To put things in perspectives, I am looking at a Freetrade Deck from 2019.
The expected numbers at the end of 2021 were :
1.02m users
1.35bnĀ£ AUA
So, the AUA per users is a bit lower than expected but it looks like we will be hitting the AUA target of yearās end and we will exceed the users target ! So all in, pretty good !
Free money is a proven way to get people onto platforms though. It works really well generally. I wouldnāt worry about that. How massively it can help is well described by Peter Thiel and Paypal in his zero to one book.
Ā£1bn AUM is very low also comparing to some other fintech players, for example:
In April/May 2021 the company had around Ā£150m AUM with 150k users (Ā£1k per user), so thats means that the AUM per user didnāt really increase in the last 12 months.
thats means 2 things In my opinion:
It has also been the downfall of some companies. Besides, I am not against the free money aspect, just think they could direct it towards customers who would then fund every month and show a loyalty to existing customers who invest. This would build long term growth and be something that stands out against the ever increasing number of very similar start ups competing for the same crowd.
It would also help prevent the people who change constantly for the next offer as the monthly prize is a big incentive. As I said similar to Nationwide in what seems a great scheme.
agree, lets compare FT with other fintech:
Moneybox, and Pension Bee Ā£2bn
Moneyfarm and Trading 212: Ā£1.5bn
Maybe but Pension Bee is traded on the LSE with a market Cap of Ā£350m with Ā£2.0bn of AUM.
On a comparison point of view the future valuation of FT doesnāt look too good
Love FT but the AUM of Ā£1bn are very low
Orā¦ The AUM of Ā£1bn is very high considering they arenāt at the age or as established as pension beeā¦ nor on the LSE yet 
I donāt think that Pension Bee is a fair comparable due to the fact that it holds pensions which are almost guaranteed to be contributed to each month and likely not to be withdrawn for a long time. I appreciate that FT do SIPP but not sure if this is as valid as many want the ability to set and forget with pensions and I think they donāt offer this (please correct me if Iām wrong).
I also think that once/if FT launch the LISA and JISA this will pull AUA up massively as I think many people are waiting on these to fully transfer from other legacy brokers.
I think that the best comparable would be Robinhood as they are also another challenger broker.
As of 3Q21 RH had 22.4m funded accounts (18.9m MAU) and AUC of $95bn (of which $69bn was equities) - that gives $4241 per funded user.
Thanks for the figures, that is quite startling though and just shows how much further we have to go with Freetrade.
I do wonder how much AUA RH had at their 1m user date, obviously doesnāt mean FT will see the same growth but would be interesting nonetheless.
HL have Ā£100bn in their ISA and SIPPs - the real high value stuff that builds up over time.
How much bigger and how much more of an audience is the US compared to the UK ? Population is a little differentā¦ ?
The reason HLās AUA is so high is because itās got a lot of features that many experienced investors want. A Ā£12 commission is peanuts to a lot of their customer base. AUA will improve once FTās products mature.
Things that HL have over FT currently:
AUA will grow more organically if Freetrade stick to their mission to get everyone (mainly the 20-40 crowd) into regular and long term investing.
From my experience HL customer service is outstanding.
I moved my Portfolio from HL, but my only complaint with them was the high fees. Other than that they are pretty good on features.
If you are rich enough to be trading 5 figures at a time then commissions are pretty insignificant and we need other ways to bring those users in
The assets under management figure will grow exponentially for Freetrade, as it is a business that now attacts millenials that start their investment journey. These millenials will have bigger and bigger portfolios as the times passes. The 1BĀ£ figure is impressive. Well done to all involved and hopefully the next billions is close.
Theyād have a lot more AUM if they did SIPP employer contributionsā¦. 
Yep I know 3 people waiting for that to transfer SIPPs. Also know of 3 LISAs and 2 JISAs waiting for FT support as well. Likely ~Ā£500k between them.
As a subscription service our customer number is surely more important than assets under management?
Iāll base my āis Freetrade a unicornā opinion on how much revenue they make and not how much stock is sitting around doing not much.
Edit: not much for Freetrade, hopefully doing lots for the holder of that stock
As surprised as I am itās not higher, I donāt think it will impact Freetradeās share price that much, since the average holding is pretty much the same as the last update we got.
As Freetrade doesnāt take a % of portfolio in revenue, itās really just a vanity metric for Freetrade (unlike HL etc who do).
I still think Freetrade is at least a 
and value per user would be > 900 for a crowdfund.
Few things: