Investment Platform Fees Explained: What You Are Actually Paying

Our guide to comparing platforms covers what to look at overall. Fees deserve a closer look on their own, because "platform fees" is really shorthand for several distinct charges that stack together, and comparing platforms on a single headline number often misses real differences.

The platform fee

This is what the platform itself charges for holding your investments and providing the account, dashboard and service — usually either a flat annual fee, a percentage of the value held, or sometimes a mix, often with the percentage tapering down or capping at higher amounts invested. Which structure suits you best depends heavily on how much you have invested: flat fees tend to favour larger portfolios, while percentage fees (especially uncapped ones) can become expensive as your investments grow.

The fund fee (ongoing charges figure)

Separately from the platform, each individual fund you hold charges its own ongoing fee (sometimes shown as the "ongoing charges figure" or OCF), covering the cost of managing that specific fund. This applies regardless of which platform you use to hold the fund, and varies a lot — passive index funds are typically much cheaper than actively managed funds (see our active vs passive guide).

Trading or dealing charges

Some platforms charge a fee each time you buy or sell an investment, particularly for individual shares rather than funds; others offer free or reduced-cost regular investing specifically to encourage monthly contributions. If you plan to invest via regular monthly contributions rather than occasional lump sums, dealing charges (or the lack of them) can matter more than the headline platform fee.

Other charges to check

Depending on the platform, you may also encounter charges for things like transferring out to another provider, holding investments within certain tax wrappers, foreign exchange charges for overseas investments, or inactivity in some cases. These are often smaller or occasional, but worth checking, particularly exit fees if you think you might want to switch providers later.

Why total cost matters more than any single figure

A platform with a low headline platform fee but an expensive dealing charge structure, or one that only offers pricier active funds, is not automatically cheaper overall than a platform with a slightly higher platform fee but low-cost fund access and free regular investing. Estimating your total annual cost — platform fee plus fund fees plus expected dealing activity — based on how you actually plan to invest gives a much more accurate comparison than any single advertised number.

Small percentage differences add up over time

Because these are ongoing, recurring charges applied to your whole portfolio (not one-off costs), even a small percentage difference compounds meaningfully over long investing horizons — this is part of why fee comparison is worth doing properly rather than assuming small differences don't matter.

This is general education, not personalised financial advice. Investing involves risk, including the risk of losing money, and past performance is not a guide to future returns. Nothing here recommends any specific investment — for anything genuinely complex or high-stakes, speak to a regulated financial adviser.