:

1. Year 1-2: start on Vested, INDmoney, or Rovia depending on whether you have RSUs to consolidate. Learn the LRS/Schedule FA cycle. Get comfortable.
2. Year 3+, deploying Rs 25 lakh+/year: open an IBKR account in parallel. Use IBKR for new deployments. Leave existing positions on the Indian platform.

You end up with assets at both brokers. Schedule FA includes both. Slightly more reporting, much lower ongoing FX cost.

The verdict

There is no universal winner. The right answer depends on how much you're investing per year, whether you already have RSUs at a US employer broker, and how much friction you're willing to handle for cost savings.

Profile	Recommendation
Under Rs 5 lakh/year, no RSUs	Vested or INDmoney. Don't optimize FX, just get started.
Rs 5 - 25 lakh/year, no RSUs	Vested and INDmoney both cover the full listed US universe; INDmoney adds OTC access, ITR-format reports, and share-transfer support, while Vested is an equally clean full-universe pick if you're already there.
Indian resident with vested RSUs at Fidelity / E*TRADE / Schwab	Rovia, primarily for the inbound ACATS support and lot-level tax tooling.
Above Rs 25 lakh/year, no RSU consolidation needed	IBKR for new flows. Migrate over time if it makes sense.

A few things this post deliberately did not say:

• "Platform X is a scam." None of the four are scams. They're regulated, in their respective jurisdictions, by FINRA, SEBI, or both.
• "You should use a private bank's PMS." For amounts under Rs 5 crore, this is generally not a better deal — high fees, narrow universe, opaque structures.
• "Use crypto exchanges to get USD exposure." Don't. The regulatory uncertainty is real and crypto USD-pegged exposure is a fundamentally different bet than equity.

The boring conclusion is the right one: pick the platform that matches your stage and what assets you already hold, focus on actually deploying money, and revisit the choice every 2 to 3 years as your portfolio grows.