Motilal Oswal review
Independent review of Motilal Oswal — brokerage, app, account opening, customer support and the kind of investor it actually fits. Motilal Oswal is a full-service broker founded in 1987.
Verdict
Investors who want a long-established full-service broker with in-house research, advisory and a broad multi-asset app, and are comfortable paying higher brokerage than discount brokers.
Brokerage at a glance
Headline brokerage on the default Motilal Oswal standard plan. On top of brokerage you also pay STT, exchange transaction charges, SEBI fee, stamp duty, GST and DP charges — see full charges for the breakdown.
About Motilal Oswal
Motilal Oswal is a full-service broker founded in 1987. Default brokerage is 0.20% on equity delivery, 0.02% on intraday and futures, and ₹20 per lot on options. AMC is free for the first year, ₹199 per year thereafter. Value Pack prepaid plans (₹2,500 to ₹1L) offer lower rates for active traders — verify exact tiers with your relationship manager.
The MO RIISE trading app
- Trade equities, F&O, mutual funds, IPOs, US stocks, bonds and fixed deposits in one app
- Open and manage a Demat account with real-time portfolio monitoring
- TradingView charts with technical analysis tools
- Margin trading facility (MTF) with up to 4x leverage
- Pre-apply for IPOs and access research reports across stocks and industries
- Personalized watchlists and option analytics tools
Opening a Motilal Oswal account
Account opening is fully online for Indian residents. Keep your PAN, Aadhaar (with mobile linked for OTP), a bank cancelled cheque or statement, a passport-size photo and a signature on white paper handy. Aadhaar e-KYC, in-person video verification and e-sign typically take 1–3 working days end-to-end. Start at www.motilaloswal.com.
Customer support
Motilal Oswal support is available all trading days, 09:00 am to 06:00 pm. For complete contact details, the four-level SEBI escalation path (broker desk → compliance officer → SCORES → SMART ODR), and what to have ready before escalating, see the Motilal Oswal customer care page.
Pros and cons
How we judge this: these pros and cons are drawn from Motilal Oswal’s published charges and platform features, its app-store ratings — cross-checked against its SEBI registration and NSE / BSE membership. They are our editorial assessment, not a sponsored placement, and not financial advice.
What users say about Motilal Oswal
Paraphrased themes from public app-store reviews and forums — these are users’ opinions, not our testing, and not financial advice. Sampled 2026-06-14.
- Single app for equities, F&O, mutual funds, US stocks, IPOs, bonds and fixed income
- TradingView charts with technical analysis tools
- Standalone F&O page with option chain and multiple order types (Limit, Market, StopLoss, Slice)
- Margin Trading Facility (MTF) with up to 4x leverage
- Daily research recommendations and reports covering around 500 stocks and 40 industries
- IPO pre-application and curated mutual fund collections
- Some users report the app crashing or behaving unreliably at times
- Some users report price or order pages not loading promptly
- Some users mention connectivity issues on certain networks
Alternatives to Motilal Oswal
By active client count, Motilal Oswal is the #10 largest of 38 retail brokers on the NSE (as of 2026-04-30). If you're weighing it against the field, these are the brokers people most often compare it with:
Side-by-side head-to-head comparisons:
See the full ranked list of every retail broker in India on the stock brokers in India page, or compare exact landed cost on a typical trade with the brokerage calculator — switch brokers in the dropdown without leaving the page.
Frequently asked
What people ask about Motilal Oswal.
Motilal Oswal is SEBI-registered and holds NSE / BSE membership, so it meets the regulatory bar every Indian broker must clear. Whether it is a good fit depends on what you trade. Investors who want a long-established full-service broker with in-house research, advisory and a broad multi-asset app, and are comfortable paying higher brokerage than discount brokers.
Equity delivery is 0.2%. Equity intraday is 0.02%. Equity options is Flat ₹20/lot. On top of brokerage you pay STT, exchange transaction charges, SEBI fee, stamp duty, GST and DP charges. The brokerage calculator on this site shows the all-in landed cost for a sample trade.
Motilal Oswal is registered with SEBI and a trading member of NSE / BSE. Demat accounts are held with CDSL or NSDL — the broker does not hold your shares, the depository does. Funds are held in a SEBI-regulated client bank account separate from the broker's own funds. The risk to investors from broker failure is limited; the larger risk to manage is account fraud via phishing and OTP sharing.
Trade equities, F&O, mutual funds, IPOs, US stocks, bonds and fixed deposits in one app. Open and manage a Demat account with real-time portfolio monitoring. For a full feature list and download links see the Motilal Oswal app page.
Account opening is fully online for Indian residents. You need PAN, Aadhaar (with mobile linked for OTP), a bank cancelled cheque or statement, a passport-size photo and a signature on white paper. Aadhaar e-KYC, in-person video verification and e-sign typically take 1–3 working days. Apply via https://www.motilaloswal.com.
Discount brokers comparable to Motilal Oswal include Zerodha, Groww, Upstox, Dhan and Angel One. Full-service alternatives include ICICI Direct, HDFC Securities, Kotak Securities and Sharekhan. Compare brokerage rates side-by-side on the brokerage calculator before switching.