Freetrade vs DEGIRO 2023

Overall Freetrade is a great platform to help you get to grips with investing. Costs are low, and its user-friendly mobile app offers great investment inspiration. Sophisticated investors, however, may find that other platforms offer a wider range of investment options and tools.

Despite a subpar trading platform, DEGIRO offers cheap stock trading, charging only £1.75 + a £1 handling fee per trade, with a maximum charge of £5. Fees for trading funds, however, are more costly. DEGIRO lags competitors in fundamental research and education, and does not offer ISA or SIPP accounts.

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, Freetrade offers better pricing than DEGIRO 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 - Freetrade would cost £0 (Basic plan), £71.88 (Standard), £143.88 (Plus) per year, while DEGIRO would cost £13.75 per year.

12 trades per year - Freetrade would cost £0 (Basic plan), £71.88 (Standard), £143.88 (Plus) per year, while DEGIRO would cost £33 per year.

36 trades per year - Freetrade would cost £0 (Basic plan), £71.88 (Standard), £143.88 (Plus) per year, while DEGIRO would cost £99 per year.

120 trades per year - Freetrade would cost £0 (Basic plan), £71.88 (Standard), £143.88 (Plus) per year, while DEGIRO would cost £330 per year.

3 fund trades per year - Freetrade would cost £1.0 per year, while DEGIRO would cost £0.0 per year.

Freetrade requires a minimum deposit of £1.0, while DEGIRO requires a minimum deposit of £0.0. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Freetrade charges annual custody fees of £0, £71.88, £143.88, while DEGIRO charges annual custody fees of 0.20%.

Freetrade offers investors access to ISA, SIPP, ETFs and Investment Trusts, while DEGIRO offers investors access to 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 Freetrade offers traders access to SIPP and ISA accounts, while DEGIRO 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 neither Freetrade nor DEGIRO offer crypto investing.

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

To compare the trading platforms of both Freetrade and DEGIRO, we tested each broker's stock trading app. All features compared, our analysis finds that Freetrade 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 Freetrade offers traders access to Education (Share Trading), Education (Funds) and Education (Retirement), while DEGIRO offers access to Education (Share Trading). Neither have Client Webinars and Client Webinars (Archived).