Platforms

happybagger

HI all, can any give ideas on platforms for S&S ISAs, particularly regarding charges. I have always, in the past, used Elson, but direct. Not through one of their two platforms (Aegon and FundsNetwork)
I do intend to make use of the full £20k over the year, and want to spread it across funds this year so want to use a platform. I'm unlikely to make many changes.

In this situation, cavendish online looks a cheap route at 0.25, elson seems to be 0.55 to 0.60, ii looks to be £120pa ie 0.60 (but this would be lower if I transferred my existing ISAs to them)
Already with HL for active savings, they are 0.45 but some of their online reviews aren't great

I may add SIPP at some point as intending to go self employed this year, looks like ii add £10pm for that but others don't.

Any thoughts on these or others?

cattie

I switched my isa from Aegon to iweb last year as it meant that I'd save hundreds of £'s per year by switching. These sites will help you decide which is the most cost effective route to take as it depends on such things as the size of your investment, how many trades etc.
https://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/
I've recently also opened a Cavendish/Fidelity isa for the current year as one of the funds I was interested in wasn't on the list of iwebs fund & as I've over £85k in iweb funds I thought it might be as well to have some holdings elsewhere to take advantage of FSCS cover should something drastic occour

eskbanker

The cheapest platform will depend on a range of factors, including what type of products you'd be looking to invest in, how often, how much, etc, but there are a number of comparison sites into which you can plug your numbers to identify which would be cheapest for you (but these sites don't encompass other factors such as customer service quality, etc, which are typically more subjective):

http://monevator.com/compare-the-brokers/

http://www.comparefundplatforms.com/

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5583030rel="nofollow" href="https://www.boringmoney.co.uk/calculator/">https://www.boringmoney.co.uk/calculator/

TBC15

Snowman’s spreadsheet is a good place to start https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12cKYIJ2mE7D7jbsCmKZksz4pYLoFrtLdVqsUHA95rjU/edit#gid=0

Albermarle

I may add SIPP at some point as intending to go self employed this year, looks like ii add £10pm for that but others don't.

As a very basic rule of thumb, the platforms that are low price for ISA's , usually add on extra for a SIPP and extra again when you start withdrawing from the SIPP.

The platforms with a higher regular charge have less/no extra charges . So platforms that look expensive for an ISA , are more competitive for a SIPP in drawdown for example . Although there are other factors, such as size of your investments and exactly what type they are. It's very much 'horses for courses' and no one platform is the 'best' 

RetSol

Have you asked Elson what they would charge?  I use Elson/Aegon and pay 0.39%.  New customers pay c. 0.60% but existing customers were not affected when Elson increased their fees last year. 

happybagger

Elson were sticking with their rates on their website, maybe if I'd invested with them in the past on aegon/ffn I may have got a lower charge, but only invested direct before.

Cheers for the advice folks, the comparefundplatforms comparisons were a good starting point