I have £5,000 to invest. How do I choose the right platform?

ShareSoc’s Investing Basics videos have made us think quite a lot about what a new investor should do. If you have suddenly come into money, are new to investing and are wondering what to do with it, then you should seek some financial advice (and also watch the investing basics videos). But if you have saved a few thousand, or even a few tens of thousand, you won’t find a good financial adviser willing to spend their time with you (you might, but not for a sensible fee!). 

You will need a platform. With £5,000 to invest, you need to manage costs carefully so you might want to look at Dodl which is run by ShareSoc Investing Basics sponsor AJ Bell. According to the Dodl website the charges are very favourable: 

By way of comparison, Hargreaves charges 0.45% p.a. (that’s £22.50 per annum on £5,000) and interactive investor charges a fixed fee of £120 p.a. (£9.99 per month) for their ISA accounts. The fixed fee approach is best for those with big pots of money to invest, but expensive for smaller amounts. 

Note that the above table does not include transaction and fund fees. Readers should check those before choosing an investment platform, taking into consideration the number of transactions they are likely to make and whether they wish to invest in funds. 

The lang cat has also produced a useful Guide to ISA Investing. The data is from 2021/2 so may need a refresh, but the cost heatmap is a useful reference point. 

The next question is what should you invest in. That will depend on your risk appetite, how much time you wish to spend investing and whether you wish to outsource the investment decisions to others. These issues are explained in ShareSoc Investing Basics, which consists of ten x 10-minute free, unbiased videos. 

 

This is a ShareSoc News Item written by Cliff Weight, ShareSoc Director of Education. 

18 Jan. 23 

4 Comments
  1. rogerwlawson says:

    You don’t need to look at just the level of charges, but the quality of the service and whether there are any limitations on what you can invest in.

  2. Cliff Weight says:

    For those with less than £30,000, you can now invest it for £60 p.a. Via the new interactive investor account Got a nest egg of less than £30k? You can invest it for £60 a year

  3. Cliff Weight says:

    Got a nest egg of less than £30k? You can invest it for £60 a year

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.