Platform Fee Comparison

How UK platform fees actually work

Every UK investment platform charges you something to hold your money. Understanding how those charges work — and how they interact with your portfolio size and what you hold — can save you hundreds or thousands of pounds over the long term.

Percentage fees vs flat fees

Most platforms charge a percentage of your portfolio per year. At small portfolios, this is cheap — 0.45% of £10,000 is just £45. But as your portfolio grows, percentage fees grow with it. At £500,000, 0.45% is £2,250 per year.

Flat-fee platforms like Interactive Investor charge the same amount regardless of portfolio size. This makes them expensive at small portfolios (£59.88/year on £5,000 is over 1%) but very cheap at large ones (£59.88/year on £500,000 is 0.012%). The crossover point is typically around £30,000–£50,000 depending on the platform.

The ETF cap explained

Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell cap their platform fee for ETFs and shares but not for funds (OEICs). HL caps ETF fees at £45/year — so whether you hold £50,000 or £500,000 in ETFs, you pay no more than £45. For fund investors, no cap applies and the full 0.45% compounds as your portfolio grows.

This is why a large ETF portfolio at HL can be surprisingly cheap, while the same portfolio in funds is very expensive. The calculator shows both scenarios — switch between ETFs and Funds to see the difference.

Why switching platforms matters

Fee drag compounds over time. A 0.3% annual fee difference on a £100,000 portfolio growing at 7% per year costs around £8,000 over 20 years in lost compound growth. At £200,000, that difference roughly doubles. The earlier you optimise, the more you save.

Most platforms allow in-specie transfers — moving your holdings without selling them — so switching doesn't necessarily trigger a tax event if you're inside an ISA or SIPP.

Funds vs ETFs — the fee difference

Funds (OEICs) and ETFs often track the same index but are treated differently by platforms. Because ETFs trade like shares on an exchange, platforms apply share-dealing custody rules, which often include fee caps. Funds are held differently and tend to attract the uncapped percentage fee.

For most passive investors, ETF versions of popular index funds (like Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF vs the equivalent OEIC) are functionally identical in terms of returns, but may be significantly cheaper to hold on a given platform.

What OCF is and why it matters more than platform fees

The ongoing charge figure (OCF) is the annual cost of the fund or ETF itself — paid to the fund manager, not the platform. A Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF might have an OCF of 0.22%. A Fundsmith Equity fund has an OCF of around 0.94%. This cost compounds on top of your platform fee.

At a large portfolio, OCF can dwarf platform fees. A 0.7% difference in OCF on a £200,000 portfolio is £1,400/year. For long-term wealth building, low-cost index funds with OCFs of 0.05–0.20% almost always beat higher-cost active funds over 20+ years.

SIPP fees — check separately

This calculator covers ISA and general investment account (GIA) platform fees. Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs) often have different — sometimes higher — platform charges. If you're comparing platforms for a pension, check SIPP-specific fee schedules on each platform's website, as the numbers here may not apply.