Charged completely different share price when buying

There’s not really such thing as a ‘live’ price for a stock. No matter where you see it, the price you see is normally* an average of some kind. As Han says, there’s a bid/ask spread when you try to buy or sell.

I’ve added a link below to a Freetrade staff member explaining this in a little more detail.

*I gather some brokers (HL, I think?) can give you a guaranteed quote when you buy (ie, you submit order, they show price, you have a small window to confirm that yes you want to complete the trade), but you’re paying for the privilege because you’re paying them for using the platform and you’re paying them for carrying out the trade. So same trade on Freetrade even at a slightly higher share price would probably still overall be cheaper anyway.

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