Hargreaves Lansdown review

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Our verdict

Our verdict

Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) has everything you could ask for in an investment platform. It has the accounts, the investments, the resources, and a much-loved customer support team. The platform was built with experienced investors and beginners in mind, with plenty of advanced tools plus options for those who want a bit of hand-holding.

When reviewing the platform, our experts found that HL isn’t the most competitive for commission. But for fund investing, it does provide excellent value. And sometimes you get what you pay for anyway.

If you’re looking for a well-known investment brokerage with a sparkling reputation, we think HL may tick all your boxes. But if you just want the cheapest no-frills platform in town, you might want to shop around.

Best for: Customer satisfaction

Pros

• Wide range of accounts
• No platform fee for some accounts
• Free fund trading
• Great customer service reviews
• Excellent mobile app
• Discount for regular investors

Cons

• Expensive to buy or sell shares
• Fee structure is slightly complex
• No demo account
• Some investors may not need all the features
• As a listed company, HL has to please shareholders

Finder Award

★★★★★

User survey

★★★★★

Finder score

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Capital at risk

Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) is the UK’s biggest and most comprehensive wealth manager. For that pedigree, it does charge higher fees than some other platforms.

Although it’s a bit on the pricey side, HL makes up for it with its choice of accounts, investment options, top mobile app, and buckets of trading features.

Hargreaves was the winner in the Finder Share Dealing Customer Satisfaction Awards 2023, with the maximum 5 stars for satisfaction and a huge 86% of its customers saying they’d recommend to a friend. Find out how to set up an account, what the fees are, and details about investing using Hargreaves Lansdown.

Start trading in minutes with HL

Finder Award

Your capital is at risk.

• Invest in funds, shares, ETFs and more
• Online resources with UK helpdesk available
• Open an account in minutes

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Capital at risk. T&Cs apply.

What is Hargreaves Lansdown?

Hargreaves Lansdown is a leading “investment supermarket” for retail investors. It’s trusted with over £120 billion worth of investment from 1.7 million clients.

The platform offers a pretty comprehensive service to suit all types of investors. Read on to find out more about Hargreaves Lansdown and whether it might be the right investment solution for you.

How does Hargreaves Lansdown work?

To start investing with Hargreaves Lansdown, you’ll first need to open an account. The right account for you will depend on your goals. You might be saving for the future, for retirement, or even for your child.

Hargreaves Lansdown can help you narrow things down and find the right account, allowing you to compare accounts and tick things that apply to you.

To open an account with Hargreaves Lansdown, you’ll need the following:

• Your national insurance (NI) number
• Your debit card details
• Your bank details to set up monthly payments

What products does Hargreaves Lansdown offer?

Hargreaves Lansdown offers seven products:

• Stocks and shares ISA
• Share dealing account (general investment account)
• Lifetime ISA (LISA)
• Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)
• Junior SIPP (JSIPP)
• Junior ISA (JISA)
• Active savings

What can you invest in with Hargreaves Lansdown?

• Funds

  Popular with many investors, funds offer exposure to a professionally managed portfolio. From as little as £100, start investing today.

  • Choose from over 2,500 unit trusts and OEICs from leading fund managers, including Invesco Perpetual, Artemis and Jupiter
  • Market beating savings and discounts
  • No charge for buying and selling funds
  • Free analysis and updates from the Hargreaves Lansdown research team

• Shares

  Hargreaves Lansdown’s Shares services are low cost and comprehensive. UK, US, Canada and European shares are all covered.

  • Free limit orders and stop losses
  • Tips and reports emailed for free
  • No charge for buying and selling funds
  • No inactivity charge or annual management cost

• Investment trusts

  Investment trusts are similar to funds as they offer exposure to a professionally managed portfolio.

  • Choose from over 400 investment trusts and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
  • Free limit orders and stop losses

• Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs)

  With an ETF, you can track a range of stock market indices and commodities effectively and cheaply. ETFs are traded like shares as they are listed investments.

  • Free limit orders and stop losses
  • Choose from over 1,300 exchange traded products
  • No annual management cost

• Gilts & Corporate Bonds

  Hargreaves Lansdown also offers a bond dealing service, giving you access to a wide range of gilts and corporate bonds.

  • Choose from over 700 gilts and corporate bonds
  • No annual management cost
  • View data for hundreds of bonds, gilts and PIBS

• Cash

  It is possible to open your account with cash and pick your investments later.

Hargreaves Lansdown ISAs

As with all individual savings accounts (ISAs), you get an annual allowance. This is the amount of money you can invest in the tax year, of which most of your profits are protected from tax. Once you’ve used up your ISA allowance for the year, you can continue investing with a general investment account.

Different types of ISA have different allowances, which we detail below.

Hargreaves Lansdown stocks and shares ISA

Your annual allowance for a stocks and shares ISA is £20,000 in the 2023/2024 tax year.

