The Best Stocks & Shares ISA for Investing in 2025

For choosing your own investments

PlatformFi Fee*
(£10k pot)
Fi Fee*
(£100k pot)
Fi Fee*
(£500k pot)
Fi Score**
Trading 212£0£0£09.5
InvestEngine £0£0£09.0
Interactive Brokers£36£36£368.8
Hargreaves Lansdown£45£45£458.5
AJ Bell£43£60£608.5
Freetrade£59.88£59.88£59.888.2
IG£96£96£968.2
Fidelity£53£108£1088.1
Interactive Investor£59.88£143.88£143.887.9
iWeb£60£60£607.8
Vanguard£48£150£3757.0
*Our unique way to compare fees on passive ETF investments. Your fees may be higher. Fund fees apply.
**Our subjective rating based on fees, user experience, product offering, and more.

While we strive for the highest standard of quality, this page may contain errors or become outdated. Fee calculations are listed below. Please contact us if you spot a mistake. Capital is at risk when investing.

All platforms listed on this page are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and qualify for FSCS protection.

How Fi Fees are calculated (fee breakdown)

The table below breaks down the fees that may apply when using each broker platform, and shows how we calculated our Fi Fees within each investor bracket.

To get a consistent, comparable fee across all platforms, Fi Fee assumes a recurring monthly investment into ETFs where possible, with no withdrawals, and does not factor in portfolio growth. Fund fees are excluded from FI Fees to isolate broker charges — the amount you’d be paying directly to the broker you use on top of other investing fees.

PlatformAccount feeETF feeNotes
Trading 212£0£0Trading 212 have no platform or trading fees when investing in assets priced in GBP (£).
InvestEngine £0£0InvestEngine charge nothing for their DIY investing account, with the exception of LifePlan funds.
Interactive Brokers£0 (but there’s a £3 minimum monthly activity fee)£3IBKR charge a minimum £3 per month activity fee. Certain funds are free to invest in but their complex fee structure is confusing for users. They charge trading fees so fees can increase quickly if you frequently change your portfolio.
Hargreaves Lansdown0.45% (capped at £45 per year)£11.95You can avoid HL’s trading fees when investing monthly via direct debit. Account fees (0.45%) still apply, these are capped at £3.75 per month for shares, ETFs, investment trusts, VCTs, gilts and bonds.
AJ Bell0.25% (capped at £3.50 per month in ETFs)£1.50AJ Bell offer a discounted trading fee of £1.50 with their regular investing service (min £25 per month). ISA fees are capped at £3.50 per month when investing in ETFs.
Freetrade£5.99 per month or £59.88 per year£0You need Freetrade’s Standard account (£59.88 per year or £5.99 if paying monthly) for access to a Stocks & Shares ISA.
IG£24 quarterly fee£8You can avoid IG’s £24 quarterly account fee by placing 3+ trades every quarter; a monthly investment is enough for this. This just leaves the ETF fee.
Fidelity0.35% (capped at £7.50 per month on ETFs and shares)£7.50Fidelity’s account fees (0.35%) are capped at £7.50 per month on ETFs and shares within ISAs. There’s also a reduced £1.50 monthly trading fee with their regular investing service.
Interactive Investor£4.99 – £11.99 per month£3.99ii offer a free regular investing service when investing a minimum of £25 per month. This just leaves the account fee.
iWeb£0£5iWeb charge £5 per trade. They also charge £100 to open an account, but this fee seems to be being waived in an ongoing offer.
Vanguard£4 per month or 0.15% of investments (whichever is higher) capped at £375 per year£0Vanguard take a flat 0.15% annual account fee with a minimum charge of £4 per month, capped at £375/year.

Fund fees and other charges may still apply on your investments.

If you invest in a different way to how we calculate our comparable fees — for example if you don’t invest in ETFs, if you regularly trade, and don’t use a monthly direct debit for all of your investments — your fees will be significantly different.

Offers

You may lose money when investing.

BrokerOffer
Trading 212Free share worth up to £100 for new customers via this link. Terms apply.
InvestEngineUp to £100 as a welcome bonus via this link, or use the promo code FIN. Terms apply.
FreetradeFree share worth up to £100 for new customers via this link. Terms apply.
Interactive InvestorGet £100 worth of free trades in a Stocks & Shares ISA via this link. Terms apply.
Capital is at risk when investing.

Robo-advisors

These are managed accounts that match you with a pre-built portfolio based on a short risk profile survey.

They are more expensive than many DIY (do-it-yourself) accounts but are still an attractive option to those that want to invest but don’t want to pick their own investments.

