Hargreaves Lansdown review

How we rated Hargreaves Lansdown's investment features

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 a winner in the Finder Investing Customer Satisfaction Awards 2024 for the third year in a row. Find out how to set up an account, what the fees are, and details about investing using Hargreaves Lansdown.

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.

Hands-on test: I tried out Hargreaves Lansdown's investing platform

"I’m a fan of what Hargreaves Lansdown (HL) has to offer, it’s a premium service at a (mostly) affordable price. And it’s straightforward enough to navigate and use the app or desktop platform. It’s excellent value for funds and using tax-efficient accounts like ISAs, but it needs to do something about it’s monstrous share dealing commissions if it wants to entice the new wave of UK retail investors."

George Sweeney, DipFA

Deputy editor

Hargreaves Lansdown fees

It’s tricky to judge and score HL’s platform fees because they’re all over the shop. The platform fee you’ll pay depends on both the type of account you’re using to invest and also the investments you’re buying and holding.

We’ve tried to explain these as clearly as possible, but HL doesn’t make it easy for us. And it’s a shame because HL does actually provide decent value for many investors with competitive platform fees. But it’s hard to get to the bottom of them because it’s a tangled web to say the least.

The key things to note about the platform fees are that it costs nothing to open and hold a general investment account (HL calls this a fund and share account), investing in most types of investments (other than funds). If you invest in funds, your platform fee is a percentage based on the value of funds in your portfolio.

Another downside to HL’s fees are the investing commissions. They’re one of the most expensive (if not the most expensive) across all UK investing platforms. There’s a steep £11.95 to pay each time you buy or sell most investment types. There’s a discount to £8.95 if you make 10 to 19 trades in the previous month or a lower £5.95 if you rack up 20 or more trades.

This sounds like HL are doing you a deal but to qualify for the first discount means spending £107.55 on commissions in a month. And for the best discount, you’d need to have spent an eye-watering £197.05 in commission fees just to qualify. When investing, there’s no platform fee with the GIA but this is more than made up for with these high commissions.

Along with the bank-breaking commissions, HL has a fairly high FX fee of 1% if you want to buy international investments (this does lower on a tiered basis, but only for trades worth more than £5,000).

If you use a stocks and shares ISA for investments (other than funds), the platform fee is capped at £45 a year (or £3.75 a month). If you’re using a self-invested personal pension (SIPP) or a junior SIPP (JSIPP), the platform fee cap is a higher £200 a year (around £16.67 a month).

The only saving grace is that it’s free to buy or sell funds (but the ongoing account fee will apply to hold funds). Fund investing provides the best value with HL and the fees can work out fairly cheap (free if you’re using a junior ISA for a child). The 0.25% fee for holding funds worth up to £250,000 in most accounts is decent and holds up against most competitors.

We warned you that HL’s costs and fees are about as clear as mud. The bottom line though is that the platform offers good value for investing in funds, and for every other type of investment, it’s expensive.

The fee structure may work out well for you depending on how you invest (particularly if you have a high-value fund portfolio), but it’s definitely not a cheap all-rounder.

Hargreaves Lansdown investment choice and stocks

Hargreaves Lansdown has a large selection and variety of investments available, covering a decent range of assets. The fund selection is probably HL’s greatest strength, with around 2,500 to choose from.

Keep in mind that although there’s no commission to invest in funds, you need a £100 lump sum or £25 a month to get started.

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).

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.

Is Hargreaves Lansdown safe?

Hargreaves Lansdown 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, 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 account types and products

Hargreaves Lansdown is up there with the best of them when it comes to the account types and products available. HL does have the potential to be your one-stop shop for savings and investments. It even offers investing and pensions accounts for your kids – to be managed by you of course.

The range of accounts on offer include:

• General investment account (HL calls this a fund and share account)
• Stocks and shares ISA
• Lifetime ISA (LISA)
• Junior ISA (JISA)
• Self-invested personal pension (SIPP)
• Junior SIPP (JSIPP)
• Active cash savings account
• Cash ISA
• Workplace accounts

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 2024/2025 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.

Hargreaves Lansdown ease of use

Hargreaves Lansdown received top marks 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).

Most reviewers seem to enjoy the HL app on Apple and Android devices. On the App Store it has an impressive 4.7 out of 5 from over 50,000 reviews and on Google Play, it has a marginally lower 3.2 from over 12,000 votes (as of January 2024).

Also, if you don’t want to invest using the app, it has an excellent desktop platform for investing instead.

Hargreaves Lansdown customer reviews

Hargreaves Lansdown won the investing category in the Finder Customer Satisfaction Awards in 2024 for the third year in a row, with 97% of customers saying they’d recommend the service to a friend. It was tied for first place and feedback included praise for its reliable and efficient service, and many customers described Hargreaves Lansdown as “professional”.

One customer commented: “I have used their services for many years, they are professional and know a lot more than me about the financial world, they are not the cheapest, but I would rather pay extra for reliable financial information.”

Not all comments were totally positive. Another customer described Hargreaves Lansdown as: “Competent, but expensive.”

On Trustpilot, users seem to agree and Hargreaves Lansdown has a 4.2 out of 5 “Great” score from over 10,000 reviews (as of July 2024).

Who might Hagreaves Lansdown suit?

This platform is going to be best-suited for those who want a complete investing solution with loads of investment options, account types and a proper award-winning customer service team. It may not be great for those on a budget or investing smaller amounts because of the high commissions (but there are strategies to avoide these like setting up a regular investment schedule).

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

Hargreaves Lansdown tools, resources and features

Hargreaves Lansdown has lots 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 Hargreaves Lansdown, there’s plenty of features like:

• Interactive charting
• Investment research and analysis tools
• Ability to use a range of trading order types
• Calculators for regular investing and pensions
• Articles and guides providing insights
• Ready-made portfolios
• Sector reports, investment trust updates and market news

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.

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

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.

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!