Last updated: 9 October 2026. Every fee in this best ETF platform UK comparison was checked against the provider's own costs page on 6 September 2026.
By Stiv · Design, technology and personal finance
Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate and referral links, which are paid links. If you click one and buy or sign up, I earn a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. Brands don't choose what I feature or what I say about them.
This best ETF platform UK comparison is not financial advice, and CoolCuration is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. I priced every platform myself, so treat it as research rather than a recommendation and make your own call.
Capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
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Eight platforms, one job, and a bill that swings from nothing to £78
From 6 April 2027 the cash ISA allowance drops to £12,000 for anyone under 65, while the overall £20,000 ISA allowance stays exactly where it is. So a lot of people are about to go hunting for the best ETF platform UK investors can actually open, and the first question is always what it costs to hold one. I priced eight platforms on the same job: a global tracker ETF, sitting in a stocks and shares ISA, bought once a month. On a £2,000 pot the annual platform bill runs from nothing to £78.08. On a £20,000 pot the order changes.
What makes the best ETF platform UK investors can pick
Four separate charges decide your annual bill, and only one of them is the famous one. First, a platform or account fee buys you nothing except the right to hold the thing. Then a dealing fee lands every time you buy. Currency conversion bites when your money has to become dollars first. Finally, some platforms charge a flat subscription instead of a percentage at all.
Underneath all four sits the ETF's own ongoing charges figure, which follows the fund rather than the platform. The Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF charges 0.14% a year, according to its factsheet dated 31 July 2026. So that is £2.80 on a £2,000 pot and £28 on a £20,000 one, and you pay it wherever you hold the fund. So a platform advertising commission-free investing is not offering you free investing. It is offering you free dealing.
Currency conversion is the charge people forget, because it hides inside the trade. For example, buying a sterling-denominated UCITS ETF on the London market usually avoids it entirely, while buying the same index in a dollar line does not. I dug into that separately in my guide to the cheapest investment app in the UK on FX fees, and I have kept the figures below to the annual cost of holding instead.
Best ETF platform UK: what a global tracker costs to hold
Here is the same job priced eight ways, which is the only sensible way to argue about the best ETF platform UK savers can reach. In each case the figures are the platform's own charges over twelve months, assuming a sterling-listed global tracker held in a stocks and shares ISA and topped up monthly. Because the fund's 0.14% sits on top of every line equally, leaving it out is what makes the platforms comparable. I checked every fee on the provider's own pricing page on 6 September 2026.
The annual platform bill on a £2,000 and a £20,000 pot
| Platform | £2,000 pot | £20,000 pot | How the fee is built |
|---|---|---|---|
| InvestEngine | £0 (0.00%) | £0 (0.00%) | No platform fee, no dealing fee, no FX fee |
| Trading 212 | £0 (0.00%) | £0 (0.00%) | Zero custody fee and commission, 0.15% FX on conversions |
| Lightyear | £0 (0.00%) | £0 (0.00%) | Free ETF orders and no account fee, 0.1% FX on conversions |
| Freetrade Basic | £0 (0.00%) | £0 (0.00%) | Free plan now includes the ISA, 0.99% FX on non-GBP trades |
| AJ Bell | £5.00 (0.25%) | £42.00 (0.21%) | 0.25% on shares and ETFs, capped at £3.50 a month |
| Chip Basic | £12.00 (0.60%) | £50.00 (0.25%) | 0.25% a year with a £1 monthly minimum per product |
| ChipX, paid annually | £65.05 (3.25%) | £65.05 (0.33%) | Subscription instead of a platform fee |
| ChipX, paid monthly | £78.08 (3.90%) | £78.08 (0.39%) | £5.99 every 28 days, so thirteen payments a year |
| Vanguard | £48.00 (2.40%) | £48.00 (0.24%) | £4 a month flat below £32,000, then 0.15% |
| J.P. Morgan, fixed allocation | £12.60 (0.63%) | £126.00 (0.63%) | 0.45% management fee plus 0.14% fund cost and 0.04% spread |
| J.P. Morgan, fully managed | £19.40 (0.97%) | £194.00 (0.97%) | 0.75% management fee plus 0.18% fund cost and 0.04% spread |
J.P. Morgan is the one all-in line here, because it publishes a total rather than a platform fee. It is also the only entry where somebody else chooses the ETFs, so treat it as a contrast rather than a rival.
Section 01 / The platforms
The best ETF platform UK shortlist, priced on the same job
Every fee below came from the provider's own costs page on 6 September 2026, not from an older comparison.
