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Vanguard ReviewInteractive Investor Review
Written by Elizabeth Anderson, Blain Reinkensmeyer
Fact-checked by Steven Hatzakis
Edited by Carolyn Kimball, Jeff Anberg
Your capital is at risk.
The standout feature of Interactive Investor (ii), a major U.K. investment platform, is its low flat-rate fees. This is in contrast to other investment platforms, which typically favour percentage fees for fund investing, although more brokers are now opting for flat fees.
This flat-fee structure is particularly valuable to those with large investment portfolios. My view is that Interactive Investor is a great platform for any investor, offering a wide range of investments for cheap prices on the whole and extensive research for those taking a hands-on approach to investing.
-
Minimum Deposit:
£0 -
ISA:
Yes -
SIPP:
Yes
| Investment Choices | |
| Charges & Fees | |
| Website | |
| Education | |
| Mobile App | |
| Ease of Use |
Check out UK.StockBrokers.com's picks for the best investment platforms in 2025.
| #1 Overall | Winner |
| #1 Website | Winner |
| #1 Research | Winner |
| #1 Flat-Fee Broker | Winner |
| 2025 | #1 |
| 2024 | #1 |
| 2023 | #13 |
| 2022 | #11 |
| 2021 | #11 |
| 2020 | #3 |
Table of Contents
Pros & cons
Pros
Cons
- Charges £3.99 for mutual fund trades; these are often free on other platforms.
- Can be pricey for small portfolios under £15,000.
Interactive Investor fees
Interactive Investor (ii) appeals to people who like the idea of flat fees, rather than a percentage charge based on the value of your portfolio. Flat fees are clearer to understand and can also work out far cheaper than percentage fees depending on how much you have invested.
Interactive Investor charges £4.99 a month to those with under £50,000 invested through its Investor Essentials plan. For those with more than £50,000, the charge is £11.99 a month.
For those investing through a SIPP (self-invested personal pension), the charge is £5.99 a month for those with less than £50,000, or £12.99 monthly for those with more than £50,000 in their SIPP.
You’ll also pay trading fees like other platforms, but ii’s costs are competitive here too. It charges £3.99 to buy and sell funds, investment trusts, and U.K. or U.S. shares. Even better, if you commit to ii’s regular investing service — paying in at least £25 a month — trading charges are zero. You can have up to 25 regular monthly trades. Note that you don’t have to invest the same amount each month for investments to count as a regular trade.
Dividend reinvestment is £0.99, and can only be done when you have at least £10 to reinvest.
If you are investing in other international shares beyond the U.S., dealing charges are £9.99 or £5.99 each time, depending on the price plan of your account.
Finally, it’s even easier to add cash to your account now as ii now accepts instant bank payments.
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 traditional, taxable share dealing account, here are five scenarios of how much Interactive Investor would cost based on trade frequency:
- 5 trades per year = £79.83
- 12 trades per year = £59.88 / £107.76
- 36 trades per year = £59.88 / £203.52
- 120 trades per year = £59.88 / £538.68
- 3 fund trades per year = £71.85
| Feature |
 Interactive Investor
|
|---|---|
| Minimum Deposit | £0 |
| Share Trading: 0-9 Deals/ Month | £3.99 |
| Share Trading: 10-19 Deals/ Month | £3.99 |
| Share Trading: 20+ Deals/ Month | £3.99 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £0 - £250,000 | £59.88 - £143.88 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £250K-£500K | £143.88 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £500,000 - £1m | £143.88 |
| Annual Custody Fee: £1m and over | £143.88 |
| Bonds - Corporate - Fee | £3.99 |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) - Fee | £3.99 |
| ETFs - Fee | £3.99 |
| Investment Trusts - Fee | £3.99 |
| Telephone Dealing Fee | £49 |
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.
Range of investments
Interactive Investor offers more than 40,000 U.K. and international investment options across 17 global markets, including shares, funds, investment trusts, ETFs, and bonds. This is the widest range of available equities in a mainstream U.K. investment platform.
Interactive Investor has many materials to help people get started, including explainer articles and model portfolios. To help narrow down the wide list of funds, ii offers a Super 60 rated list, which incorporates funds, investment trusts, and ETFs, and ACE 40, a sustainable rated list that includes funds, investment trusts, and ETFs.
SIPPs: Interactive Investor’s SIPP offers a vast selection of investment options, with access to the same assortment of equities and markets as its other account types. For those who prefer a hands-off approach, ready-made portfolios are also available.
