Freetrade vs Hargreaves Lansdown 2023

Freetrade's commission-free model allows trading of fractional shares with a user-friendly mobile trading app, and the educational offering is of good quality. Research and range of investments are limited, however, and its online trading platform is still in beta and not available to all customers.

Hargreaves Lansdown has a wide range of sophisticated research accompanied by a comprehensive selection of investment options and a user-friendly mobile app. However, pricing is expensive, the charting tools are average and educational resources are only in line with industry standards.

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 Hargreaves Lansdown 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 N/A per year, while Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £59.75 per year.

12 trades per year - Freetrade would cost £0 per year, while Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £143.4 per year.

36 trades per year - Freetrade would cost £0 per year, while Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £430.2 per year.

120 trades per year - Freetrade would cost £0 per year, while Hargreaves Lansdown would cost £1074 per year.

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

Freetrade requires a minimum deposit of £0.0, while Hargreaves Lansdown requires a minimum deposit of £1.0. From our testing we found for accounts between £0 - £250,000 Freetrade charges annual custody fees of £0, while Hargreaves Lansdown charges annual custody fees of 0.45%.

Freetrade offers investors access to ISA, SIPP, Share Trading, ETFs and Investment Trusts, while Hargreaves Lansdown offers investors access to 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 Freetrade and Hargreaves Lansdown 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 Freetrade and Hargreaves Lansdown offer crypto investing.

Our testing concluded that Hargreaves Lansdown is better for research than Freetrade. Hargreaves Lansdown offers more research options, including research reports, articles, and analyst ratings.

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