IPO access lets you request shares at the IPO price before a stock is available to the general public. Once you have access, you can submit a request or conditional offer to buy (COB) for IPO shares from select companies from within the app. How to sign up for IPO access has more details.

Once you have IPO access, you can request IPO shares with the following steps in the app or on web classic.

1. In your account, do one of the following to find an IPO that interests you:

• In Investing, use the Search (magnifying glass) tool, and then select the IPO pill
• If opted into IPO messages, check your Notifications (bell icon) or email inbox for a message about it, and then open the IPO announcement link

2. Select I'm interested
3. Review the checklist and confirm your eligibility
4. Read the company’s prospectus to learn more, including potential risks
5. Select Request shares
6. Enter the details of your request
7. Select Review
8. Swipe up or select Submit

A conditional offer to buy (COB) is similar to a buy order, except the COB remains pending and doesn’t become an active order until the IPO is priced and set for the initial public offering. You can edit or cancel your COB until the end of the confirmation window, after final pricing.

When you submit a request for shares with IPO access, you’ll be creating a COB. Then you can indicate the number of shares you hope to purchase. But keep in mind that a COB just means your order is eligible for an allocation of shares and doesn’t guarantee you’ll receive an allocation.

Before your COB can turn into an opportunity to purchase shares, the following must occur:

1. The SEC must declare the company’s registration statement effective
2. The final offering price must be within the price range at the time you submitted your COB

If you enter a COB and you’re allocated shares, your COB becomes an order and you’ll purchase those shares.

For each IPO, we have a limited number of shares available to our customers through IPO Access. This is true whether we participate as an underwriter or help distribute shares allocated to us by other investment banks.

To determine how many shares you’ll receive, we consider the number of shares available, how many shares customers have requested, and other factors. Since demand can exceed the shares available, you aren’t guaranteed to receive the number you request. You may receive your full requested amount, a portion of it, or no shares at all.

If you don’t get any shares, or only a part of the amount you requested, any extra funds that were on hold in anticipation of buying the IPO shares will be returned to your buying power. For details, check out Why you might not get all the IPO shares you request.

IPOs can be risky and speculative investments, and may not be appropriate for every investor. For details, review our Initial Public Offering Risk Disclosures.