Zerodha Strengthens Investor Offerings with New Measures Amid Intensifying Market Rivalry

In response to rising competition in the discount broking industry, industry leader Zerodha has unveiled new strategies to bring back consumer interest. New customers are no longer charged account maintenance fees (AMC) for the first year of service as of June 1st, according to the firm. It has also started giving back the money that customers paid to have their current stock portfolios redeposited.

According to a recent blog post by Zerodha, the goal of these updates is to eliminate minor fees that could appear larger than they actually are when one is just starting out or when one switches brokers. In order to make it easier for people to consolidate their portfolios on one platform, the transfer fee refund is being offered. When investors sell their stocks to a competitor, the broker usually charges them a fee of between INR 10-30 per share. According to Zerodha, users will now receive a refund of up to INR 500.

Good News for Both Existing and New Users of Zerodha

The new policy allows for the repayment of transfer fees for both newly enrolled customers and existing Zerodha account holders who opt to consolidate their portfolios into the platform. Additionally, for the first twelve months after an account is opened, Zerodha will not charge any account maintenance charge (AMC), irrespective of the amount in the account.

Standard AMC protocols will be applied to accounts after the first year. According to the business, the basic services demat account (BSDA) classification causes the real AMC to be nil or extremely low. Zerodha pointed out that individuals may think twice about creating an account if they are aware of the ongoing price. To put it in perspective, investors with a single registered demat account and assets valued below INR 10 lakh fall within the BSDA account category.

There is no AMC for BSDA accounts with portfolio values below INR 4 Lakh, but there is an INR 100 fee for portfolio values between 4 Lakh and 10 Lakh INR. The AMC charged by Zerodha varies by investor category for accounts that are not BSDA and for holdings valued at more than INR 10 lakh. The annual charges for individual investors are INR 300; for non-resident Indians, it's INR 500, and for corporations, it's INR 1,000.

Zerodha Facing Stiff Competition from Groww & Dhan

The policy shift may have something to do with the retail broking industry's competitive dynamics, even if Zerodha claims it's necessary to entice new investors. Groww and Dhan, two rapidly expanding competitors, both of which charge zero AMC, have been putting pressure on Zerodha, which was once the unchallenged leader. Groww, a publicly traded financial technology company, has been dominating over the last many years. With 1.30 Cr users in April, Groww was the clear leader, while Zerodha held on to second place with 68.84 Lakh users. Even while these two have dominated for quite some time, new entrants are rapidly closing the gap. In third place among bargain brokerages, Angel One has 67.63 lakh users.

The last six months, from October 2025 to April 2026, have seen a 2% decline in Zerodha's active user base. The number of people using Zerodha stopped falling in January of last year after having been falling for a few months. Dhan saw a 7.1% growth in active users during the same period, whereas Groww saw an 8.1% increase. To put this in perspective, over the past six months, there was a net rise of about 1.1% in the industry's overall number of active users. Groww and Dhan, on the other hand, were two of the rare brokerages whose active user counts increased significantly.