
Stocks & Shares ISAs
Find the best ISA or investment platform
Every adult has a chunky £20,000 ISA allowance for 2020/21, which can be used for investing in the stock market and/or put into a cash ISA. This guide runs through everything you need to know before investing, including how to get a good deal on a stocks & shares ISA.
There are no guarantees when you're investing
Investing is a long way from putting your cash in a bank account where it sits to earn interest. An investment is a gamble: instead of the security of guaranteed returns, you're taking a risk with your money. This means your money can go up as well as down in value.
We can't tell you whether investing is right for you. But if you're going to do it, it's recommended you invest for at least five years. This is because the longer you invest, the longer you have to ride out any bumps in the market.

Other top ISA guides...
Cash ISAs: All the best deals, plus help choosing.
Full ISA guide: For everything you need to know about ISAs.
Lifetime ISAs: It's the Help to Buy ISA's successor, but is it right for you?

What is a stocks & shares ISA?
Everyone in the UK over 18 has an annual £20,000 ISA allowance (for the 2020/21 tax year, ending 5 April 2021). You can use all of this for a stocks & shares ISA if you want, or you can split it between stocks & shares and any of the other types of ISA, including cash ISAs, lifetime ISAs and innovative finance ISAs.
A stocks & shares ISA is very different to a cash ISA, which is simply a savings account you never pay tax on. With a stocks & shares ISA you're investing.
If this is your first experience of investing, it'll be worth reading our Beginners' guide to investing to get a broader idea of what's involved.
Where do I buy a stocks & shares ISA from?
You can buy stocks & shares ISAs from different providers, but for the cheapest offers you want to do it through a website, often called a 'platform'.
Investing in a stocks & shares ISA is a two-stage process:
- You first need to pick which provider to buy your ISA from,
- Then you need to decide what investments to put in it.
It's like buying bread in a supermarket. You first need to pick where you want to buy the bread from (decide which platform to use), then choose what bread you want to buy from there (your funds or any other type of investments).

You'll be charged both for using the platform and buying/holding the funds. To stretch the analogy somewhat, imagine each supermarket charges a different price for its shopping bags.
Some supermarket bags are cheaper than others, but the ones that have the most expensive bags may be the ones that sell the bread the cheapest. So it's a combination of the two factors that needs to be taken into consideration.
Note, while the platform fee is charged by the platform you choose, the company running the funds will be charging you for the funds.
What can I invest in?
There are many different types of investment. You can invest in almost anything - from the mainstream such as shares, bonds and funds to the more exotic such as farmland, vintage cars and wine. You can also leave your money as cash in a stocks & shares ISA, but you typically won't get a great return (often much less than in a cash ISA or savings account).
However, the majority of investors stick to shares and funds.
Shares
A share is simply a divided-up unit of the value of a company. For example, if a company is worth £100 million, and there are 50 million shares, each share is worth £2 (usually listed as 200p). Those shares can, and do, go up and down in value for various reasons.
Companies issue shares to raise money and investors (that's you) buy shares in businesses because they believe the company will do well and they want to 'share' in its success. See our Shares guide for a full rundown, and remember what you choose will be down to your attitude to risk.
Funds
A fund is simply another way to buy shares. However, instead of you buying a slice of a company directly, you give your cash to a specialist manager who pools it with money from other investors (like you) to go and buy a job lot of shares in a stock market (ie, shares of lots of different companies). This makes it a bit less risky than investing in shares as you're sharing the risk with others plus you're not just investing in one company.
Funds can be either active or passive:
- Active funds. An active fund is run by a fund manager who's picking what to put in the fund. Because you have an expert at the helm, these funds normally cost a bit more as you're paying for them to do their job.
- Passive funds. A passive fund hasn't got a fund manager. Instead, the fund invests in an index which follows the performance of, say, the top 100 companies in the UK (this is known as the FTSE 100).
A fund's theme could be anything from:
- Geography. Eg, European, Japanese, emerging markets.
- Industry. Eg, green companies, utility firms, industrial businesses.
- Types of investment. Eg, shares, corporate bonds, gilts.
- The size of the company. Eg, a fund could be solely focusing on smaller to medium sized companies.
The combination gives you the risk factor. If the fund focuses on "fledgling biotech companies in emerging markets", all the elements involve a high degree of uncertainty. So if it goes well, you could be in for massive gains, and if it goes badly, massive losses.
Each fund is made up of 'units' so if you want to invest, you'll need to buy units – and these come at a cost which varies from day to day. The value of each unit will rise or fall (or stay the same, of course) depending on demand in the market for the fund.
Say you want to invest £1,000 in a fund; if each fund unit costs £2, you can buy 500 units. Six months later, if each unit is now worth £2.50, your investment is worth £1,250. See our Funds guide for a full explanation.
The nine stocks & shares ISA need-to-knows
Stocks & shares ISA top picks
There are three type of platforms:
- Do-it-yourself platforms - aimed at sophisticated investors who know what they're doing and are happy picking their own funds and shares. See our DIY platform top picks.
- Do-it-with-me platforms - here you still pick your own funds and shares, but there's help to narrow down the choice. See our do-it-with-me platform top picks.
- Do-it-for-me platforms - you get asked questions about your goals and attitudes to risk, and these platforms then pick a portfolio for you. See our do-it-for-me platform top picks.
Do-it-yourself platforms top picks
The do-it-yourself platforms are really best for those who know what they're doing. You need to be clear on why you're investing, what you want to achieve and, importantly, how long it will take to achieve. With do-it-yourself platforms, you may have access to some help, but you'll have to:
- Do your own research before deciding what to invest in.
- Build your own portfolio.
- Keep track of it.

