interactive investor

ii sells a subscription, not a percentage. That single decision determines who should use it.

The plans:

Every plan covers the Trading Account, Stocks and Shares ISA and SIPP together — you do not pay three subscriptions to hold three wrappers. The pension admin fee (GBP 2.50 inc. VAT on Core, GBP 6.00 on Plus and Premium) is already inside the headline price rather than added on top.

Dealing:

• UK and US shares, ETFs and investment trusts: GBP 3.99 on Core and Plus, GBP 2.99 on Premium
• Funds: GBP 3.99 on Core, GBP 1.49 on Plus, free on Premium
• Other international shares: GBP 9.99 / GBP 7.99 / GBP 5.99
• Regular monthly investing: free on every plan
• Telephone dealing: GBP 49
• Plus includes one free trade credit a month (GBP 3.99 of value), Premium includes two (GBP 5.98). Credits expire after 31 days and do not roll over.

Foreign exchange: 0.75% on Core; 0.75% on the first GBP 50,000 then 0.25% on Plus; a flat 0.25% on Premium.

The crossover maths is the whole story. On a GBP 250,000 fund portfolio, Core costs GBP 71.88 a year against roughly GBP 625 at AJ Bell and GBP 875 at Hargreaves Lansdown. On a GBP 5,000 ISA, Core costs GBP 71.88 against roughly GBP 12.50 at AJ Bell — an effective 1.44% a year. The break-even against a 0.25% platform is around GBP 29,000; against a 0.35% platform, around GBP 21,000. Below that, ii is the expensive option.

Then there are the small charges that other platforms do not levy: 99p per dividend reinvestment on Core and Plus, GBP 5 a month if you become a non-UK resident, GBP 2 plus VAT a month for paper documents, GBP 25 for a failed payment, GBP 35 plus VAT for a share certificate withdrawal, and GBP 30 a month for company or trust accounts. None is large; together they are worth checking against your own usage.

Interactive Investor Services Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, with client money held in segregated accounts under the FCA's client money rules and client investments held in nominee, ring-fenced from the firm's own balance sheet. Eligible claims are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to GBP 85,000 per person per firm — protection against firm failure or a shortfall in client assets, not against investments falling in value.

The ownership structure is the interesting part. ii has been owned since May 2022 by Aberdeen Group plc — formerly abrdn — which paid GBP 1.49 billion for it and has kept the brand, platform and management intact. ii itself is not a listed company, so it does not publish standalone quarterly numbers. But its parent is a FTSE-listed asset manager with audited public accounts, which means the economics of the business are visible in the group's segmental reporting and subject to institutional scrutiny. That is a weaker transparency signal than AJ Bell's direct listing and a stronger one than private ownership.

The business dates to 1995 and has grown largely by acquisition, consolidating a remarkable share of the UK's execution-only market: TD Direct Investing in 2017 (bringing around 300,000 customers), Alliance Trust Savings in 2019, The Share Centre in 2020, and Equiniti's EQi direct-to-customer business in 2021. Today it administers roughly GBP 85 billion for more than 500,000 customers, which makes it the largest flat-fee platform in the UK by a wide margin.

That acquisition history is worth knowing for a practical reason as well as a structural one: a platform assembled from five predecessor books carries legacy account types and migration history, and customers transferred in from earlier brands have occasionally reported friction that native customers do not see. It is also, on the other side of the ledger, a business that has repeatedly absorbed competitors without losing its regulatory permissions or its customer base — which is itself a form of evidence.

We have not identified material FCA enforcement action against the retail platform.

ii runs a slightly more capable platform than its UK peers, and the reason is the customer base it inherited: TD Direct Investing and The Share Centre brought in more active traders than a typical fund platform serves.

The website handles dealing, research, valuations, performance, wrapper administration and the multi-currency cash ledger. Real-time prices are standard rather than a paid add-on, the order type set is broader than most UK rivals offer, and the research integration is genuinely useful rather than decorative. It is not a professional terminal — no depth of book, no algos, no API — but it is a step above the "buy button and a valuation" model.

Quotestream is the differentiator. It is a real-time streaming data and workspace tool available to ii clients, with configurable watchlists, custom layouts and live pricing. Nothing at Hargreaves Lansdown or AJ Bell is comparable. ii360, an advanced trading platform for Premium clients, was listed as coming soon at the time of writing; we have not tested it and record no rating for it.

The mobile app covers dealing across the Trading Account, ISA and SIPP with biometric login, live prices, watchlists and valuations. It is solid and has improved substantially, but it remains a step behind HL's app on research depth and polish, which is why the mobile score sits below the platform score rather than above it.

The quietly important feature is the multi-currency cash ledger. ii lets clients hold cash in GBP, EUR and USD, and pays interest on all three. Both large UK rivals settle everything back to sterling at the point of dealing, which means a buy-and-sell round trip in a US share crosses the FX spread twice. On ii you can sell a US holding, keep the dollars, and buy something else in dollars without paying to convert. For anyone running a meaningful US allocation, that structural difference is often worth more than the difference in headline FX rates.

ii advertises over 40,000 investment options across 17 global markets, and the shape of that menu favours breadth of instrument over breadth of geography.

What you can hold: UK shares from the main market and AIM, US shares, shares from the major European and other developed markets, over 1,000 ETFs, a large fund range covering active and passive, income and accumulation share classes, investment trusts, corporate bonds, UK gilts and exchange-traded commodities.

The bond and gilt offering deserves a specific mention. ii's fixed-income coverage is among the better ranges on a UK retail platform, and combined with GBP 3.99 dealing and no percentage custody charge it is one of the more sensible places in the UK to build a gilt ladder — a strategy that percentage-based platforms punish, because the charge applies to a low-yielding asset every year.

