In this guide

  • Our verdict
  • How we rated Charles Stanley's investment features
  • Charles Stanley fees
  • Charles Stanley investment choice and stocks
  • Is Charles Stanley safe?
  • Charles Stanley account types and products
  • Charles Stanley ease of use
  • Charles Stanley tools, resources and features
  • Your reviews
Charles Stanley
3.6
★★★★★
Finder score
Capital at risk

Our verdict

Charles Stanley is a well-respected brokerage offering a unique and boutique investing experience. But, the myriad of fees and complex nature of the platform mean that you’ll likely need to take it up on its financial planning and coaching services to make heads or tails of it.

Charles Stanley is one of the oldest investment brokerages in the UK, we’re talking hundreds of years old. And as time moves on, Charles Stanley looks to offer investors something different compared to most other providers. It offers a wide selection of DIY investments, but maintains its traditional roots with personalised financial coaching and advice available. However, don’t expect a slick fintech platform.

This isn’t a platform for those who want cheap and cheerful. But, if you’re taking your financial future seriously and are looking to work hand-in-hand with a brokerage, Charles Stanley’s holistic approach might suit your portfolio needs.

The high commission charges and lack of fractional shares won’t suit those investing on a budget. Yet, for those of you with larger portfolios or those looking for a serious brokerage that offers a complete service with more investments than you can shake a stick at - Charles Stanley is worth a discussion.

Pros

  • Huge investment choice
  • Bespoke coaching and planning available
  • No fee for multi-asset funds
  • Free regular monthly fund investing
  • £50 free trading credits every 6 months
  • Wide choice of tax-efficient accounts

Cons

  • Expensive commissions and costs
  • Complicated fee structure
  • £5 minimum monthly platform fee
  • No fractional shares
  • Best deals are for high-net-worth clients
  • The interface is clunky

In this guide

  • Our verdict
  • How we rated Charles Stanley's investment features
  • Charles Stanley fees
  • Charles Stanley investment choice and stocks
  • Is Charles Stanley safe?
  • Charles Stanley account types and products
  • Charles Stanley ease of use
  • Charles Stanley tools, resources and features
  • Your reviews

How we rated Charles Stanley's investment features

CategoryScoreDetails
Fees 5 Standard Charles Stanley’s fees are a major pain point and the investing commissions are much higher than most platforms.
Investment choice 9.1 Excellent It offers a wide range of assets with access to plenty of markets.
Safety and security 7.1 Great Charles Stanley has plenty of safety features in place to protect investors, the only thing lacking is biometric logins.
Account types and products 9.2 Excellent You can invest with lots of options, using all the major tax-efficient accounts.
Ease of use 7.9 Great Charles Stanley is a mixed bag when it comes to reviews and ease of use.
Tools, resources and features 8.3 Great Charles Stanley offers plenty of tools and resources, apart from social features.

Charles Stanley is a robust and well-rounded platform that has plenty to offer in the way of asset types, and unique features like an in-house financial planning team. However, its fee structure is stuck in the past – being both complex and expensive in a number of areas. Yet, for a certain type of investor and those with a sizable portfolio, Charles Stanley could tick a lot of boxes.

What is Charles Stanley?

Charles Stanley is one of the UK’s oldest investing companies. It was founded in 1792, yep that’s right, around the same time a little country called the United States of America was just getting started.

Along with this pretty remarkable heritage, Charles Stanley was also one of the oldest members of the London Stock Exchange (LSE) being listed in one form or another since 1852. In 2022, Charles Stanley was bought and taken over by US wealth management firm, Raymond James. Charles Stanley has around £27 billion in assets under management (AUM).

Charles Stanley fees

Fees score 5 Standard
Platform feeShares and other investments 0.3% (£5/month min. or £50/month max)
SIPP £100 + VAT per year (if portfolio is below £30,000)
UK shares£10
US stocks£10
International shares£10
Funds/ETFsETFs £10
Funds £4
Multi-asset funds £0
Foreign exchange (FX) feeFirst £9,999 1%
£10,000 to £49,999 0.75%
£50,000 to £499,999 0.5%
£500,000 to £999,999 0.3%
Over £1 million 0.15%
Regular investingYes from £25/month
Withdrawal/deposit fee£0
Inactivity fee£0
Telephone dealing1% (£25 minimum/£100 maximum)

You’re going to want to hold onto your horses here before you consider joining Charles Stanley and make sure you have a complete understanding of its fees. We’ll explain them as best we can but it’s certainly not the simplest or cheapest fee structure from a UK investing platform. Recently, Charles Stanley adjusted its fees making some cheaper, some more expensive and unfortunately – leaving in a layer of complexity.