Do-it-yourself platforms - our review
No-frills investment website iWeb, which is operated by Halifax Share Dealing, is one of the cheapest do-it-yourself platforms out there. It has a very simple pricing model - there's a one-off account opening charge of £100, then it's £5 per trade after. So, if you'll just pick shares and funds and stick with them, it's really cheap. But, if you do want to actively trade, it could start to get expensive and you'd be better off looking for a platform with low trading fees.
One such platform is Interactive Investor (II)*. It charges more in platform fees than iWeb, but may work out cheaper if you're a frequent trader as it offers one free trade a month, or is unlimited free trades if you pay in £25+ per month. It also has an app if you're wanting to manage your portfolio on the go.
Provider | Platform charge | Min ISA deposit | Fund dealing | Transfer out fee |
---|---|---|---|---|
iWeb | £100 (one-off) | £0 | £5/trade | £0 |
Interactive Investor* | £9.99/month for 'Investor' plan (1) | Any lump sum or £25/month | One free trade/month then £7.99/trade (2) | £0 |
(1) This fee also covers a Junior ISA and trading account. (2) It's free if you're a regular investor.
Do-it-with-me platforms top picks
- A big list of funds may be narrowed down for you.
- Or there may be portfolios with different risk levels to choose from, but you don't get told which one to go for (like you would with the do-it-for-me option below). Instead it is up to you to make the decision.

Do-it-with-me platforms - our review
AJ Bell Youinvest* is more expensive than our other pick Vanguard below, but it does offer a wider range of investment options. You can pick from any of its 82 'favourite funds', its nine passive funds with different risk levels, 19 investment trusts on its favourite investment trust list, or you can choose from four ready-made portfolios.
Vanguard doesn't charge exit fees and is a cheap way to invest in funds, charging the lowest percentage-based platform fee around of 0.15%. However, you can only invest in its own range of funds, which may be an issue for some people who want more investment diversity. It does have 75 funds to choose from, including its popular 'LifeStrategy' funds, which let you choose between five options based on the level of risk you want to take and whether you have short or long-term goals.
Provider | Platform charge | Average annual fund manager charges | Fund dealing | Min ISA deposit | Transfer out fee |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
AJ Bell* | 0.05%-0.25%/year (1) | 0.35% (2) | £1.50 (3) | £500 (4) | £9.95/holding |
Vanguard | 0.15%/year (max £375) | 0.22% (5) | £0 | £500 (6) | £0 |
(1) 0.25% for under £250,000, 0.1% for £250,000-£1m, 0.05% for £1m-£2m, nothing above £2m. There is also a 0.25% annual shares custody charge capped at £3.50/month. (2) For passive balanced fund (3) £9.95 a trade, reducing to £4.95 if there were 10 or more trades in the previous month for shares and ETFs (4) Or £25/month if regularly saving (5) LifeStrategy 60% (6) Or £100/month if regularly saving.
Do-it-for-me platforms top picks
These platforms, often also called robo-advisers, are best for those who want all the hard work done for them and don't want the responsibility of making any investment decisions. With do-it-for-me platforms:
- You will be asked some fact-finding questions, with risk-profiling by the platform to help decide on an investment portfolio
- It will be based on your attitude to risk, any investment goals and what you can afford to invest.
Perhaps confusingly, these platforms can sometimes work out cheapest, even though you're being given the most amount of help. This is purely based on the fact that the underlying investments in your portfolio will likely be exchange traded funds (ETFs), which typically are low-cost in nature.