What you cannot hold: exchange-traded options, futures, spread bets, CFDs, spot forex, direct cryptocurrency or fractional shares. There is no demo account.

The geographic constraint is real. 17 markets against AJ Bell's 24 means fewer venues, and non-UK, non-US international shares cost GBP 9.99 a trade on Core against GBP 5.00 at AJ Bell. ii is priced to encourage a UK-and-US portfolio and to discourage anything more exotic. If your plan involves regular dealing in Japanese, Australian or Nordic single names, price that GBP 9.99 into the comparison before assuming the flat fee wins.

For fund selection, ii replaced its older best-buy branding with a Highly Rated Funds tool built around Morningstar analyst ratings, alongside six Quick-start Funds — low-cost picks aimed at investors who want a single decision rather than a screen. Using an external rating agency rather than an in-house list is a defensible answer to the conflict that best-buy lists create, though it also means less original written analysis than Hargreaves Lansdown produces.

Opening is online, takes roughly ten to fifteen minutes, and needs a National Insurance number, UK address history and UK bank details. Accounts are usually usable the same day. ii runs frequent promotions waiving the first few months of the subscription, which is worth checking before applying because it materially changes the first-year cost.

Funding is by debit card, effectively instant, or bank transfer and Direct Debit, typically same day to two business days. Direct Debit powers free regular investing from GBP 25 a month — free on every plan, on both funds and shares, which is the cheapest way to build positions on the platform. Withdrawals go back to a nominated UK bank account, are free, and normally arrive within one to three business days.

Transfers are free in both directions, including in specie. There is no exit fee.

The structural thing to understand is that a flat fee behaves differently from a percentage fee when circumstances change, and not always in your favour:

• There is no inactivity fee, but the subscription runs regardless of activity. A percentage platform charges a dormant GBP 2,000 account about GBP 7 a year. ii charges GBP 71.88. Leaving a small ii account open "just in case" is expensive.
• The Core plan is capped at a GBP 100,000 portfolio. Crossing that threshold — through contributions or simply through markets rising — moves you to Plus at GBP 179.88 a year. That is a 150% increase triggered by portfolio growth rather than by any decision you made.
• Moving abroad costs GBP 5 a month. ii is one of the few UK platforms that will keep serving a customer who becomes non-resident, but it charges for it.

Cash is held in GBP, EUR and USD with interest paid on each. That is the standout funding feature, and it removes the double-conversion cost that both large UK rivals impose on international round trips.

ii's research is the strongest of any flat-fee platform in the UK, and it comes from a genuine editorial heritage rather than a marketing budget.

The business absorbed Money Observer and Moneywise and retained an experienced financial journalism team, so the ii research hub carries daily market commentary, company analysis, fund coverage, share tips and interviews written by people who cover markets professionally. That is a materially different product from the syndicated feed most execution-only platforms present as "research", and it is included with every plan rather than gated to the expensive tier.

Fund selection runs through the Highly Rated Funds tool, built on Morningstar analyst ratings, plus six Quick-start Funds for investors who want one decision instead of a screen. Using an external rating agency is a thoughtful answer to the conflict inherent in a platform publishing its own best-buy list — the problem that made the Woodford episode so damaging elsewhere in the sector. The trade-off is less original written work on individual holdings than Hargreaves Lansdown produces with its in-house analyst desk.

Data and tools are competent: portfolio valuation and performance, dividend tracking, screening, consensus estimates, and Quotestream for clients who want live streaming prices and configurable layouts. Real-time pricing being standard rather than a paid subscription is a small but real advantage over brokers that meter market data.

Education is the weakest leg. There are perfectly good guides to ISAs, pensions, drawdown and getting started, plus regular podcasts, but the material is pitched at someone who has already decided to invest rather than someone deciding whether to. That is coherent with the pricing: the flat fee makes ii a poor choice for a beginner with GBP 3,000, so building an elaborate beginner funnel would be selling the wrong product to the wrong customer. It does mean that if you want to be taught, this is not the platform that will do it.

ii runs a UK-based contact centre and says so explicitly, which in a sector that has offshored aggressively is worth noting.

The main line is 0345 607 6001 (or +44 113 346 2309 from abroad), open Monday to Friday 07:45–17:30 UK time, with the international dealing desk open 17:30–21:00 to cover US market hours. Secure messaging from inside the account is the main written channel, and there is an extensive online help centre.

The evening dealing desk is a genuine advantage for US investors: it is open while New York is trading, which neither Hargreaves Lansdown nor AJ Bell matches. The gap is the other end — no weekend cover at all. AJ Bell answers the phone from 10:00 to 14:00 on Saturdays and Sundays; ii closes on Friday evening and reopens on Monday morning. If your financial admin happens at weekends, that is a practical difference.

Service is English-only. Non-UK residents can be served but pay a GBP 5 monthly surcharge.

Public sentiment is good and has improved markedly since the Aberdeen acquisition, with value for money and the flat-fee proposition dominating positive reviews. The recurring complaints are worth knowing because they are structural rather than random: friction around transfers in, particularly pension transfers from legacy providers, and occasional confusion over plan changes when a portfolio crosses the Core plan's GBP 100,000 ceiling. Both are consequences of the business model — a platform assembled from five acquisitions, running a tiered subscription — rather than signs of an under-resourced service desk.

The fair summary: competent, UK-staffed, better than average for the price, with a weekday-only footprint that suits an investor and not a weekend administrator.