Ready-made portfolios: Interactive Investor’s ready-made portfolios are well tailored to your risk tolerance, and how you want to invest — whether you prefer active or passive investments. Fees are £5.99 monthly for an ISA plus 0.13% to 0.29%, depending on the portfolio you choose. On a £20,000 investment in ii’s cheapest ready-made ISA portfolio, you’d pay total annual fees of £97.88. I think this is good value and becomes even better value the more money you have invested. On a £45,000 investment, for example, you’d pay a total annual fee of £130.38.
| Feature |
Interactive Investor
|
|---|---|
| Share Trading | Yes |
| CFD Trading | No |
| ETFs | Yes |
| Funds | Yes |
| Bonds - Corporate | Yes |
| Bonds - Government (Gilts) | Yes |
| Investment Trusts | Yes |
| Spread Betting | No |
| Crypto Trading | No |
| Advisor Services | No |
Interactive Investor ISA review
Interactive Investor’s stocks and shares ISA is best suited to those who prefer fixed fees, especially with larger portfolios.
Pricing: The Interactive Investor (ii) stocks and shares ISA costs £4.99 a month for portfolios under £50,000 and £11.99 for portfolios above that. Regular investing is free. Otherwise, trades cost £3.99 for U.K. and U.S. shares or funds, and £9.99 for other international shares.
The monthly fee can be cheaper than percentage-based platforms if you invest £30,000 or more. For example, Hargreaves Lansdown charges fees of 0.45% if you invest in funds. On a portfolio of £30,000, for example, you’d pay annual platform charges of £135 compared with ii’s charge of £59.88 (£4.99 a month). However, it’s worth pointing out that Hargreaves Lansdown annual platform fee is capped at £45 if you invest in shares or ETFs.
With ii’s £11.99 Investor plan, you can also open junior ISAs at no extra cost.
Platform: Investment choice is broad. You can buy funds, shares, ETFs, and trusts, or pick from 10 ready-made managed portfolios based on how much risk you want to take and whether your priority is sustainable investing. They invest in assets such as shares, bonds, and property.
Interactive Investor’s website and app are very user-friendly, and the customer service is reliable. I like the wide range of guides and other learning materials on the website.
Overall, ii’s ISA suits investors with larger portfolios looking for fixed, predictable fees. You’ll either pay £59.88 or £143.88 a year depending on whether you have less or more than £50,000 invested. Regular investing avoids trading charges, keeping costs low as your investments grow.
Mobile trading apps
The Interactive Investor mobile app is more basic than the website, with charting tools kept simple for the mobile app. You can access your watch lists, find investments, view basic research, and see stock price and market movements through the app. Ideally, though, I’d like to see it offer more extensive charting features and more research to customers.
Interactive Investor has recently launched a new ii Community mobile app, where you can discuss investments, stocks, and see the portfolios of other users. This is taking a similar approach to the likes of eToro, which already has an active social community. While the launch of a community platform is an interesting step into social trading for ii, and I particularly like the fact you can see others' portfolios, I think it’s a shame the community forum is not available in the main ii app. You have to download the separate ii Community app, which makes accessing it less convenient.
Tap for a demo of Interactive Investor's U.K. trading app.
Trading platforms
I found the website both easy to navigate and laid out to make it easy to understand ii’s services and charges. Through the ii website, you can see an overview of your portfolio, set price alerts for up to 10 investments, search for investments, and create up to 10 watch lists. You can also hold international currencies in your account to avoid paying foreign exchange, or FX, fees on every overseas trade.
Elizabeth's take:
"I was pleased to find plentiful and useful guides explaining how to get the most from the platform – for example, explaining how to set up and manage a watch list. Interactive Investor is one of the easiest platforms to use and get to grips with, in my opinion, thanks to its focus on helping the customer as much as possible."
The website offers a wide range of charting tools through a partnership with TradingView, with more than 100 indicators available and 18 drawing tools. These allow you to monitor simple moving averages and to use indicators such as the Relative Strength Index to help determine whether a stock has become overbought or oversold. These tools aren’t available on the mobile app and are probably not needed for most investors, but they are useful if you are a more hands-on trader and like to analyse market trends.
You can also compare the historical performance of stocks and indices, and you can overlay one over the other to draw better comparisons. This is a great feature not offered by all platforms.
| Feature |
Interactive Investor
|
|---|---|
| Web Platform | Yes |
| iPhone App | Yes |
| Android App | Yes |
| Stock Alerts | Yes |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies | 104 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools | 18 |
| Charting - Notes | Yes |
| Charting - Display Corporate Events | Yes |
| Charting - Stock Overlays | Yes |
| Charting - Index Overlays | Yes |
Education
Interactive Investor goes big on education, featuring market insights, share tips, and articles from its own in-house experts and external contributors. It also publishes detailed reports that look at the wider U.K. savings and pensions landscape to strive for change.
