Freetrade Alpha pricing & beginners

I was just looking at the pricing model for Alpha:

I think I would be more inclined to subscribe to that plan if it offered a small number of premium trades each month for free or a number of free premium trades under a specified value.

Thinking about someone who wants to start investing in shares but with only a small amount of capital. Any small gains are going to be offset by the 50p fee which will not help.

I can definitely see the potential of this plan when investing with a lot capital though.

I agree that the fee for instant trades is a disadvantage for small investments.

But I’ve always imagined that someone in this scenario wouldn’t be too concerned about instant trades when they’re just starting out. If you’re testing the water then I’d have thought you’re unlikely to be trying anything too time sensitive? Or at least, you probably shouldn’t be..

6 Likes

Start with placing basic trades at first (no commission), and as your skill and appetite grows then consider instant trades to meet your investing/trading strategy.

4 Likes

Agreed, if you’re cost sensitive, probably not all that up for going Alpha.

3 Likes

Worth noting you’ll have unlimited free US instant trades when we launch US listed stocks.

3 Likes

Yes that’s true. I could use that as a starting point.

Still, I think for a £10 subscription the offering could be slightly more tempting with a limited number of premium U.K. trades.

1 Like

It’s a good point but ultimately we didn’t want to complicate our pricing or impact investing with allotted free trades or limited discounts.

50p for instant UK plus free instant US plus unlimited free trades is still a pretty fantastic setup (not to blow our own :trumpet:)

We’re always looking to drive down costs further so the 50p may not be there forever.

5 Likes

I think our community will be pleasantly surprised by the direction our pricing goes. We take the opposite approach of other brokers that give introductory or promotional pricing, then take it away.

6 Likes

Also bearing in mind that HL charge £11.95 for only one single lonely transaction.

4 Likes

Aside from being an obviously great feature, ISA is also just a very solid brand. People love ISAs, like Bill Murray or kettle chips.

4 Likes

2 Likes

I second that, if there are initial investors, the best strategy for them would be to view it as a mid to long term savings. Find something that they are interested in ( e.g. Apple products then APPL shares), that way it’s something more personal to them so they are more likely to remember\view and monitor. Once they’ve got a taste\more rounded understanding then branch out into other shares - always good to have a good understanding of the company, what they do etc

1 Like

I wasn’t aware US stocks won’t be available from the rollout :pensive:

@rob_h once said that adding US stocks will be a very quick fix, matter of days if I remember correctly :thinking:

2 Likes

Great!

Sorry to disappoint, but as may as I would love it to be it’s definitely not a matter of days to add them!

We have already started working on the integration (in fact Adam and I are heading out to the US in late July to see our key partners out there), and we’re hoping we’ll be adding to the platform pretty soon. The delay is due to the fact that we need to build the connections to our FX partner and to the US, and we chose to prioritise the UK connections first.

Fundamentally though our backend software is ready to deal with US stocks, and just needs linking up (and plenty of testing!). So hopefully it shouldn’t be too long a wait.

10 Likes

I see that FX rates are interbank rate + 0.5% is it hight/low? I have not compared to other brokers.
How does trading on US markets going to work?
From what I remember I would not be able to keep USD in broker account (this might be a general rule in UK?)
My money will be always in GBP and when I trade it converted into USD and vice-versa?

1 Like

There has been a discussion over here.

For instance, if you were with Interactive Investor, you would be exposed to these rates:

With Freetrade, at least you do not need to invest £100,000 to get 0.5%, you get that with £1. And it has also been mentioned that Freetrade intends to come up with further FX reductions (whether for all or for Alpha users - no idea), but that is not in the short term.

After all, one day they could also implement a USD denominated storage within your account which could sole FX issues altogether.

In terms of this, it would essentially be a 0.5% commission on non-UK transactions. If you invest £100 into the US security, then sell it, assuming no fees and no growth/loss, you will end up with just over £99 (£99.0025 to be precise).

Exactly right. For now.

Also,my favourite

2 Likes

I will subscribe to Alpha when it’s available.
Who else will join me ?

3 Likes

Sorry to bump this, but I was looking for the pricing for Alpha (I know it’s not available yet).

I’m sure it used to be on this page (and the first post kind of implies that it used to be) but only Basic is shown:

Does anyone know what the pricing was published as? £10/month? Was it ever clear whether the £3pm charge for an ISA was included in Alpha, or on top of it?

I’m wondering whether this info’s not up because FT is rethinking the pricing / model for Alpha, or just because they don’t want to publicise something that’s not available yet?

(I’m just doing comparisons with my RoboAdvisor and working out when the fees tip over to Freetrade’s favour.)

2 Likes