Cost & Platform Analytics
Fees are the quiet, compounding cost that erodes long-term returns. This section builds the numeracy to compare platforms and funds properly.
Platform Fee Comparisons
How UK investment platforms charge for holding funds, and how to work out which fee structure actually saves you the most money.
Fixed Fee vs Percentage Fee Brokerages: Which Saves You More?
A comparison of flat-fee and percentage-fee investment platforms, showing how the better value option shifts as your portfolio grows in size.
Read guide →Best SIPP Platforms in the UK: Comparing Costs for Larger Pension Pots
How SIPP platform charges scale as a pension pot grows, and what larger pension savers should prioritise when comparing providers and their fee structures.
Read guide →Hidden Platform Costs: Exit Fees, Transfer-Out Charges, and Dealing Fees Explained
A look at the less obvious platform charges that catch investors out, including exit fees, transfer-out charges, and dealing costs worth checking first.
Read guide →Robo-Advisors vs DIY Investing Platforms: Paying for Convenience vs Control
Comparing the cost and convenience trade-offs between robo-advisors and self-directed platforms, to help investors decide what suits their time and budget.
Read guide →How Platform Fee Caps Work: Why Fund Investors Often Pay Less Than Share Investors
An explanation of how percentage fee caps on fund holdings can make investment platforms cheaper for fund investors than for those trading shares directly.
Read guide →Switching Investment Platforms: A Step-by-Step Guide to Transferring Without Losses
A step-by-step guide to transferring investments between platforms without unnecessary cost, delay, or time spent out of the market during the process.
Read guide →Regular Investment Discounts: How Platforms Reward Monthly Contributions Over Lump Sums
How some investment platforms offer discounted dealing charges to investors who set up a regular monthly contribution plan instead of investing lump sums.
Read guide →Custody Fees Explained: What You're Actually Paying a Platform For
What a platform's custody fee actually covers, and why it is charged separately from dealing charges and the fund charges you pay to the fund manager.
Read guide →Family and Junior Account Discounts: Cutting Costs Across a Household's Investments
How linking family and Junior ISA accounts on a single investment platform can reduce overall charges across a household's combined investments.
Read guide →Platform Security and FSCS Protection: What Happens If Your Provider Fails
How FSCS protection applies to investment platforms, and what happens to your cash and holdings if the provider you use were to fail financially.
Read guide →Choosing a Platform for a Small Portfolio vs a Large One: Why One Size Doesn't Fit All
Why the most cost-effective platform charging structure often depends heavily on the size of your portfolio, and how to judge which suits you best.
Read guide →Fund Fees (OCF/TER)
Understanding what a fund actually costs to hold each year, beyond the headline percentage, and how small differences compound over time.
The Ongoing Charges Figure (OCF): How a 1% Fee Can Cost You Thousands in Retirement
How a fund's Ongoing Charges Figure compounds over decades, and why a seemingly small 1% annual fee can cost thousands of pounds in retirement savings.
Read guide →Tracking Error: Why Your Index Fund Isn't Perfectly Matching the Market
What tracking error is, why even well-run index funds do not perfectly replicate their benchmark, and how much this difference should matter to investors.
Read guide →OCF vs TER vs AMC: Decoding the Alphabet Soup of Fund Charges
Clearing up the confusion between OCF, TER, and AMC, the three most common figures used to describe fund charges on UK investment platforms.
Read guide →Platform Fee Plus Fund Fee: Calculating Your True All-In Investment Cost
How to add platform charges and fund charges together to work out the real, all-in cost of investing, rather than looking at either figure alone.
Read guide →Why Cheaper Isn't Always Better: When a Higher-Fee Active Fund Might Be Worth It
The circumstances in which a higher-cost actively managed fund could still be a reasonable choice for an investor over a cheaper passive tracker fund.
Read guide →Transaction Costs and Stamp Duty: The Charges That Don't Appear in the OCF
The dealing costs, stamp duty, and other transaction charges that sit outside a fund's headline Ongoing Charges Figure but still affect overall returns.
Read guide →Fee Drag Over 30 Years: Modelling the Real Cost of Fees on a £100,000 Portfolio
A worked example modelling how different annual fee levels affect the growth of a £100,000 portfolio when compounded over a thirty-year investing horizon.
Read guide →Performance Fees Explained: How Some Funds Charge More When They Do Well
How performance fees work, including the role of high-water marks, and what these charges mean for the overall cost of holding a fund long term.
Read guide →Clean vs Bundled Share Classes: Why the Same Fund Can Have Different Fees
The difference between clean and bundled fund share classes, and why exactly the same underlying fund can carry noticeably different charges to investors.
Read guide →Comparing Fund Fees Across Similar Products: A Step-by-Step Checklist
A practical, step-by-step checklist for comparing the total costs of similar funds side by side before deciding which one to invest your money in.
Read guide →Why Fund Size and Economies of Scale Affect the Fees You Pay
How a fund's total size can influence its ongoing charges through economies of scale, and what this means when comparing similar funds on cost.
Read guide →The True Cost of Switching Fund Providers: Exit Fees vs Long-Term Savings
Weighing any exit or transfer costs against the potential long-term savings of switching to a cheaper fund provider before making the final decision.
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