As an existing customer this is of course a difficult development.
As a R3 Investor, how do you suppose FT make money without building a strong Plus offering? I know the other product features arenāt quite there yet but there needs to be an incentive for moving to Plus.
Whatās stopping another āfreeā broker from making a similar move or adding a fee/comission?
I think the difference is the model - here we have a two tier model. Most other brokers you just pay the (of course rip off) fees and then get access to whatever they offer. Less of a concern of them switching access to certain things on and off based on tiers.
To clarify - Iām not opposed to FT making money, and as I said this approach will likely be fine for any new users coming on board and makes business sense.
Itās more for existing users. Whether paywalling things previously accessible is an āincentiveā to move is up for debate.
[sorry if this is a duplicate, not sure what happened to my post!]
It might happen the other way round
Before, only basic trades were free, instant trades cost Ā£1.
Then Freetrade made all instant trades free.
So future changes might be beneficial.
Yes, that is a fair point.
I just want to say that this is perhaps the first time Iām disappointed of FT. I came to this post excited to see what were the new ETFs added, just to learn that some of my favourite existing ETFs, including EQQQ, will be paywalled.
This sounds like another case of āI want the company to make money, but not out of me/unless it impacts meā. You fully accept that traditional brokers are a rip-off and your concern is based purely on ifs and maybes. To me, this trepidation is ridiculous. If something happens, it happens. Deal with it if and when it happens. As someone else said, the opposite may well happen.
Hi all,
Weāve seen a couple of really good points raised here about EQQQ vs. the iShares alternative that weāve added this week and we think that itās right to make a change to the rule that we outlined above.
Going forward the Free plan will include any available ETFs managed by:
Plus will include ETFs from any other providers that are available (in addition to all the ETFs available on Free).
Weāll update all of the other posts to reflect this slight change. Itās important that everyone has an option to get exposure to a popular index like the NASDAQ 100 through a product with the attributes that you want.
Best,
Alex
FT is making money out of me already. I think the manner of any future money making is a perfectly reasonable point of discussion.
Going forward the Free plan will include any available ETFs managed by:
- iShares (BlackRock)
- Vanguard
- Invesco
In reality they arenāt necessarily rip off fees. Thatās a complex topic though. HL for example seems to have added more fee structures to try and make it more affordable for smaller investors. Freetrade seems to be going for a different approach of simply making it free for many investors and a flat fee for other investors.
And look, I say this as someone who has stocks which are moving under plus and doesnāt feel that plus is quite the right thing for my needs yet. Itās to expensive for what I need right now.
I donāt think for example taking it as your paying Ā£10/m to access one x stock. Thatās not really the point. Youāre paying Ā£10/m to access the whole service, that some of your stocks are āfreeā is incidental.
Personally I think Ā£10/m is and will be great value for almost everyone. Especially when they add some of the more administrative features and data features to the overall platform.
Itās great as well that we share our thoughts regardless. Thatās what Ideas 
is for in the first place isnāt it 
Excellent move, Alex!
I didnāt agree with those complaining but I hope this ends the ETF-Plus debate!
Great to see FT listening to the community whilst also staying true to a logical policy going forward that gives value to plus as well as giving good variety in the free offering.
This sounds like a good movie. I think the post that brought up the difference between the ishares and investco version is a valid point.
Who knew data and evidence driven suggestions show improvements
Awesome! That already helps a lot.
Thank you very much.
That was quick!
Great to see this, really good move by the FT team shows they are listening and taking community feedback on-board and it is much appreciated.
Well thatās not entirely accurate is it because if that was the case they would never have wanted to move stocks that were in the free and readily attainable universe already to behind their paywall structure.
Of course, ETFs that have been requested over and over being behind a paywall is disappointing but understandable. For anything new, I could understand that. For me itās more the moving of ETFs that were once free behind a paywall. That is much more dubious to me. What I would have found perfectly fine would be āEverything that is now free tier will remain free but going forward any new non iShares, Vanguard and Invesco ETFs will be added only to plusā. That is much more palpable and sends a much better message. I think the 28 ETFs are worth leaving in free tier so as not to dampen the ethos.
Removing ETFs to plus that were once free means no matter what is said I can never truly believe āiShares, Invesco, Vanguard will remain in free tierā. It rings hollow because I know removing ETFs from free tier is something Freetrade are willing to do now as they have form now.
News just keeps getting worse - now Freetrade are moving a bunch of ETFs to Plus too. In my case, this affects 4 ETFs that I own, which I will now no longer be able to add too - only hold of sell. More annoying is that they dress this limitation up like it is a fab new feature!
As has been discussed in a number of other posts, the pricing for Plus is not attractive, and FT donāt seem to be considering an option to allow āfreeā users the option to buy Plus stocks/ETFs, even at an additional charge. For me, this is another nail in the coffin for my experience with FT and reinforces my decision to use another provider as my main platform.
I get the need to introduce paid options in order to generate revenue in the long run, but FT lacks a number of basic features that means āPlusā does not warrant the cost.
Sorry FT, but I reluctantly feel our love affair is coming to an end.
A lot of people on here seem to share your opinion.
Personally I donāt (yes I am an investor), as Ā£10 is the cost of lunch and cheaper than placing one trade with legacy brokers. But it would be nice if the cost was lowered until the full suite of features were available.
Would be interesting to see what the numbers say. Are people signing up/showing interest or notā¦