Charles Stanley Direct vs Barclays 2024

Barclays Smart Investor offers a wide range of investments and accounts and is a good value for those with a midsize portolio who like flat fees. On the downside, it can be complicated to open an account as a non-Barclays bank customer, and you can’t buy or sell investments through the app if you don’t have a Barclays bank account.

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, Barclays offers better pricing than Charles Stanley Direct 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 - Charles Stanley Direct would cost £57.50 per year, while Barclays would cost £78 per year.

12 trades per year - Charles Stanley Direct would cost £138 per year, while Barclays would cost £120 per year.

36 trades per year - Charles Stanley Direct would cost £414 per year, while Barclays would cost £264 per year.

120 trades per year - Charles Stanley Direct would cost £1,380 per year, while Barclays would cost £768 per year.

3 fund trades per year - Charles Stanley Direct would cost £0 per year, while Barclays would cost £0 per year.

Charles Stanley Direct requires a minimum deposit of £0, while Barclays requires a minimum deposit of £0. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Charles Stanley Direct charges annual custody fees of £60 - £600, while Barclays charges annual custody fees of £48 - £500.

Both Charles Stanley Direct and Barclays offer ISA, SIPP, Share Trading, Funds, ETFs, Bonds - Corporate, Bonds - Government (Gilts), Investment Trusts and Advisor Services. Neither have CFD Trading, Spread Betting and Crypto Trading. 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 Charles Stanley Direct and Barclays 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 Charles Stanley Direct nor Barclays offer crypto investing.

Our testing concluded that the website of Barclays is better than the website of Charles Stanley Direct. Barclays offers more functionality, is cleanly designed, and is, overall, easier to use for beginners and casual investors.

To compare the trading platforms of both Charles Stanley Direct and Barclays, we tested each broker's stock trading app. All features compared, our analysis finds that Barclays offers a better mobile app. Dive deeper: Best Stock Trading Apps UK.

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 Charles Stanley Direct offers traders access to Client Webinars (Archived), Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement), while Barclays offers access to Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement). Neither have Client Webinars.