With Hargreaves Lansdown’s stocks and shares ISA, you can choose to either create a DIY portfolio or use a ready-made portfolio based on your goals and attitude to risk.

Benefits of a DIY portfolio

• You decide which shares to buy and sell
• Hargreaves Lansdown’s research helps you make decisions
• Start with £100 or £25 per month

Benefits of ready-made portfolios

• Have a portfolio based on your risk appetite
• Hargreaves Lansdown will buy and sell investments for you
• Start with £1,000

Lifetime ISA (LISA)

Lifetime ISAs are for investing for your first home or for your retirement. You can choose between a stocks and shares LISA or a cash LISA.

Your annual allowance for a LISA is £4,000 in each tax year. The government will add an additional 25% to your savings. This allowance is included in the stocks and shares ISA allowance, so if you invest £4,000 in a LISA, you need to minus that from to find your remaining allowance for the year.

You’re locked into a LISA, which means you can’t withdraw it without losing 25% to the government, so you need to make sure that you’re committed to either buying a house with the savings or saving it for retirement.

Junior ISA (JISA)

If you want to save up for your child’s future, you can save money in a Junior ISA. The allowance for the tax year is . This means that you can save up to this much in your child’s junior ISA without paying any tax on the earnings.

The Junior ISA is for children under 18 years old. It’s managed by a legal parent or guardian until the child turns 18 and is then automatically transferred to them.

Benefits of the JISA

• Invest up to the annual allowance without paying tax on earnings
• Friends and family can contribute money to the fund
• Start with £100 or £25 per month

Hargreaves Lansdown pensions

You can save for your retirement with Hargreaves Lansdown, and when the time comes, you can cash out on your pension with it too. Here are the products on offer:

Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)

Self-invested personal pensions are suitable for people who want to make their own investment decisions – this means it’s in your hands.

If you don’t know what to invest in or whether an investment is right for you, HL does have advisers that can help you, although this is for an additional fee.

You’ll get the same tax relief with a SIPP as you do with other pensions. You can add up to £40,000 to your pension (if you’re a UK resident under 75).

Junior SIPP

For the ultra-organised parent or guardian, you have the option to open a Junior SIPP for your child. Allowing you to save for you child’s retirement. This works pretty much like the Junior ISA and the SIPP combined – there’s a allowance per child per tax year, of which the government will pay 20% tax relief. The “child” (they won’t be a child by the time) can only access the money when they turn 55 (57 from 2028).

If you’re looking for a way to invest in your child’s long-term future, this could be suitable. If you’d prefer them to have access to the funds when they’re 18, consider the Junior ISA instead.

Retirement options

For those who are about to retire, Hargreaves Lansdown offers the following:

• Annuity (a guaranteed income for life in return for a pot of pension savings)
• Drawdown (where you “draw down” funds from your invested pension pot to give you an income)

• Annuity

  An integral part of the UK’s pension system, an annuity is a type of retirement income product that you can purchase with some (or all) of your pension pot. It pays you a regular income for the rest of your life or an agreed period.

  • Access to annuity quotations from the whole of the market
  • “Best Rate Promise”
  • No charge for buying and selling funds
  • Free analysis and updates from the Hargreaves Lansdown research team

• Drawdown

  This is where you take a variable income from your pension pot, while keeping some of it invested.

  • Good if you want to access your pension and keep invested
  • Allows you to take out tax-free cash at the start
  • Allows the option for taking unlimited taxable withdrawals

HL Fund and Share account

Hargreaves Lansdown’s Fund and Share account lets you buy and sell shares, investment trusts, exchange-traded funds, and bonds. You can build a portfolio yourself and benefits include:

• Easily manage investments online, through the Hargreaves Lansdown app or by phone
• Free to hold shares
• Discover investment opportunities with a wide range of tools

HL Active Savings

Hargreaves Lansdown offers a service called “Active Savings”, which gives you an interest rate return on cash savings. Instead of having to shop around for savings accounts with the best rates, HL allows you to swap to a new savings account with a better rate without all the hassle of moving.

This is a nice service and allows you to make the most out of savings offers on the market. It’s free to use and HL makes money from the banking partners. However, that rates may not be the best on the market.

Does Hargreaves Lansdown have an app?

Yes. And it’s pretty good, too! It uses Face ID and fingerprint technology to keep it secure. Some things you can do with the Hargreaves Lansdown app includes:

• See live share prices
• Trade on the go
• Keep an eye on specific investments
• Manage your investments
• View your history
• Top up

The Hargreaves Lansdown app is available on iOS and Android.

Hargreaves Lansdown fees and charges

Due to the range of accounts on offer with HL, the fee structure is quite varied and depends on which account you’re using.

We’ve broken the fees down into categories to show you what you will pay based on the type of account you use (along with all the extra fees and costs to keep in mind).

