The fees for options at TD Ameritrade and Schwab are $10 + $0.75 per options contract. Forget the $10 base fee, if I understand correctly it's the per contract fee that's exorbitant. Take the QQQ ETF: put options that are a little out of the money cost $2-$3 each, so the 75 cent fee is around a third of the investment amount, and if you incur another 75 cent fee per contract if/when you sell then it's even worse
That's interesting they must have changed the fee structure from the last time I looked. That being said a contract usually refers to 100 options on the underlying. So a contract for the put options you talked about would be $200 +.75 + $10. I haven't taken a look at their fee structure so I'm not sure if that is how it works but it would make more sense.
