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Freetrade ReviewCMC Invest Review
Written by Elizabeth Anderson
Fact-checked by Steven Hatzakis
Edited by Carolyn Kimball
Your capital is at risk.
CMC Invest is the more consumer-friendly offering from CMC Markets, a trading platform that offers a wide range of services from stocks and ETFs trading to spread betting and CFD trading. CMC Invest provides mobile app-based, commission-free trading on stocks and shares, making it a strong competitor to the likes of Freetrade and Trading 212. However, CMC Invest’s flat-fee charges are on the high end for those investing small amounts.
-
Minimum Deposit:
£0 -
ISA:
Yes -
SIPP:
Yes
CMC Invest pros & cons
Pros
- Commission-free trading.
- Can hold GBP, USD, and EUR in your wallet.
- You can trade through an ISA and SIPP account.
- Offers mutual funds.
- The app is easy to use.
Cons
- No web platform.
- £50 fee for phone trading is high.
- Only offers U.K. and U.S. equities.
- Flat-fee monthly charges are on the more expensive end.
- Interest on cash balances is 2%, lower than other platforms.
Overall summary
| Feature |
CMC Invest
|
|---|---|
| Overall Rating |
|
| Charges & Fees |
|
| Investment Choices |
|
| Mobile App |
|
| Website |
|
| Ease of Use |
|
| Education |
|
Charges and fees
There are three plans for CMC Invest customers.
- Core: £0 a month
- Plus: £10 a month (£0 for first three months)
- Premium: £25 a month (£0 for first year)
With the Core option, you can open a general investment account and pay no monthly management charges. You can invest in more than 3,000 U.S. companies, U.K. companies listed on the FTSE 100, ETFs, and investment trusts. There are no transaction costs and you get unlimited free trades.
The Plus plan, at £10 a month, allows you to invest through a stocks and shares ISA. You also get access to a wider range of stocks, including mid-cap stocks and mutual funds. With Plus, you can also hold cash in U.S. dollars and euros to reduce trading fees when buying overseas stocks.
The Premium plan, costing £25 a month, means you can invest through a SIPP in addition to an ISA or general dealing account. You get access to the same range of investments with Plus, including small-cap U.K. shares and mutual funds.
You earn 2% interest on any money sitting in your account that is not invested, across all plans. However, this is lower than many other platforms. Trading 212, for example, pays 5% interest on uninvested cash.
The Plus plan can work out to be a good value if you have a large investment portfolio, although other platforms offer cheaper flat fees. It’s more expensive than Freetrade, which offers a similar pay-monthly plan for £5.99 and offers a wider range of 6,200 stocks and ETFs (although not mutual funds) with commission-free trading. However, CMC Invest is offering the chance to upgrade to Plus for three months free of charge. This makes it great value for a short-term account. Just remember to cancel the account if you don’t want to continue as the £10 a month will come out of your account until you cancel. This could be an expensive mistake if you don’t check your account often.
The Premium plan is on the more expensive side, in my opinion, at £25 a month. In comparison, rival Interactive Investor (ii) charges £21.99 a month for its SIPP. With ii, you get a free trade each month and there are no trading fees if you do regular investing where you buy the same investment each month. However, CMC Invest is currently offering its Premium plan for free for the first 12 months – which is a great deal for SIPP holders.
Like other platforms offering commission-free trading, CMC Invest makes its money by charging a fee for foreign exchange (FX) conversions when buying international shares. It adds 0.5% to the FX rate. This is low compared to other investment platforms. For example, Freetrade charges 0.99% on its basic plan and eToro charges 1%.
CMC Invest charges £50 for telephone trades, which is quite high. Its aim is to encourage customers to invest through the app.