• ISA Charges

  If you hold funds in your ISA

  Value of funds	Charge (per year)
  On the first £250,000	0.45%
  On the value between £250,000 and £1 million	0.25%
  On the value between £1 million and £2 million	0.1%
  On the value over £2 million	No charge

  If you hold shares in your ISA – for all UK and overseas shares, investment trusts, exchange traded funds, VCTs, gilts and bonds Hargreaves Lansdown charges 0.45% per year with a cap of £45 per year.

• SIPP charges

  If you hold funds in your SIPP

  Value of funds	Charge (per year)
  On the first £250,000	0.45%
  On the value between £250,000 and £1 million	0.25%
  On the value between £1 million and £2 million	0.1%
  On the value over £2 million	No charge

  If you hold shares in your SIPP
  For all UK and overseas shares, investment trusts, exchange traded funds, VCTs, gilts and bonds, Hargreaves Lansdown charges 0.45% per year with a cap of £200 per year.

• Share dealing charges

  There’s no annual account charge if you’re holding investments including UK or overseas shares, ETFs, gilts, corporate bonds, VCTs, and investment trusts. But if you hold funds, the same tiered charges apply as with the ISA.

  Number of deals	Charge
  0-9 deals	£11.95 per deal
  10-19 deals	£8.95 per deal
  20 or more deals	£5.95 per deal

• Fund dealing

  There is no charge for fund dealing (including Unit Trusts and OEICs). But if you hold funds in your ISA or Fund and Share account, you’ll have to paying an ongoing percentage fee based on the value of your fund holdings.

• Other charges

  Description	Charge
  UK Stamp Duty	0.5% on purchases of UK shares (rounded up to the nearest £5 for residual shares)
  Panel on Takeover and Mergers	£1 on UK share deals over £10,000
  Irish Stamp Duty	1% on purchases of Irish shares
  French Financial Transactions Tax	0.3% on purchases of some French shares
  Italian Financial Transactions Tax	0.1% on purchases of some Italian shares
  Telephone share dealing	1% of the trade value, minimum charge £20, maximum charge £50.
  Direct Debit into investments for FTSE 250 shares and selected investment trusts and ETFs	£1.50 per stock per month
  Cash withdrawals	No charge
  Account closure	No charge
  Automated sales to cover charges (selling fund units or shares to cover fees)	£1.50 per deal for shares. No charge for funds.
  Quarterly statement and valuation (paperless)	No charge
  Quarterly statement and valuation (paper)	£20 + VAT per year
  Transfer out (as cash or stock)	No charge

How safe is Hargreaves Lansdown?

When it comes to security, Hargreaves Lansdown has an excellent reputation and is trusted by over a million customers. It’s considered to be a safe and secure FTSE 100 company that has a track record managing investments for over 40 years.

Your deposits are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme(FSCS), which means that you’ll be able to claim up to £85,000 if Hargreaves Lansdown were to go bust.

Hargreaves Lansdown customer reviews

Hargreaves Lansdown’s customers are really impressed with its service. In our 2023 Finder Customer Satisfaction Awards, HL took the top spot!

86% said they’d recommend the platform to a friend and customers were very happy with Hargreaves Lansdown staff (based in Bristol), finding them “extremely helpful” and “professional” as well as friendly and knowledgeable. Customers also highlighted that the platform is easy to use. The charges were described as “not the cheapest” but customers felt they were getting value for money.

On the App Store, the HL app has a whopping 4.7 out of 5 stars from close to 50,000 reviews. For android users, HL scores 4 out of 5 from over 12,000 votes. And Trustpilot reviewers gave it a “great” 4.1 with over 8,000 reviews (as of July 2023).

Frequently asked questions

• Can I transfer my existing ISA to Hargreaves Lansdown?

  Yes. You just need to let Hargreaves Lansdown know, and it’ll take care of it for you.

• Is Hargreaves Lansdown trustworthy?

  Yes! It’s got one of the best reputations amongst all UK share dealing platforms and because it’s a listed FTSE 100 company, everything is very transparent (including the company financials).

• Who is better Hargreaves Lansdown or AJ Bell?

  It depends on what you want as an investor. HL can be slightly more expensive than AJ Bell, but for fund investing – HL is great value. Part of the appeal of Hargreaves Lansdown is the customer support, and comprehensive service provided – which comes at a premium cost.

• Are Hargreaves Lansdown charges too high?

  Some of the fees are higher than with competitors, but others are lower. It depends on how you plan to invest. Part of the HL package is the wide access of accounts, investments, and also the top-notch customer service. Some people are happy paying a slight premium for the superior benefits.

• How does Hargreaves Lansdown pay dividends?

  You can choose to either have your dividends paid into a nominated bank account or you can have them reinvested.

• Does Hargreaves Lansdown have ethical investing options?

  Yes. There’s a whole guide on ethical investing on its website, too!