PlatformFi Fee*
(£10k pot)
Fi Fee*
(£100k pot)
Fi Fee*
(£500k pot)
InvestEngine***£25£250£1,250
AJ Bell Dodl£15£150£750
Moneyfarm£45£350£1,250
Nutmeg£45£450£1,450
Moneybox£57£462£2,262
eToro****£70£450£1,750
Wealthify£60£600£3,000
*Our unique way to compare brokers that charge in different ways. Your fees may be higher.
**Our subjective rating based on fees, user experience, product offering, and more.
***Using their managed portfolios in this example.
****Via Moneyfarm partnership. eToro do not offer an ISA.

A lot of people ask us about eToro because they are such a big name and they have wide-reaching marketing campaigns. Many websites rank them #1 in their recommendations.

However, eToro don’t offer their own ISA — or tax-efficient accounts in the UK at all for that matter. They have a partnership with Moneyfarm which allows you to create an ISA there, but it doesn’t give you full use of their platform, it doesn’t allow you to buy stocks or choose your investments like you could on eToro, and it’s more expensive than the regular Moneyfarm option too.

While we strive for the highest standard of quality, this page may contain errors or become outdated. Fee calculations are listed below. Please contact us if you spot a mistake. Capital is at risk when investing.

The popular picks

Now that we’ve listed the majority of cost-effective brokers and platforms for Stocks & Shares ISAs, let’s discuss some of the most popular picks in more detail.

Please note: We do not — and never will — take direct sponsorship from brokers. People trust what we say and we value that more than anything. We use affiliate links; here’s our affiliate disclosure for more information on that.

Trading 212

Trading 212 is one of two “fee-free” platforms for Stocks & Shares ISAs in the UK in the 2024/25 financial year.

They offer over 3,000 funds on their platform including Vanguard, Blackrock’s iShares and many more. They also offer the ability to trade individual stocks and shares, meaning they’ve got both passive and active investors covered.

Despite a huge number of funds and features, Trading 212 still manages to offer their ISA services with minimal fees.

The only fee you’ll incur when investing is their 0.15% FX fee; this applies if you buy an investment not listed in pounds (e.g. Tesla stock), and it’s still a low fee (Freetrade, for example, charge a 0.99% FX fee). Many investors can use Trading 212 entirely free from fees if they passively invest in index funds via bank transfer.

They’ve been established since 2004, they’re a profitable business, and they offer a close-to-market-best 4.9% interest on uninvested cash held in your Stocks & Shares ISA, though this comes with a catch.

New customers can get a free share worth up to £100 when you join via this link, or use promo code ‘FIN’ after depositing at least £1. Capital at risk.

InvestEngine

The other platform you can use without incurring trading commissions or account charges is InvestEngine.

This ‘new kid on the block’ (that was actually founded back in 2019) continues to rise in popularity — they claim they were the fastest growing investment platform last year.

There are no platform fees or trading fees, assuming you manage your own investments. ETF fees still apply and they will charge a fee on their LifePlan funds too.

So how do they make money? Well, they offer a ‘managed’ service with a 0.25% annual fee if you don’t want to control your own investments. They also show off ‘featured partners’ within their ETF range — we assume these partnerships are paid arrangements. They also offer LifePlans — a type of fund where they charge a fee.

InvestEngine is an ETF-only platform; a good option for those wanting to avoid the temptation of buying and selling individual shares.

New customers can get up to £100 as a welcome bonus when you join and deposit at least £100 via this link. Capital at risk.

Vanguard

Vanguard, in the past, were proof that fees aren’t everything.

It’s been possible for a few years now to purchase Vanguard’s funds via different brokers for less than Vanguard charge for their own fund. We wish Vanguard’s platform was the cheapest place to buy Vanguard funds but due to their 0.15% platform fee (capped at £375) it is not — they are cheaper via a number of competitors.

Not only that, other platforms have even offered Vanguard funds that Vanguard’s customers haven’t been able to buy on the Vanguard platform. Customers would go straight to the supplier but the shop around the corner has more choice. Fortunately, Vanguard have focused on expanding the range of funds available on their platform, they’ve improved from a technological standpoint and they finally have an app as well.

However, their announcement that they’ll be charging a minimum £4 per month account fee from 2025 has shocked the investing community. This is effectively a 4% fee for those investing £100 per month, a massive increase on the 0.15% they were paying previously. With this change, Vanguard are no longer anywhere near the most cost-effective option at any investment bracket.

They are one of the most established brokers and people feel safe trusting them with their money, but comments on our video about their price increase suggests that this might be the final straw for a lot of customers.

For more information on a wide range of Stocks & Shares ISAs — including why we didn’t select many leading brokers within our top picks — check out our video:

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