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There's lots of alternatives for you to choose from. One very similar but a lot cheaper is AJ Bell – but there's more options below.
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 1.4 million customers. 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, and it’s actually the most expensive broker out there too. And when it comes to investing, 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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AJ Bell is well established, with a good reputation.
It's one of the cheapest traditional stock brokers out there (charging a low annual fee).
There's a huge range of investment options – pretty much every investment out there (including both funds and shares).
The customer service is great too.
Overall, it's one of the best options.
Free welcome bonus from £20 to £100
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.
Get 6 months fee free
Interactive Investor is a popular investment platform with a flat fee, making it a cheap option if you have over £30,000 of investments. There’s a huge range to choose from, their website and apps are great and their customer service is excellent.
We've reviewed and rated the best investment platforms in the UK. Check it out.
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:
We've reviewed and rated the best investment platforms in the UK. Check it out.
Free welcome bonus from £20 to £100
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.
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.
Nutmeg is a good digital wealth manager – their experts will handle everything for you. However, the investment track record isn’t the best, and they’re one of the most expensive. Plus, they’re the furthest you’ll get from socially responsible investing. There’s better options out there.
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 any investment platforms as you like – the only restriction is paying into one Stocks & Shares ISA per year, but you can open as many General Investment Accounts (GIA) 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 looking for a similar platform to Hargreaves Lansdown, but cheaper, check our AJ Bell¹ – it’s pretty great.
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.
And if you’ve got a slighter 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’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.
If you want the experts to handle things for you, there’s some great options. Our favourite is Moneyfarm¹, which handles everything for you for a great fee, and a close runner up is Nutmeg¹.
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!
We've reviewed and rated the best investment platforms in the UK. Check it out.
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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