Do-it-for-me platforms - our review
If you're a new Nutmeg customer and open an ISA account via our link* you'll pay no platform fees for the first year. After this the fees revert to 0.45% up to £100,000, and 0.25% after that for its fixed allocation portfolio.
It also offers a fully managed option – which means your investments are monitored and changed by its investment team – or a socially responsible option – where you can invest in companies that have been highly rated for ethics and sustainability. These come at a cost and if you're happy to just pick your portfolio and let it do its thing, choosing its fixed allocation portfolio is a good option.
If you're a new Wealthify* customer and open an ISA account via our link, you'll pay no platform fee for the first year. After this, the fees will revert to a flat rate of 0.6% - making it more expensive than OpenMoney. You tell Wealthify how much you want to invest, how confident you are with your investment from cautious to adventurous and then choose between an original or ethical blend of investments and it does the rest for you.
With any of the platforms offering a deal, if you want to move to another platform with cheaper fees after the fee-free deal has ended, you'll most likely need to sell your investments and reinvest on the new platform. So be aware, in this instance, if your investment has gone down, you could lose money.
You may not have heard of OpenMoney, but it has one of the lowest platform fees of the do-it-for-me offerings. Total annual fees, including fund and transaction charges, are just 0.35% – this means if you're investing over the longer term, or you've a large portfolio, it may work out cheaper than the others - even with the no-fee offer options.
Provider | Platform charge | Min ISA deposit | Average annual fund manager charges | Transfer out fee |
---|---|---|---|---|
Nutmeg* | Free for 1 year for newbies via link, then 0.45%-0.75% (1) | £500 (2) | 0.17% - 0.31% (3) | £0 |
Wealthify* | Free for 1 year for newbies via link, then 0.6% | £1 | 0.22% | £0 |
OpenMoney* | 0.35%(4) | £1 | 0.11% | £0 |
(1) Fully managed/Smart Alpha/Socially Responsible: 0.75% up to £100k, 0.35% beyond. Fixed Allocation: 0.45% up to £100k, 0.25% beyond (2) For the waived fees (3) Fixed Allocation 0.17%, Fully Managed/Smart Alpha 0.19%, Socially Responsible 0.31% (4) 0.25% OpenMoney fee + 0.10% product fee.
Get free research to help choose a fund

If you're new to investing and have decided to take the do-it-yourself or do-it-with-me route, then as well as the information which may be available on the website of the platform you have chosen, there's detailed fund and stock market information on other websites that you can use.
If you've jumped straight here, don't just dive in – it's worth going back to the start of this guide where we explain exactly how stocks & shares ISAs work and what a fund is.
Below are our top picks to get up-to-date, in-depth and easy-to-read information on funds, so that you can swot up before deciding where to invest your cash.
Hargreaves Lansdown*
- Very helpful and easy-to-navigate website jam-packed full of information about funds which you can make the most of whether you decide to use it or not.
- Has its 'Wealth Shortlist' - a collection of funds selected for their performance potential.
Interactive Investor*
- Wide range of information, including beginner's guides on a range of investments and a glossary of terms you might come across while you're researching investments.
- Its research team also produce tables showing the top and bottom 10 funds and the 10 most traded funds on its website in each monthly period.
- If you sign up for a free account, you'll be able to access the more in-depth technical insight section. Once you're logged in, you'll be able to select specific funds and review performance, and see any patterns which have emerged over time.
Bestinvest*
- Its research team looks at more than 85,000 funds and compiles research on a monthly basis.
- Website has a huge range of guides available to download for free, covering everything from how to spot the worst performing funds, to the top rated funds and general information on how stocks & shares ISAs and other products work.
- Stock market news and a tool which allows you to search for particular fund managers by their performance and track record.
Charles Stanley Direct
- If you don't need as much hand-holding, Charles Stanley Direct's website has a good round-up of what's going on in the markets.
- Market data section of the website breaks down lists of FTSE companies and allows you to check performance for any time period from one day to three years. You can also check which companies have risen and fallen, or view any changes by whole industry sector. All the information is updated every 15 minutes, so you get a very accurate feel for what's going on in the market.
Want help investing?
If you're not sure how to invest and what to invest in, seek independent financial advice. Read the Financial Advice guide for more information.
Tip Email
FREE Weekly MoneySaving email
For all the latest deals, guides and loopholes simply sign up today - it’s spam free!

Spotted out of date info/broken links? Email: brokenlink@moneysavingexpert.com
Clever ways to calculate your finances