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It’s a close one! PensionBee’s app is slightly easier to use, they offer a very low cost option which Penfold doesn’t. Plus there's more investment choices for those nearing retirement. Overall both are awesome, but PensionBee is our winner.
Saving for retirement? Great decision – your future self will thank you more than you know! PensionBee and Penfold are both great options, 2 of the best in fact. But let’s see which one ultimately comes out on top.
Just so that you know, we're going to compare personal pensions – that’s a pension you open yourself, rather than one your employer sets up for you, which is called a workplace pension. (Penfold also offers workplace pensions.)
Note: they can also be called self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs).
By the way, if you want to learn more about personal pensions, and our full list of pension providers, here’s our best personal pensions.
Anyway, let's get stuck in!
This is going to be a tough one, they’re both super easy to use, take around 5 minutes to register and set up a new pension or even combine old pensions into one.
They both have highly rated apps that you can download onto your phone, which makes things pretty (dare we say it...) much better than old-fashioned pension companies.
PensionBee is rated 4.7 out of 5 on the App Store and 5 star on Google Play.
Penfold is rated 4.8 out of 5 on the App store but a whole star less on Google Play (4 star).
Note: you can also get started on both the PensionBee website¹ and Penfold website¹ too.
When it comes to using the actual app however, PensionBee is easier. It’s so simple and everything is just super easy to do.
With Penfold it’s a bit more cluttered and harder to navigate around the app and understand. But to be honest, we're being picky, there’s not much in it.
We’re giving this one to PensionBee, but only just!
Winner: PensionBee
Is PensionBee for you? Get £50 for free when you sign up with Nuts About Money.
Cost is super important when it comes to pensions. Both PensionBee and Penfold have pretty similar costs, and they both have one easy to understand fee.
PensionBee starts at 0.50% of your pension balance per year, and can go up to 0.75% depending on which investment option you choose (more on those below). That’s pretty reasonable.
With Penfold there’s no lower cost option, so every plan is 0.75% per year. That’s still good.
And if you manage to save over £100,000 on either app, they reduce the fee for any money saved above this. PensionBee halves their fees, so the cheapest plan becomes 0.25% or 37.5% with the other popular plans.
With Penfold, the fees reduce to 0.40% from 0.75%. So slightly more than PensionBee.
Overall, both have great low fees, but PensionBee is cheaper.
Winner: PensionBee
Again, there’s not too much in it with PensionBee and Penfold. Although there is a slight difference.
With PensionBee, there’s 7 different options, although 95% of the customers choose from just 3 options, which are:
However they also have options for each stage of retirement. So, if you’re nearing retirement you can switch to a more suitable plan (safer and lower risk plan that preserves your money ready for retirement).
With Penfold, there’s 3 core plans:
So, the core plans are pretty similar, for instance if you want to invest ethically you can with both!
However, PensionBee has a few extra things that Penfold doesn’t, and that’s mainly the lower cost option which is the tracker investment option (0.50%).
So, again very similar, but PensionBee has just edged it with their wider range of investment options.
Winner: PensionBee
To compare the customer service, an important factor, it’s sensible to see what the customers themselves are saying. And to do that, let’s look at the customer reviews on the popular reviews website, Trustpilot.
PensionBee has an excellent rating of 4.6 out of 5 from over 8,000 reviews. That’s awesome. The customers mention how easy it is to get started and use, along with great service.
Penfold also has an excellent rating of 4.6 out of 5, we told you they were similar! Although they only have 500 reviews. And customers mention the same as PensionBee, great customer service and easy to set up and use.
Both have the same score so let’s call this one a draw.
Winner: it’s a draw!
Wow, this one was hard to decide! PensionBee and Penfold are both awesome for personal pensions. You can’t go wrong with either.
However, we’re going to give it to PensionBee. They just seem to have the edge on most of our criteria.
Firstly, the app is just that little bit easier to use, and makes everything really simple, it’s also slightly higher rated by customers.
And when it comes to costs, PensionBee has a super low cost option (0.50%), which Penfold doesn't offer. And if you’re saving a large amount of money, PensionBee is cheaper across all plans.
With PensionBee the investment options are slightly larger too, and caters better for people nearing retirement.
Customers love both however! The customer reviews are great, and it's nice to see as most pension companies have terrible reviews and poor customer service. We love that both companies are helping people save for retirement, something we highly recommend.
So, overall PensionBee wins! If you want to learn more, check out our PensionBee review and our Penfold review, and if you’re ready to sign up, head over to the PensionBee website¹ or the Penfold website¹.
Is PensionBee for you? Get £50 for free when you sign up with Nuts About Money.
Is PensionBee for you? Get £50 for free when you sign up with Nuts About Money.
Is PensionBee for you? Get £50 for free when you sign up with Nuts About Money.
Edward Savage is a leading expert on money, with a background of 8 years working in financial services in London, has a business, accounting and finance degree, runs an investing community, and teaches people about money. He writes about all aspects of personal finance, including pensions, investing, mortgages and insurance.
This article was written, reviewed and fact checked by the expert team at Nuts About Money. You’re in safe hands. Learn more.
We're experts in all things pensions, with many years of combined experience writing and talking about pensions and retirement, and some of our team were top financial advisors with professional pension qualifications. We love writing about pensions, they’re pretty much the best thing you can do for your future.
More than 20 years of combined experience researching and writing about pensions
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Is PensionBee for you? Get £50 for free when you sign up with Nuts About Money.