Let’s start with the platform fee. If you’re investing in stocks, investment trusts and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and most other investments – it’s a 0.3% annual platform fee based on the size of your holdings. This is charged monthly and there’s a £5 monthly minimum and a £50 monthly maximum. As an example, if you had a £10,000 portfolio – this would cost you £60 a year (£5 a month).

Now, here’s the first of many quirks – no matter the size of your portfolio, Charles Stanley will give you £50 worth of trading credits to use every 6 months (on a use it or lose it basis). This is a welcome addition because the investing commissions are £10 for most types of investments and £4 for funds.

The only respite is the multi-asset funds which now have no commission to buy or sell. You can also pay no commission for funds (unit trusts and OEICs) if you set up a regular monthly investment. So at least these trading credits will soothe that sting.

For international investments, you’ve got the high £10 commission to pay and then either a foreign exchange (FX) fee or an “international charge”. This is basically just two ways to skin the same cat. If you’re buying overseas investments you’ll pay a 1% FX fee (that gets cheaper with trades over £10,000). Or, if you’re buying CREST Depository Interests (CDIs), which are basically UK securities that represent international securities, you’ll pay the international charge (the same structure and cost as the FX fees) – even though these investments are denominated in pounds.

There are some other confusing perks too for “Direct Investment” clients. For example, a 6 month fee waiver if you transfer in £200,000 or more and a free self-invested personal pension (SIPP) wrapper if you hold over £30,000 in your retirement account (normally £100).

That’s most of the basics covered, but there’s more. If you want to invest in the range of UK bonds or gilts available on the platform, you can’t trade them online so the telephone dealing charge of 1% will apply (with a £25 minimum and £100 maximum fee).

There are also a number of “miscellaneous” charges that can apply to customers in unique situations or for personal requests and you can check those out over at Charles Stanley, we’re not detailing them here because they’re not likely to be relevant for most investors – unless of course you still handle all your finances using a physical cheque book.

Thanks for bearing with us there, investing fees and costs aren’t fun to begin with and Charles Stanley doesn’t do a lot to ease the burden with all the added complexity.

High-net worth investors and those with large portfolios will find the best value here. Sadly, the smaller investors or those with average-sized portfolios carry the biggest fee burden.

Charles Stanley investment choice and stocks

Investment choice score 9.1 Excellent
Asset options5+
Markets4+
Number of investments12,000+
Number of ETFs/funds6,000+
Fractional shares
Minimum deposit£25
Minimum investment£0 (at least one share)

Charles Stanley comes into its own in this category and uses all the experience and years in the market to its advantage.

On the platform, you’re able to invest in:

  • Stocks and shares
  • Investment trusts
  • ETFs
  • Funds (including multi-asset options)
  • Bonds

You’re spoilt for choice with over 12,000 investments to choose from, covering the UK, US, Europe and Canada. There’s also an absolutely enormous library of over 6,000 funds.

Keep in mind that although there’s no commission to invest in funds, you need at least £25 a month to get started and there’s an ongoing platform fee attached.

The lack of fractional shares is a pain, but to be honest, paying such high commissions – you’d probably not want fractions of a share (otherwise you could pay more in commission than what your fractional share is worth).

Is Charles Stanley safe?

Safety and security score 7.1 Great
Biometric login/2FA
FCA regulated
FSCS protection
SSL certificate
Public company

Charles Stanley is a sturdy and safe place for investors, scoring full marks in our safety and security assessment. As you’d expect, it’s regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

When it comes to security, Charles Stanley has an excellent reputation and is trusted by plenty of customers. It’s been around for hundreds of years and is now owned by Raymond James Financial (RJF), a public company listed in the US on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

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 Charles Stanley were to go bust.
As always, keep in mind that the value of your investments can go down as well as up. So make sure you consider any investing decisions carefully, and if you’re unsure it may be worth seeking financial advice, something Charles Stanley can help you with.