It’s clear that overall, ii believes it has a duty to provide the support, intelligence, and investment choices to help Britons make better financial decisions. It offers educational content that is detailed, easy to understand, and available in accessible formats, from articles to videos. Regular webinars are also on offer, including Lunchtime Live with Bloomberg columnist Merryn Somerset Webb, and the website has an area where you can watch previously recorded webinars.
Interactive Investor also has a new partnership with Trading Central to showcase ‘market buzz’, giving real-time information on companies seeing a higher number of mentions on social media, news, and websites. Trading Central also offers other technical insights into specific companies, giving ratings for value, growth, quality, and an overall rating that reflects whether the general view is bullish or bearish. For those looking to invest in individual stocks, this offers a useful way to see the general prospects of a particular company, although, of course, returns are never guaranteed with investing.
| Feature |
Interactive Investor
|
|---|---|
| Education (Share Trading) | Yes |
| Education (Funds) | Yes |
| Education (Retirement) | Yes |
| Client Webinars | Yes |
| Client Webinars (Archived) | Yes |
Final thoughts
Interactive Investor is a great choice for people who like flat-fee costs — particularly those with a large investment portfolio of perhaps £50,000 to £70,000 or more. Investing comes with costs and it can be hard to understand exactly what you'll end up paying using brokers that charge fees based on a percentage of your portfolio.
Interactive Investor does charge for mutual fund trades, unlike rivals that typically offer fund trades for free. However, if you invest monthly into the same fund you’ll pay no trading charges.
The platform also charges £3.99 for U.K. and U.S. shares, and £9.99 for shares in other international markets. Some platforms, such as eToro, Trading 212, and CMC Invest, have no charges for these. But overall, ii is a very good platform and offers among the best value for investors. If you invest regularly each month, you’ll pay no trading charges at all.
Interactive Investor Star Ratings
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Interactive Investor
|
|---|---|
| Overall Rating |
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| Charges & Fees |
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| Investment Choices |
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| Mobile App |
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| Website |
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| Ease of Use |
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| Education |
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Our testing
Why you should trust us
Elizabeth Anderson has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. She’s written for major national newspapers, contributed to corporate reports and research, and reviewed dozens of share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISAs, and brokerage firms. Elizabeth started her career at Bloomberg and has worked for the BBC, The Telegraph, The Times and the i newspaper. She is passionate about helping people understand finance and investing. A keen investor herself, Elizabeth invests through general dealing accounts, ISAs and several SIPPs.
All content on UK.StockBrokers.com is handwritten by a writer, fact-checked by a member of our research team, and edited and published by an editor. Our ratings, rankings, and opinions are entirely our own, and the result of our extensive research and decades of collective experience covering the U.K. brokerage industry.
Ultimately, our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .1% each year, providing site visitors with quality data they can trust. Click here to learn more about how we test.
How we tested
At UK.StockBrokers.com, our online broker reviews are based on our collected quantitative data as well as the observations and qualified opinions of our expert researchers. Each year we publish tens of thousands of words of research and collect hundreds of data points while testing brokerage firms, share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISA providers, and other financial service providers relevant to U.K. investors.
Mobile testing is conducted on modern devices that run the most up-to-date operating systems available:
- For Apple, we use MacBook Pro laptops running the latest version of and the iPhone 15 running the latest version of iOS.
- For Android, we use the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra devices running Android OS 14.
All websites and web-based platforms are tested using the latest version of the Google Chrome browser.
Our researchers thoroughly test a wide range of key features, such as the availability and quality of trading platforms for web, desktop, and mobile, charting, real-time and streaming quotes, and educational resources – among other important variables. We also evaluate the overall design of the mobile experience, and look for a fluid user experience moving between mobile and desktop platforms.
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About Interactive Investor
Interactive Investor was founded in 1995 and has more than 400,000 customers — around the same as rival AJ Bell — who hold a total of around £55 billion through the platform. Its company mission is to offer transparent and fair fees to its customers. Interactive Investor was bought by institutional investor Abrdn in 2022.
About 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.
Blain Reinkensmeyer has 20 years of trading experience with over 2,500 trades placed during that time. He heads research for all U.S.-based brokerages on StockBrokers.com and is respected by executives as the leading expert covering the online broker industry. Blain’s insights have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets.
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.
Jeff Anberg is a Senior Editor at UK.StockBrokers.com. Along with years of experience in media distribution at a global newsroom, Jeff has a versatile knowledge base encompassing the technology and financial markets. He is a long-time active investor and engages in research on emerging markets like cryptocurrency. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy from San Francisco State University.