Top Investing Apps For Beginners In The UK

The idea of investing used to feel a bit out of my comfort zone and made me think of the Wolf of Wall Street. But those days are over and so many people are making investments. If you have a pension then you’re already investing in your future, and you may not have even known it. I’ve been looking at investing apps for beginners in the UK as one of my missions for 2021 is to invest more and start trying to think of our future more.

All of the apps below are free to download but you may have to pay account management fees. But I’ll highlight these when I talk about the app.

Simple investing apps for beginners in the UK

There are a few pretty simple investing apps where you don’t have to buy specific shares. Or even have any knowledge on what you want to invest in as the app does all the hard work for you. All of these apps are FCA registered so your money is protected by FSCS.

Nutmeg

Nutmeg doesn’t have any set-up, transaction or exit fees, but you’ll have to pay an account management fee ranging from 0.25% to 0.75% depending on the portfolio type you choose. The minimum investment with Nutmeg is £500. But if you open a Junior ISA or Stocks and Shares Lifetime ISA then it’s just £100.

You can choose between four investment types including a socially responsible stocks option, and a fully managed one.

Wealthsimple

With Wealthsimple there’s no minimum investment unless you choose the socially responsible portfolio which has a minimum of £5,000. The annual fees with Wealthsimple are between 0.50% and 0.70% depending on your account.

You can choose between three risk options including conservative, balanced and growth. And there are plenty of investment types including a pension, Junior Stocks & Shares ISA, Stocks & Shares ISA or a regular personal account.

Wealthify

With Wealthify you can invest anything from £1 (or £50 for a pension) and they have a fixed annual management fee of 0.6%. You can set how you want to invest depending on your risk including cautious, tentative, confident, ambitious and adventurous. So you can try out different risks over time once you’ve gotten more used to investing. And the longer you’re planning to invest for the riskier you can afford to be.

You can set your own investment goals in the app and there’s no penalty when you withdraw money from the app.

Moneyfarm

Moneyfarm offers fully-managed portfolios with a management fee of 0.36% to 0.75% and a fund fee of 0.2%. As the account is fully-managed you can get investment advice on hand and you get an investor profile tailored to you depending on your investment knowledge, wealth and your attitude to risk.

You can choose to invest in a general investment account, a Stocks & Shares ISA or a pension.

These are four of the best investing apps for beginners in the UK if you don’t want to have to make too many decisions yourself.

Investing with apps you may already have

I have so many different apps on my phone and sometimes I forget what half of them do. If you’d rather invest with an app you already have here are two investing apps for beginners in the UK that you may already have downloaded.

Moneybox

With Moneybox you can invest from £1 and tie it in with the round-up function you may already be using. I did this for a few months but the roundups just weren’t quite right for me. You can choose your risk level from cautious, balanced and adventurous. And there are plenty of ways to save including Stocks & Shares ISA, Stocks & Shares Lifetime ISA, Pension, General Investment Account, Junior ISA and Socially Responsible Fund.

There’s a £1 a month fee for investing. But with Moneybox you pay an annual charge of 0.45% on your investment. And additional management fees range between 0.12% and 0.3%. Moneybox are registered and money is protected by FSCS.

Plum

With Plum, you can invest from £1 across three portfolios including tech, ethical companies and emerging markets. Like Moneybox you pay a monthly fee of £1 when there’s money invested in Plum. And then you pay 0.15% fees on investments and the fund fees vary from 0.06% to 0.90%.

There are loads of different funds you can browse and choose between each with varying risk levels. And Plum themselves are authorised and regulated by the FCA.

Investing apps for beginners in the UK don’t need to be complicated so tie it in with savings you may already be doing. On apps, you may already be using.

Investing apps for beginners in the UK to buy specific shares

Me and Luke both have Stocks & Shares ISA’s so the next thing on my investing list is to buy some specific shares. I may not go as far as choosing one particular business. But with these apps, you can choose to buy stocks in the FTSE100 for example. So you’re investing in a select number of businesses, but not a specific one. Both of the below apps are authorised and regulated by the FCA and are FSCS protected.

Freetrade

There are no fees to have a basic investing account and you get free basic and instant trades. You only pay if you open a Stocks & Shares ISA of £3 a month and if you open a Freetrade Plus account of £9.99 a month.

Throughout Freetrade you can buy both US and UK stocks and ETFs, and I love how you can look back to see how particular stocks and portfolios have done before buying a particular share. One of the things I get a lot of use out of is the watchlist where you can save particular companies or sets of investments to track and keep an eye on them.

If you refer a friend within the app you both get a free share worth up to £200 once they deposit £1. Use my link here to grab your free share.

Trading 212

Trading 212 is very similar to Freetrade as it’s free to trade and buy stocks and there’s a lot of choices. On the app, you can buy both US and UK stocks and ETF’s. Although if you’re looking to open an ISA trading 212 also don’t charge for this. You can deposit via bank transfer for free and only pay for deposits via credit/ debit cards if it’s over £2,000 (then it’s 0.7% after that).

There are loads of video guides on Trading 212 that you can use and lists of newly added stocks and most popular stocks to look at. If you want to join Trading 212 use my link here and we both get a free share. I believe the rules are the same as with Freetrade that to get the free stock you have to deposit £1.

When thinking of the best investing apps for beginners in the UK I do find Freetrade slightly simpler to use than Trading 212.

Do you use any investing apps?

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