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If you’re after alternatives to Hargreaves Lansdown, check out InvestEngine - it’s completely fee-free but limited to ETFs. eToro stands out for its excellent and commission free trading platform, while Beach provides expert-managed, hands-off investing.
Hargreaves Lansdown is a great traditional stock broker, but is it the right option for you? Could there be alternatives? Yes, yes there are alternatives!
Hargreaves Lansdown is the most popular broker in the UK – and by quite a distance, with over 1.9 million customers looking after 155 billion pounds. It’s often the first choice for many people, as it’s trustworthy with a great reputation and solid history.
And it’s a hard investment platform to move away from, it has a huge range of investment options and investment account options (such as a Stocks & Shares ISA and personal pension). Learn more about a General Investment Account vs ISA.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best, it’s actually one of the most expensive broker out there. And when it comes to investing, Hargreaves Lansdown fees can add up fast. Let’s take a look at the alternatives:
Here’s the cheapest alternatives to Hargreaves Lansdown:
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InvestEngine is great for investing in exchange-traded funds (ETFs). That’s all they do – and they're very good at it.
It's so low cost, there's in fact no InvestEngine fees at all (to make your own investments).
And for the experts to manage your investments, it's only 0.25% per year.
There's a great range of ETFs (over 700), and the app is pretty great too.
eToro is one of the best investment platforms out there - and is by far the most popular, with over 30 million customers.
Why? eToro is very low cost (commission-free stocks), easy to use, and has lots of awesome trading features. There's also a community of other traders to learn from and even copy.
It’s also got the largest range of assets to trade and invest in – including stocks, ETFs, crypto, CFDs, currencies and commodities (such as gold).
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If you don’t regularly buy and sell investments (trade), or manage your own portfolio – perhaps you just let Hargreaves Lansdown invest your money for you with their ready-made portfolios. Well then, you’ve got plenty of options for alternatives where the experts handle everything for you, there’s no need to use a stock broker like Hargreaves Lansdown, you can save money on fees, and potentially get a bigger investment return too.
Here’s the best options:
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Great app
A great and easy to use investing app. Add money from your bank or transfer your existing ISA, with the investments handled by experts. There’s a pension pot too.
The customer service is excellent, and has email and phone support based in the UK.
Beach is an easy to use investing app (and easy to set up), just add money and the experts handle everything. It’s all managed on your phone with a great app, and you can see your total savings whenever you like.
You’ll get an easy access pot (access money in around a week), which can be an ISA where all the money you make is tax-free (save up to £20,000 per tax year), and a standard account for those saving in addition to this (or who don’t want an ISA), where there’s no contribution limits (but also no tax-free benefits).
The investments are managed by experts from the largest investment company in the world (BlackRock). And they consider things like reducing climate change, meaning your savings could make the world a little better in future too.
There’s also an optional pension pot to save for retirement, so you can keep all your savings in one place, and if you’ve got lost or old pensions, Beach can also find them and move them over too.
Fees: a simple annual fee of up to 0.98% (minimum £4.99 per month).
Minimum deposit: £25
Customer service: excellent
Pros:
Cons:
Moneyfarm is a great option for saving and investing (both ISAs and pensions). It's easy to use and their experts can help you with any questions or guidance you need.
They have one of the top performing investment records, and great socially responsible investing options too. Plus, you can save cash and get a high interest rate.
The fees are low, and reduce as you save more. Plus, the customer service is outstanding.
Pros
Cons
Hargreaves Lansdown are good overall, they’re fairly easy to use and the customer support is great, but the fees are expensive. There’s no harm in trying other platforms to see what you think!
By the way, you don’t have to have just one investing account, you can use as many investment platforms as you like.
You’ll have to pay Capital Gains Tax on your profits, but only if they exceed £3,000 within a tax year (April 6th to April 5th the following year).
So there we go, there’s our best alternatives to Hargreaves Lansdown – all really great platforms. Let’s have a quick recap:
If you’re just interested in buying investment funds (ETFs), then InvestEngine¹ is for you – it's completely fee free, with a good range of funds.
If you’re just looking for short term trading – check out eToro¹, it’s commission free and a great platform. Plus you can copy other people’s trades.
And if you’ve got a slightly bigger portfolio than average (over £30,000), then you can benefit from some of the cheapest fees around with Interactive Investor¹ and their fixed fee option.
If you want the experts to handle things for you, check out Beach¹, which is an easy to use app to save and invest sensibly with investments managed by experts. There’s a tax-free ISA and a pension pot (combine old pensions too).
And we’ve got a lot more options for you too, if you’d like to do a bit more research. Check out our best investment platforms UK, best investment apps UK and best trading platforms UK. Oh, and if you're looking for a pension – here's the best private pension providers UK.
Happy investing!
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Christopher Dowling combines a communications degree with over 10 years experience in the financial services industry in London – with focus on educating people on a wide range of money topics in an easy to understand way. He writes about savings, investing, pensions, mortgages, insurance, banking, loans, business finance and other money topics.
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We're experts in all things investing, with many years of combined experience writing and talking about investing and trading. Some of our team were top financial advisors. We understand and love helping people learn more about both short term trading and investing for the long term – investing can be a great way to grow your money over time.
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