Hargreaves Lansdown vs Charles Stanley Direct 2024

As the U.K.’s biggest investment platform for individual investors, Hargreaves Lansdown offers a wide range of investment choices for either beginners or seasoned investors. However, its fees are generally more expensive than rival brokers, which can become an issue for large investment pots.

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, Hargreaves Lansdown 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 - Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £59.75 / £104.75 if in ISA. per year, while Charles Stanley Direct would cost £57.50 per year.

12 trades per year - Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £143.40 / £188.40 if in ISA. per year, while Charles Stanley Direct would cost £138 per year.

36 trades per year - Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £430.20 / £475.20 if in ISA. per year, while Charles Stanley Direct would cost £414 per year.

120 trades per year - Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £1,074 / £1,119 if in ISA. per year, while Charles Stanley Direct would cost £1,380 per year.

3 fund trades per year - Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £1 per year, while Charles Stanley Direct would cost £0 per year.

Hargreaves Lansdown requires a minimum deposit of £1, while Charles Stanley Direct requires a minimum deposit of £0. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Hargreaves Lansdown charges annual custody fees of Up to £1,125, while Charles Stanley Direct charges annual custody fees of £60 - £600.

Both Hargreaves Lansdown and Charles Stanley Direct 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 Hargreaves Lansdown and Charles Stanley Direct 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 Hargreaves Lansdown nor Charles Stanley Direct offer crypto investing.

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

To compare the trading platforms of both Hargreaves Lansdown and Charles Stanley Direct, we tested each broker's stock trading app. All features compared, our analysis finds that Hargreaves Lansdown 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 Hargreaves Lansdown offers traders access to Client Webinars, Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement), while Charles Stanley Direct offers access to Client Webinars (Archived), Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement).