Hey guys, it's sasha. So until now the question of what is the cheapest investing app in uk had a very simple answer. It was trading two on two. They attracted 1.4 million customers with a completely free proposition, but they've just introduced a new fee.

They now charge 9.15 for foreign exchanges, so anytime you go and buy any stocks or any etfs or anything else in the currency other than the one in which your account is in. In my case pounds you will have to pay that fee now. That fee is still very, very cheap, but suddenly the question of which platform is the cheapest doesn't have a simple answer. In fact, there are multiple different answers, depending on exactly what you do and how you do it.

I actually went and did a comprehensive write down of exactly what the different charges from all the different platforms out there are and exactly how much it would cost you uh to do different kinds of trades and i'm gon na explain exactly what the answers are. Just for clarity, if you are a billionaire and watching this video - and you have nothing else to do with your billions um, some additional platforms do exist where charges such as like 12 pounds per trade might actually be cheaper for you, because they're not percentage based, and They will actually probably be very, very cheap in your case, but for mere chumps like me, who don't have that kind of money? Who'll just maybe have a few thousand or something like that to go and invest um. I am not going to be covering those platforms. I'm just going to be covering uh the ones that are accessible to regular normal everyday investors.

I will also in this video not talk at all about the features of these platforms, because that will make this video very very long. I'm just going to be talking about the costs. Now i'm going to be talking about the different platforms that are all classed as cheap and i'm going to cover all the different ones, including all the ones that people keep mentioning in my comments, just so that people know that i've considered all of them so that You understand exactly where the value might be, specifically the ones i'm going to be talking about are trading 212 free trade, etoro stake the jira and ig now i'll do a very quick rundown of each individual platform so that you know what the key fees are. I'm not going to mention every single one and i'm going to explain why as i go through them, but and i'm also going to ignore cfds, crypto trading and all of that kind of stuff, because i'm just talking about regular investing in this video.

If you want to understand that side, you need to go and do your own research for yourself outside this video. I'm also going to ignore stocks and shares isa accounts from this video. I'm going to make a separate video about those accounts and the relative pricing that i'm going to release at some point very soon, because that's a different question and that doesn't apply to anyone who isn't in the uk as well. Now here is the summary: trading212 remains incredibly cheap.

The only fee that you have to pay as it stands from the 3rd of april 2021 is the 0.15 for an exchange fee and every transaction in a currency. That is not the one of your account deposits via card cost not 0.7 as of several weeks ago for anything over 2000, but bank transfers are still free and they are pretty much immediate now, so it doesn't really matter. You don't have to pay that fee. So that's the the final exchange fee is the only one.

Next up is free trade, free trade charges not point four: five percent foreign exchange fees on the same foreign transactions, but that is the only fee that they do charge. Unless you want to set up the iso, which is three pounds a month um, there are less features and some are hidden behind a paywall. So the plus account does allow you things like limit orders or stop losses and things like, but you do have to pay that extra fee, for that a big difference is that they went and put all these fees out there up front. They didn't go and do any kind of pretending that they're, free or very cheap and then introduce them.

So there's definitely a big plus for me on the honest and transparency side there. Now next is etoro. It's already have a 0.5 fee for loading money into the account that isn't in us dollars and another 0.5 percent plus five dollars in order to withdraw it. Now, that's for pounds and euros if you use a different currency and you want to transfer a different currency.

Your charges may be higher as they are for some other ones. Some people find that they can actually go and convert the money cheaper elsewhere, like through revenue to somewhere else, but i'm gon na not talk about these alternatives because for the majority they're not going to be doing that, so that's the only fee. That's even if you're going to have to pay for regular investing, like the kind of that i do, and the beauty here is that it doesn't apply to every single trade like with free trade and training 212, and that's where it gets a bit interesting. Interestingly, also etoro don't charge uk stamp duty on investing in big uk stocks, unlike every other broker, and they actually pay it themselves, which means they are really interesting when it comes to buying uk stocks.

We're gon na get come to that in just a second um. Other than that there are no other uh fees, there are a lot of fees, as i mentioned previously on cfds and crypto. They don't apply to the kind of stuff i'm talking about, so i'm not gon na talk about them. Stake it's a relatively new app.

It got a lot of coverage and a short space of time. You might have noticed on youtube with some of the big youtubers, because they ran a campaign shall we say with influencers um and they have a very similar 0.5 foreign exchange fee to etoro. When you load the money in but they charge a two dollar fee, when you would draw on top of that rather than the five dollars uh. So so that's pretty good, although there is a minimum there's a two dollar minimum on that foreign exchange fee.

So that means, if you deposit, withdraw less than 400 you're gon na be paying two dollars as a flat fee, and so it's only 0.5 percent for larger amounts above 400. Now for anyone who wants to try to cheat the system like with etoro, you can't really do it here, because, if you go outside of their app to go and convert and then load dollars in you're still gon na have to pay five dollars per transfer because They thought of that uh trick, so there's no way of doing it for free now i know i said i'm not going to talk about features, and i am not, but here is a really important point. Deposits and transactions on stake are incredibly slow compared to all the other platforms i'm going to be talking about. You have to wait for days to wait for your money to come in, and you also can only trade with cleared funds with other ones.

You don't have to wait until the money's cleared in order to reinvest and that's really important, because you have to wait two full days for transaction to settle. So if you sell something, that's how you have to wait before you can buy back. If you want to trade instantly like on the other apps, you do have to pay an extra nine dollars per month for state black and another 0.5 percent to have your deposit available the very next day, so not immediate, but the next day. So it is just someone to consider, because, although these are not compulsory fees, they will still apply now the jury.

They do seem to be getting more popular, i'm getting a lot more comments on them, but their pricing structure is incredibly complicated. It is crazy compared to the other apps. It is very long. There are different profiles that you can choose when you first set up the account, depending on what you're planning to do with the account whether you're sort of a long-term investor or an active day trader.

But the fees are roughly similar and pretty much the same for the key stuff that i'm going to be talking about now to trade stocks on the london stock exchange cost one pound 75 plus 0.14 for a maximum of five pounds. Although that five pounds only kicks in at like 23 000 or something like that us stocks, cost 50 euro cents, plus four us cents per share, i did tell you, i did warn you. These are crazy and weirdly. Complicated higher fees do apply to other markets as well: ets cost 2 euros plus 0.03 to trade.

You then have to pay 2 euros 50 per year to connect to each exchange. In order for you to be able to trade honest, for example, if you buy stocks on nasdaq and on new york stock exchange and some others, you have to pay 250 per one to connect to it, except your home exchange, which is free. So, for me, that would be my london stock exchange. For example.

I know i did warn you. This is really weirdly complicated. Then, on top of this, you need to pay extra five euros to get live prices from nasdaq, for example, but that feature is not even available on some other big markets like the new york stock exchange. There are a lot, a huge number of other fees listed in here that i'm not going to cover in this video.

So if you want to find out all the other ones, you can go and read, these are probably the most important ones. That probably would apply to the majority people. A lot of the other ones probably will not. Last on my list is ig.

They also have a 0.5 foreign exchange fee, but they do allow you to hold money in u.s dollars in your account, which means it can be a one-off fee like with the toronto and stake. I i'm going to come to that in just a second there's a but other fees with ig do depend on your activity. If you make three or more trades per month, uh you'll pay nothing to trade u.s stocks and you only pay three pounds to trade shares per trade on lse online stock exchange. If you are less active, so if you don't make the three per month, you have to pay 10 pounds and eight pounds for those trades respectively.

However, there is one trick: if you look at a small print underneath it does say that the trade fees are only cheap like the ones i mentioned. If you can, let them convert their money using their foreign exchange fee. If you converted manually and use that money that you've converted to trade afterwards, you then have to pay a fee of 15 or more per trade. If you don't make three trades per month, you also have to pay a monthly custody fee of 24 pounds, which is quite expensive.

So, after all of that now i've, given you all the key fees for all the features for all the platforms that everyone keeps talking about, which is the cheapest well, let me break it down for you one. If you passively invest in uk stocks, then free trade and trading 202 are the cheapest platforms. They will charge you nothing. You only have to pay, not point five percent stamp duty when you buy those stocks with both of those platforms.

Stake is very, very close. They have that two dollar withdrawal fee being the only difference, but the big difference is the difference in features. So you have to wait for funds. You have to wait for money to settle before you can reinvest and that's a big factor um if you invest in uk stocks more actively.

So if you buy and sell them over time using the same money, then actually this changes etoro becomes the cheapest. You will lose 0.5 when you load money in and another 0.5 plus the five dollars when you draw the money out, but etoro covers stamp duty. So if you buy and sell two different uk stocks with the same money, then suddenly etoro will become the cheapest platform. Because after that, essentially you are not paying the standard duty, but you've already covered the cost of depositing withdrawing money.

That 0.5, by not having to pay for the stamp duty, it's an interesting trick. So if you frequently invest in uk stocks and you move money between them, etoro actually becomes cheaper. If you invest in uk, based etfs that are priced in pounds like the vusa, for example, for the s p 500 - that i personally invest in, and free trade and trading to one two continue to be the cheapest options, where this is completely free other than the Cost of the etf itself, which is the same everywhere. If you passively, invest in u.s stocks, then trading 212 is still the cheapest platform and if he's just not point one five percent, when you trade, so that's roughly not point three percent.

If you buy and then sell, i know it's different, because the prices will change in between, but roughly speaking, um you're also going to lose 0.15 on any dividends that get paid to you from a u.s based company because they have to convert it into your base. Currency when you receive the money, however, if you invest in u.s stocks more actively, then etoro becomes the cheapest platform and you will lose one percent on foreign exchange fees. When you move money in and out, but then then there are no fees at all. Once you are inside the platform once the money is already in, if you buy and sell four different us stocks over time with the same funds, etoro becomes cheaper than trading two one two.

This is a really interesting point now, before anyone points it out. Stake is technically cheaper. Despite the lack of features, the withdrawal fee is only two dollars versus the five dollars for etoro and the 0.5 is the same. However, for active trading, the massive lack of features and stake, i think kind of negates that benefit, because you have to wait several days between being able to sell and then being able to buy.

And in the case that i'm discussing here, which is for the more active investor, that is a really important point, that can be a much bigger difference than that tiny difference in the fee in the long run. So, in my opinion that actually outweighs it, and so i think, on that basis, hitar is sochi, but by the way, if you're interested in opening an etoro account, you can do so by using my affiliate link in the description below you will get absolutely nothing for It you do not get any free shares, there's absolutely no benefit whatsoever. I get paid if you go and use my link, but you know it doesn't cost you anything either. So if you do want to do it, i would really appreciate it.

If you go and check them out, you do have to make a minimum deposit of 200 as well uh. But but anyway, if you invest in u.s dollar based etfs, exactly the same rules apply as due to u.s stocks and shares that i just mentioned in terms of which one comes out cheaper, just in case anyone has that question as well. I really hope that fight that helps people decide, which kind of is cheapest in terms of just the numbers make sure you smash the like button featured algorithm. If you want more people to be able to watch this video to make the decision for themselves - and thank you very much for watching - i really really appreciate it and i'll see you guys later.

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