InvestEngine
InvestEngine charges nothing to hold ETFs. There is no platform fee on the DIY account, the ISA, the SIPP or the general account. Dealing is free as well. Nor is there a currency conversion fee, which none of the other free platforms here can claim. Besides the price, you get 870-plus ETFs, fractional buying and Savings Plans that put new money to work automatically, so a monthly £100 never sits in cash waiting for you to press a button. It takes £100 to open an account, and after that you can top up from a penny by bank transfer.
The catch is what InvestEngine will not let you buy. It is ETFs only, so no individual shares, no investment trusts and no unit trusts. Research tooling is also thin next to an incumbent platform. Still, if you want to hold three ETFs and forget about them, none of that costs you anything.
For anyone who has already decided that a global tracker and a bond fund is the whole plan.
£0 a year on any pot size. Managed portfolios cost 0.25% a year.
See the InvestEngine welcome offer
Capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Trading 212
Trading 212 charges no custody fee and no commission, and its ISA costs nothing to run. However, it differs from InvestEngine in one way that matters: you can buy individual shares too, which suits anyone who wants a core tracker plus two or three individual holdings. Its currency conversion charge is 0.15% at the live interbank rate, and it caps there even at weekends. So if you buy a sterling ETF line on the London market, you will not meet that charge at all.
For a first account that can grow into share-picking later.
£0 a year. FX 0.15% where a conversion happens.
Lightyear
Lightyear runs no account fee and charges nothing to trade ETFs, and its stocks and shares ISA is flexible, so money you take out and put back within the same tax year does not eat your allowance twice. Meanwhile its currency conversion charge is 0.1%, the lowest of the four free platforms here. Card deposits do cost 0.6%, though, so fund it by bank transfer instead.
For a portfolio with dollar-listed holdings in it.
£0 a year. FX 0.1% where a conversion happens.
Freetrade Basic
Freetrade used to put its ISA behind a paid plan, and that has changed. Since the change, the Basic plan costs nothing a month and carries the stocks and shares ISA, a junior ISA, a SIPP and a general account. Basic pays 1% AER on up to £1,000 of uninvested cash as well. The trade-off sits in the currency conversion charge, which is 0.99% on Basic against 0.59% on Standard at £4.99 a month and 0.39% on Plus at £9.99. Even so, if you buy sterling ETF lines that gap never opens.
For someone who wants a SIPP and an ISA in the same free app.
£0 a year on Basic. FX 0.99% on non-GBP trades.
AJ Bell
The incumbent turns out to be the cheapest of the platforms that charge anything at all. AJ Bell's stocks and shares ISA takes 0.25% a year on shares and ETFs, but a £3.50 monthly cap stops the charge dead, so it can never exceed £42 a year however large the pot grows. In addition, regular monthly investing costs nothing to deal, although a one-off share or ETF trade is £5.00. By contrast, hold funds rather than ETFs and the picture reverses, because the funds charge is 0.25% uncapped to £250,000.
For a pot that is going to keep growing past £20,000.
£5 a year on £2,000, £42 a year on £20,000 and above.
Chip
Chip is a saving app that also invests, and its pricing reflects that. First, the standard membership charges 0.25% a year, collected monthly, with a £1 monthly minimum per product. On a £2,000 pot that minimum turns a headline 0.25% into 0.60%. Second, standard membership limits you to thirteen funds, such as the Vanguard S&P 500 UCITS ETF, the iShares NASDAQ 100 UCITS ETF, Invesco Physical Gold ETC and WisdomTree Artificial Intelligence UCITS ETF. However, ChipX removes both limits for £5.99 every 28 days, or £65.05 paid annually, and it comes with a 28-day free trial. There are no individual shares on either tier. My full Chip app review covers the savings side.
For money that is half savings pot and half investment.
£12 a year on £2,000 with standard membership. ChipX is £65.05 a year paid annually.
Vanguard Investor
Vanguard is the name people reach for first, and on a small pot it is the most expensive DIY option in this table. That is because the account fee is £4 a month, or £48 a year, on any balance under £32,000. Above £32,000 it becomes 0.15% a year, capped at £375. Also, you need £500 as a lump sum or £100 a month to start, and you can only buy Vanguard's own funds and ETFs. The funds themselves are excellent and the platform fee is what stings, so the maths depends entirely on how much you have.
For a larger pot that only ever holds Vanguard funds.
£48 a year below £32,000, which is 2.40% on a £2,000 pot.