Scenario pricing: When calculating annual share dealing costs, trading frequency and account balance are the two most important factors to consider. Assuming a £30,000 portfolio in a taxable general dealing account, here are five scenarios of how much CMC Invest would cost based on trade frequency:
- 5 trades per year = £0 / £120 / £300
- 12 trades per year = £0 / £120 / £300
- 36 trades per year = £0 / £120 / £300
- 120 trades per year = £0 / £120 / £300
- 3 fund trades per year = £120
| Feature |
CMC Invest
|
|---|---|
| Minimum Deposit | £0 |
| Share Trading: 0-9 Deals/ Month | £0 |
| Share Trading: 10-19 Deals/ Month | £0 |
| Share Trading: 20+ Deals/ Month | £0 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £0 - £250,000 | £120 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £250K-£500K | £120 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £500,000 - £1m | £120 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £1m and over | £120 |
| Bonds - Corporate - Fee | N/A |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) - Fee | N/A |
| ETFs - Fee | £0 |
| Investment Trusts - Fee | £0 |
| Telephone Dealing Fee | £0 |
What type of trader are you?
New to the world of investing? See my picks for the best UK trading platforms for beginners. More experienced traders should check out my guide to the best UK Trading Platforms for Active Traders. If you're looking to trade shares on the go, read my guide to the best UK stock trading apps.
Mobile trading apps
The CMC Invest mobile app is still very basic. There are links to articles and to the CMC Invest community, but these take you outside the app and to the web browser.
I found the guides on how to get started very useful. The app clearly explains in three steps how to discover stocks, use the search function, and buy or add an investment to your watch list. There is also a handy guide on how to view your performance and activity, illustrated with screenshots.
The app offers live pricing, which is a great feature not always offered by traditional platforms including Fidelity and Barclays.
You can create a watch list through the app, but it’s not particularly easy. You have to search for a stock to add, and then tap on the top right of the screen to favourite it, rather than pulling stocks through the watch list. It would also be great if the app could make it easier to filter stocks by country as well as by sector.
I do like the fact you can easily see a company’s ESG score through the app, as environmental, social, and governance considerations are becoming increasingly important to investors.
Tap for a demo of CMC Invest's U.K. trading app.
Website
The CMC Invest website currently exists to explain more about its product and to give general information about investing, how to open an account, and the fees it charges. The app is where all the action happens — you cannot trade through the website. In the meantime, investors who prefer to trade through a web app may find Interactive Brokers or IG more suited to their purposes.
| Feature |
CMC Invest
|
|---|---|
| Web Platform | No |
| iPhone App | Yes |
| Android App | Yes |
| Stock Alerts | Yes |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies | 0 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools | 0 |
| Charting - Notes | No |
| Charting - Display Corporate Events | No |
| Charting - Stock Overlays | No |
| Charting - Index Overlays | No |
Investment choices
CMC Invest offers more than 3,500 investments in U.K. and U.S. shares, about 1,000 mutual funds, and around 400 ETFs and investment trusts. More markets may be added at a later date as the platform develops.
You can also search for shares with a high ESG score through the app. You can set your ESG preferences by saying, for example, that you don’t want to invest in firms that support gambling or palm oil. CMC Invest will alert you if one of your assets doesn’t match your values.
When you pay money into your account, the funds are credited to your account instantly. I found this great to get going quickly. There were no issues opening or funding my account.
Forex trading
If your interests lie with trading forex rather than equities, see the detailed CMC Markets review on our sister site, ForexBrokers.com.
| Feature |
CMC Invest
|
|---|---|
| Share Trading | Yes |
| CFD Trading | No |
| ETFs | Yes |
| Funds | Yes |
| Bonds - Corporate | No |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) | No |
| Investment Trusts | Yes |
| Spread Betting | No |
| Crypto Trading | No |
| Advisor Services | No |
Education
The educational material on the CMC Invest website has improved over the past year and the broker is now in partnership with investment insight platform Finimize. The ‘learn’ hub on the website includes articles on the different investment types and a video on how a stocks and shares ISA works, as well as articles on what investing terms such as IPOs mean.
However, there are no webinars or podcasts and you can’t read analyst opinions. For more in-depth stock market coverage, I suggest having a look at other platforms such as Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell, which offer much more research material and articles.
You can also get access to the CMC Invest community by opening a separate account to access its forum. There users post about their investing experience and you can ask questions and access customer support. It was a bit of a hassle to create a separate account and it can take 24 hours for your account to be verified. Ideally, community feeds would be integrated into the app, such as on eToro, so you are not redirected to the website.
| Feature |
CMC Invest
|
|---|---|
| Education (Share Trading) | Yes |
| Education (Funds) | Yes |
| Education (Retirement) | Yes |
| Client Webinars | No |
| Client Webinars (Archived) | No |
Final thoughts
CMC Invest is certainly one to watch. The platform is fairly new, having launched in 2022, and is still finding its feet. For people investing through a general investment account, the selling points are that you can trade for free and there are no service fees.
