Barclays vs Revolut 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 Revolut 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 - Barclays would cost £105 per year, while Revolut would cost £0 per year.

12 trades per year - Barclays would cost £75 or £147 per year, while Revolut would cost £0 per year.

36 trades per year - Barclays would cost £75 or £291 per year, while Revolut would cost £47.88 per year.

120 trades per year - Barclays would cost £75 or £795 per year, while Revolut would cost £540 per year.

3 fund trades per year - Barclays would cost £0 per year, while Revolut would cost £0 - £540 per year.

Barclays requires a minimum deposit of £0, while Revolut requires a minimum deposit of £0 - £540. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Barclays charges annual custody fees of £0 - £525, while Revolut charges annual custody fees of £0 - £45.

Barclays offers investors access to ISA, SIPP, Share Trading, Funds, ETFs, Bonds - Corporate, Bonds - Government (Gilts), Investment Trusts and Advisor Services, while Revolut offers investors access to Share Trading and Crypto Trading. Neither have CFD Trading and Spread Betting. 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 Barclays offers traders access to SIPP and ISA accounts, while Revolut offers traders access to neither of these 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 Revolut offers crypto investing, while Barclays does not.

Our testing concluded that the website of Barclays is better than the website of Revolut. 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 Barclays and Revolut, 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 Barclays offers traders access to Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement), while Revolut offers access to neither of these. Neither have Client Webinars and Client Webinars (Archived).