J.P. Morgan Personal Investing
This one is not a like-for-like rival. J.P. Morgan Personal Investing is a managed service in the UK, so you do not choose the ETFs at all. Instead, you answer a questionnaire and it builds and rebalances a portfolio for you. The fixed allocation style costs 0.45% on the first £100,000 and 0.25% above, which comes to 0.63% a year all in once you add fund costs and market spread. The fully managed style is 0.75% and 0.35%, or 0.97% all in. Both figures include VAT where it applies, so there is nothing to add afterwards. It is the business that used to be Nutmeg, which retired into this brand on 3 November 2025. My J.P. Morgan Personal Investing review goes through the accounts in detail.
For someone who wants to be invested without choosing anything.
0.63% a year all in on fixed allocation, 0.97% fully managed.
Section 02 / The finding
Why pot size decides the best ETF platform UK for you
A percentage, a flat monthly charge and a monthly minimum are three different animals once a pot starts growing.
Annual platform charges only. The fund's own 0.14% ongoing charge sits on top of every line equally. Checked 6 September 2026.
Look down the table again, because the pattern is not about which company is generous. It is about whether the fee is a percentage, a flat charge or a monthly minimum, because those three behave completely differently as a pot grows.
Vanguard's £4 a month is 2.40% a year on £2,000 and 0.24% on £20,000. Same fee, ten times the drag.
Similarly, Chip's £1 monthly minimum turns an advertised 0.25% into 0.60% on a £2,000 pot, then leaves it at 0.25% once you pass £4,800. ChipX inverts it, since a £65.05 subscription is 3.25% of a £2,000 pot and only beats standard membership once you hold more than £26,020.
The cap that beats the flat fee
Meanwhile AJ Bell's cap works in the opposite direction, and it quietly changes the best ETF platform UK answer for anyone holding a decent sum. Its 0.25% stops rising at £3.50 a month, so it hits £42 at a £16,800 pot and stays there forever. For instance, at £50,000 that is 0.08% a year, against £75 at Vanguard and £125 on Chip standard membership. The platform most people file under expensive is the cheapest paying option in this table at every size above roughly £16,800, at least for ETFs rather than funds.
Consequently the honest answer to which is the best ETF platform UK investors should use starts with a question back: how much are you holding, and are you adding to it monthly? Four platforms charge nothing either way, so if cost is the only test the decision is already made.
If you would rather not pick the ETFs yourself
Everything above assumes you choose the funds. Plenty of people would rather not, and that is a legitimate answer rather than a failure of nerve. Two routes exist, and they cost very different amounts. InvestEngine's own managed portfolios cost 0.25% a year on top of the ETF charges, although they have been closed to new customers for stretches of 2026 while InvestEngine reworks its questionnaire, including when I checked my app on 10 September 2026. By contrast, J.P. Morgan Personal Investing sits at the other end, at 0.63% or 0.97% all in, though with a longer track record behind it.
I ranked all seven done-for-you options on their real all-in cost in best managed investment platforms UK. That page owns the done-for-you question; this one owns what it costs to hold ETFs yourself.
The gap between 0.25% and 0.97% is real money over a decade. Equally, a managed portfolio somebody actually keeps paying into beats a DIY one they abandon in March. Tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future.
What the April 2027 ISA changes mean for where you hold cash
Although the reform lands on 6 April 2027, it is narrower than the headlines suggested. The overall ISA allowance stays at £20,000. Within that, the cash ISA limit falls to £12,000 for anyone under 65, while those aged 65 and over keep a £20,000 cash limit from the start of the tax year in which they turn 65. In addition, HM Treasury has written an anti-circumvention rule, so a flat 22% charge applies to interest or alternative finance return paid on cash held inside a non-cash ISA. The full detail sits in the GOV.UK factsheet.
In practice, that closes the obvious workaround of parking cash inside a stocks and shares ISA to dodge the smaller cash limit. Even so, it does not force anyone to invest. If you might need the money inside five years, then cash is still the right home for it, and the rest of my thinking on that sits in my best investment ISA guide.
The honest limits of the cheapest ETF platform UK option
Calling InvestEngine the best ETF platform UK investors can use on cost is a claim about price, not a claim about everything else, and the two are different arguments. Three things hold it back. First, it is ETFs only, so a share-picker will feel boxed in immediately. Second, its research tooling is thin, and if you want fund analysis, screeners and depth, an incumbent platform gives you far more for its £42. Third, it asks for £100 before you can open anything, which is more than the £1 some rivals want.