If you are investing through a stocks and shares ISA or SIPP, CMC Invest’s monthly charges aren’t the cheapest. Competitors like Interactive Investor and Freetrade offer ISAs and SIPPs for lower fixed monthly fees. However, CMC Invest’s ISAs and SIPPs are free for a set period of time so it can work out to a good value. Also, if you have a large amount invested, the flat monthly charges could work out cheaper than more established brokers such as AJ Bell, Vanguard, or Hargreaves Lansdown, which all charge percentage-based fees.
Finally, I appreciated the fact that ESG considerations are easily embedded into the app, making it easy for investors to ensure their investments reflect their values.
About CMC Invest
CMC Invest was launched in 2022 as an online broker that aims to offer high value for money and transparent charges. It is part of CMC Markets, which was founded in 1989 and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. CMC Markets operates in 12 countries and is headquartered in the U.K.
What is CMC Invest?
CMC Invest is a new app that offers commission-free stock, ETF, and mutual fund trading. It offers flexible subscription plans. It is free to hold a general investment account, but if you want to trade through an ISA — or access a wider range of stocks — the charge is £10 a month or £25 a month for a SIPP.
What is the difference between CMC Markets and CMC Invest?
CMC Invest is aimed at everyday investors, whereas CMC Markets is aimed at more experienced investors looking to take higher levels of risk with their money through spread betting and CFD trading.
Is CMC Invest trustworthy?
Yes, CMC Invest is run by CMC Markets, a well-respected broker. CMC Markets has consistently won prestigious awards from numerous reviewers, including our sister site ForexBrokers.com, where it has earned a high Trust Score.
Is CMC Invest a good app?
CMC Invest offers a good app currently, although there are areas it could improve as the design and features are quite basic. Costs are low and the app is easy to use.
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Methodology
For the UK.StockBrokers.com Annual Review, we assessed, rated, and ranked 17 U.K. share dealing platforms over a 10-week time period. Each broker’s platforms and features were exhaustively tested by hand and graded on 53 different variables. In total, over 25,000 words of research were produced.
We thoroughly tested and compared features of prime interest to everyday investors, including but not limited to:
- Investment choices, such as whether the broker offers trading of shares, ETFs, funds, bonds, and CFDs; and offers SIPP and ISA accounts.
- The broker’s charges and fees for investing.
- Functionality and design of mobile apps and website platform, and a fluid experience moving between app and web.
- Usability of tools such as charting and watch lists.
- Market research, such as screening, news and analysis.
- Educational resources including tutorials, online courses, videos, webinars and articles.
Our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .001% each year, providing site visitors with quality data they can trust. Our lead researcher and writer, Elizabeth Anderson, has more than a decade’s experience as a financial journalist and market researcher. Elizabeth’s expertise is backed by a team of veteran fellow traders, data auditors, editors and project managers who work to ensure that UK.StockBrokers.com reviews and guides are the most unbiased and complete in the industry. Read more about our team.
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Show allAbout the Editorial Team
Elizabeth Anderson, lead writer and researcher, has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. In addition to her work with UK.StockBrokers.com, she has written extensively for major publications including BBC, The Times and Bloomberg. A keen investor herself, she is passionate about helping people understand finance and investing.
Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Online Broker Research for UK.StockBrokers.com and ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. Steven is an active fintech and crypto industry researcher and advises blockchain companies at the board level. Over the past 20 years, Steven has held numerous positions within the international forex markets, from writing to consulting to serving as a registered commodity futures representative.
Carolyn Kimball is a former managing editor for Reink Media and former lead editor for the StockBrokers.com Annual Review. Carolyn has more than 20 years of writing and editing experience at major media outlets including NerdWallet, the Los Angeles Times and the San Jose Mercury News. She specializes in coverage of personal financial products and services, wielding her editing skills to clarify complex (some might say befuddling) topics to help consumers make informed decisions about their money.