Payment for Order Flow: Who Pays for Your Free Stock Trade

In this episode of Money Lessons, Andy answers a question he has been holding since last year: if your stock trades are free, how does a broker make its money?

He explains payment for order flow — the arrangement where your broker sells your order to a wholesale market maker that fills it and pays for the privilege. Andy walks through why your everyday orders are so valuable, where the real conflict of interest hides, and what the 2020 Robinhood settlement revealed about the true cost of "free."

The takeaway: free isn't free — and the cost that matters most is the one that tempts you to trade too often.