I scored it 4 out of 5 in my InvestEngine review, not 5, because the app still does not feel quite polished and the articles pinned to its home screen update rarely. A platform can be the cheapest way to do a job and still be the wrong one for you.
Capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Best ETF platform UK: who each one suits
There is no single best ETF platform UK answer, because the right one depends on the size of the pot. On a small pot that you are building monthly, InvestEngine, Trading 212, Lightyear and Freetrade Basic all cost nothing, so choose on the app rather than on the price. If you want fractional auto-investing and no currency charge anywhere, InvestEngine is the tidiest of the four. However, if you expect to buy individual shares within a year, then Trading 212 or Freetrade saves you a transfer later.
On a pot heading past £20,000, AJ Bell's £42 ceiling starts to look like the safest long-term home, especially if you also want research and a wider range around the tracker. Vanguard makes sense only if you want its own funds specifically and hold well above £32,000. Chip earns its place when the same app is also holding your savings, and J.P. Morgan when you would rather not make any of these decisions.
Who regulates each platform, and what the FSCS covers
Eligible investments are protected up to £85,000 per person per FCA-authorised firm by the FSCS. However, that cover applies only if the firm fails, never if your investments fall in value. You can check any of these records yourself on the FCA Register.
- InvestEngine (UK) Limited, FRN 801128
- Trading 212 UK Limited, FRN 609146
- Lightyear U.K. Ltd, FRN 987226
- Freetrade Limited, FRN 783189
- AJ Bell Securities Limited, FRN 155593
- Chip Financial Wealth Ltd, FRN 1005114, which provides the general account and the stocks and shares ISA
- Vanguard Asset Management, Ltd., FRN 527839
- J.P. Morgan Personal Investing Limited, FRN 552016
Best ETF platform UK: frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest and best ETF platform UK investors can open?
On the cost of holding a sterling-listed global tracker, InvestEngine, Trading 212, Lightyear and Freetrade Basic all charge £0 a year. Because InvestEngine is the only one of the four with no currency conversion fee at all, on a strict reading of platform cost it is the cheapest. You still pay the ETF's own charge, which is 0.14% a year on the Vanguard FTSE All-World.
Is InvestEngine really free?
Its platform fee is genuinely £0 on DIY, ISA, SIPP and general accounts, and it charges no dealing or FX fee. Still, it is not free investing, because every ETF carries its own annual cost and InvestEngine keeps the interest on uninvested cash. Managed portfolios add 0.25% a year.
Can I hold ETFs in a stocks and shares ISA?
Yes, and every platform in this comparison offers one. The £20,000 overall ISA allowance still applies, and from 6 April 2027 the cash portion drops to £12,000 for anyone under 65. Tax treatment depends on the individual circumstances of each client and may be subject to change in future.
What happened to Nutmeg?
Nutmeg retired into J.P. Morgan Personal Investing on 3 November 2025. The regulated entity is the same one, renamed from Nutmeg Saving and Investment Limited, and it still carries FRN 552016. Since old Nutmeg links no longer go anywhere useful, use the current brand instead.
Is Chip good for ETFs?
It works, although two limits shape the cost. First, standard membership gives you thirteen funds and charges a £1 monthly minimum, which is 0.60% a year on a £2,000 pot. Second, ChipX opens the full range for £65.05 a year, and that only pays for itself above roughly £26,020.
Which is the best ETF platform UK beginners should start with?
If you are opening a first account and adding to it monthly, InvestEngine, Trading 212, Lightyear and Freetrade Basic all cost nothing to hold a tracker, so the app you find easiest to use is the right answer. InvestEngine suits someone who wants a portfolio on autopilot. Trading 212 or Freetrade suits someone who expects to buy individual shares later.
How much do ETFs cost to hold each year?
Simply add the platform's charge to the fund's own ongoing charges figure. A £5,000 pot in the Vanguard FTSE All-World costs £7 a year in fund charges at 0.14%, plus anything from £0 to £65.05 in platform fees depending on where you hold it.
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Disclaimer. Fees, rates and terms change. I checked every figure here on 6 September 2026 against the provider's own pricing page. This article is not financial advice and CoolCuration is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. If you are unsure what suits you, please consider speaking to a qualified financial adviser. This article contains affiliate and referral links, which are paid links. If you click one and buy or sign up, I earn a commission or referral bonus at no extra cost to you. Brands don't choose what I feature or what I say about them.
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