Interactive Investor vs AJ Bell 2023

Interactive Investor is a solid option for investors looking for strong in-house recommendations for funds and well-put-together research reports. Fees, although lowered from last year, are still fairly high, especially considering the less-than-impressive platform, mobile app and tools available. Interactive Investor struggles to remain competitive with the best trading platforms in the U.K.

AJ Bell Youinvest offers a mediocre trading platform and decent research tools, including in-house articles and videos. Ultimately, AJ Bell struggles to deliver value in the UK market against brokers that offer a better platform at a lower price point.

Alongside the cost per trade, most UK online brokers also charge a monthly, quarterly, or annual management fee, which varies based on the account type and balance. Based on our thorough review, Interactive Investor offers better pricing than AJ Bell for share dealing.

Assuming a £30,000 portfolio size, here are the total annual costs for share dealing with both brokers, given different monthly activity scenarios.

5 trades per year - Interactive Investor would cost £79.83 (Essentials plan); £143.88 (Investor plan); £239.88 (Super Investor plan) per year, while AJ Bell would cost £82.5 per year.

12 trades per year - Interactive Investor would cost £107.76 (Essentials); £143.88 (Investor plan); £239.88 (Super Investor plan) per year, while AJ Bell would cost £161.4 per year.

36 trades per year - Interactive Investor would cost £239.64 (Investor); £287.76 (Super Investor) per year, while AJ Bell would cost £400.2 per year.

120 trades per year - Interactive Investor would cost £574.80 (Investor) or £622.92 (Super Investor) per year, while AJ Bell would cost £636 per year.

3 fund trades per year - Interactive Investor would cost £0.0 per year, while AJ Bell would cost £0.0 per year.

Interactive Investor requires a minimum deposit of £0.0, while AJ Bell requires a minimum deposit of £0.0. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Interactive Investor charges annual custody fees of £143.88 (Investor Plan - £11.99 monthly), while AJ Bell charges annual custody fees of 0.25% (max £3.50/ month for shares).

Both Interactive Investor and AJ Bell offer ISA, SIPP, Share Trading, Funds, ETFs, Bonds - Corporate, Bonds - Government (Gilts) and Investment Trusts. Neither have CFD Trading, Spread Betting, Crypto Trading and Advisor Services. Investing encompasses a wide variety of asset classes, so finding a broker that offers every investment type you are interested in is important.

Self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and individual savings accounts (ISAs) are tax-advantaged savings accounts that are an important tool for many individual investors. You can read more about how these accounts operate at Gov.UK: Click here for SIPP information and here for ISA information. Our analysis finds that Both Interactive Investor and AJ Bell offer SIPP and ISA accounts.

In our analysis of top brokers for share dealing in the U.K., we research whether each broker offers the ability to trade cash cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin and ethereum, which is still a somewhat rare offering amongst major U.K. brokers. Our review finds that neither Interactive Investor and AJ Bell offer crypto investing.

Our testing concluded that Interactive Investor is better for research than AJ Bell. Interactive Investor offers more research options, including research reports, articles, and analyst ratings.

To compare the trading platforms of both Interactive Investor and AJ Bell, we tested each broker's website, trading platform, trading tools and stock trading app. All features compared, our analysis finds that Interactive Investor offers a better share dealing platform and Interactive Investor offers a better stock app for mobile trading.

Educational offerings are of particular importance to those who are newer to investing, and we examine the availability of several different types of educational materials in our analysis. Our research finds that Interactive Investor offers traders access to Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement), while AJ Bell offers access to Client Webinars (Archived), Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement). Neither have Client Webinars.