Charles Stanley account types and products

Account types and products score 9.2 Excellent
General investment account (GIA)
Stock and shares ISA
Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)
Lifetime ISA (LISA)
Junior ISA (JISA)/Junior SIPP (JSIPP)
Business account
Interest on cash balances

Charles Stanley is up there with the best platforms around when it comes to the account types available. It offers a diverse and well-rounded section of accounts for your investments, savings and even accounts for your kids:

For the most part, all of the same fees and investment choices apply to all accounts, the only exception is the SIPP.

It costs £100 + VAT each year if you want a SIPP (unless your retirement account is worth at least £30,000).

There are also a number of SIPP-specific fees that don’t apply to other types of Charles Stanley accounts, here’s a breakdown:

SIPP fee typeCost
Annual admin fee£100
Transfer in£0
Refund of excess contributions£75 + VAT
Triviality payment£150 + VAT
Transfer out to UK scheme£125 + VAT (plus cost of stock withdrawal)
Transfer out to overseas scheme£250 + VAT
Annuity purchase (if not through Charles Stanley)£150 + VAT
Pension sharing on divorceTime cost
Arranging death benefitsTime cost
Each benefit crystallisation event£150 + VAT
Capped drawdown review£100 + VAT
Annual payroll fee£50 + VAT
Alter regular drawdown payment amount/frequency£10 + VAT
Irregular income payment£25 + VAT
Charge for full fund withdrawal within 2 years of opening SIPP£200 + VAT

Charles Stanley ease of use

Ease of use score 7.9 Great
Apple iOS rating4.5/5
Google Play rating2/5
Ways to contact customer servicePhone, email, post, secure message and chat
UI/UXBad
Desktop or mobile appBoth

Charles Stanley received a decent score in our ease of use assessment. We think it’s great that there are so many ways to contact its dedicated customer support team (and this is part of the reason for the high fees elsewhere). One of the key things you’re paying for with Charles Stanley is a higher level of customer service.

When it comes to Charles Stanley’s app, most reviewers on Apple devices seem to like it, but quite the opposite for Android users. On the App Store it has an impressive 4.5 out of 5 from over 300 reviews and on Google Play, it has a much lower 2 out of 5 from over 250 votes (as of July 2024). On Trustpilot, the reviews aren’t great with a 2 out 5 “poor” but just from 20 pieces of feedback.

The app itself is fairly limited and if you want the full experience, you’re better off using the desktop platform for investing instead.

Charles Stanley tools, resources and features

Tools, resources and features score 8.3 Great
Analysis features
Tools for investing/trading
Social features
Learning resources
Additional Features

Charles Stanley has a decent range of tools and resources packed into its comprehensive platform. The only area where it’s lacking is the social investing aspect, with no community forum or way for investors to connect and share ideas.

With Charles Stanley, there’s plenty of features like:

  • Interactive charting
  • Watchlists
  • Investment research and analysis tools
  • Ability to use a range of trading order types
  • Calculators for pension contributions and drawdowns along with inheritance tax (IHT) planning
  • Articles, guides and webinars providing insights
  • The option to use ready-made multi-asset funds
  • Market news and commentary

As you’d expect, with such an emphasis on funds across the platform, there’s also loads of fund-related information and research for you to get stuck into like a preferred funds list and in-depth details around things like fund management.

Charles Stanley also offers financial coaching and financial advice services, which is the platform’s main USP. For the financial coaching, you can get a free 15 minute intro session and then each 1 hour coaching session afterwards is charged at £150.

Then, for those that need more in the way of planning, you can speak to an expert financial planner. Charles Stanley recommends those with a complex financial situation or a portfolio of at least £200,000. There’s no listed prices for this service.

The other option is a “OneStep” financial plan which costs £900 and covers major events like retirement savings, reaching retirement, estate planning and a financial health check.

Who might Charles Stanley suit?

This platform is going to be best-suited for those who really have no idea where to start with investing and are looking for guidance and support throughout the whole process – looking to speak to real professionals and not just a chatbot.

Charles Stanley could also suit those with a large or complex portfolio, because it rewards its high-net worth customers much more than your average retail investor. It has investments to suit most types of investors but the costs and fees means that it’s not going to be a useful platform for everyone.

If that’s not you, why not compare share trading platforms to find the right fit to match your style.

All investing should be regarded as longer term. The value of your investments can go up and down, and you may get back less than you invest. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. If you’re not sure which investments are right for you, please seek out a financial adviser. Capital at risk.

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