How do you justify Freetrade Plus?

Freetrade Plus is literally one of the cheapest stock brokers available. They are transparent on fees so whilst it may seem a lot you will almost certainly be paying more elsewhere.

Nothing is free. Companies have to make moneyā€¦

If you are just starting out then stick with the free option and as you build your savings move to plus.

8 Likes

Actually, just to add to that. If you think that the cost of plus is excessive and youā€™re worried about wasting Ā£120 over the year (which to be clear, I donā€™t think it is), itā€™s possibly an indicator that you should think carefully if investing in stocks is the right thing for you at this point in time. If the value of your investments was halved tomorrow, could you afford it? If the answer is no, donā€™t start investing.

On the flip side, if you can afford to lose say a couple of hundred pounds, then obviously you should start investing that, and for small investments it doesnā€™t make sense to pay extra for plus. If you have a small portfolio, you should start with the bigger companies and ETFs that you can buy without plus, as these are much less likely to lose as much money anyway. And if itā€™s only a small portfolio, having a GIA rather than an ISA is no big deal as youā€™ll likely be unlikely to be anywhere near the CGT allowance limit.

5 Likes

Like you Samuel, I donā€™t personally see the value of it for me as I donā€™t buy any Plus-walled stocks, donā€™t hold cash and havenā€™t used many limit orders (yet). But I have accepted that Plus is a product that is perhaps just not targeted at me and is more geared towards larger/more serious investors, and I think thatā€™s totally fine.

Actually despite all of this I did recently subscribe to Plus, because I have seen how quickly they added to it (the 4k cash interest was a surprising and swift addition), I may go into SIPPs soon, I already have an ISA so it effectively only makes it Ā£7 more, may start to store some cash and as a FT Investor I donā€™t mind them having some of my money.

But yeah, you are right, I think for investors at our size/level it is not easy to justify it. But actually thatā€™s ok :grin:

2 Likes

I dont have enough invested atm to justify it but when I have enough invested to make it worthwhile moving my isa and opening a sipp I will be taking out plus. Right now I would prefer to be investing that 120 a yr.

If you have Ā£4k, the 3% interest alone pays for the Ā£120 / year and you get the rest for free

I think having the walled off stocks within plus is a bad call - the freemium account should provide full market access and the plus account should remain having the other account enhancements.

2 Likes

Without meaning to sound rude as it isnā€™t meant to but that is not the most sensible path for a business as that would cut revenue significantly and probably make FT unviable :+1: It is actually sensible for the user to get a taster with shares etc and if they want more then they pay.

It isnā€™t cheap to run the operation and most would not bother paying for Plus then and it isnā€™t a registered charity :joy:

3 Likes

The problem with Plus is that it seems expensive unless you have a big portfolio or constantly change investments. Iā€™m subscribed but I question whether it is worth Ā£120 per year. Maybe there needs to be a cheaper option that gives more market access but not the other features.

2 Likes

Ā£120 a year with an ISA included is not expensive in any way shape or form :+1: I really donā€™t get the people trying to make the company become a unviable business :joy:

No-one is forced to expand to the Plus world and they have many many stocks for free but if FT take away all the incentive to actually pay for the service then we will all be looking for a new service as FT wonā€™t be around long.

I would say it is also still cheaper for people with small portfolios who want Plus stocks if they purchase small amounts than paying the Ā£5-10 transaction fees others charge.

7 Likes

In this community there are some big differences in what people think is expensive or not. Thatā€™s a good thing, fintech opens up access to investing for people who would have been completely excluded only a few years ago. But it must be hard to cater to a diversity of customers, especially when people have been trained to expect everything online to be instant and free, and donā€™t know what they donā€™t know about investing.

There are some people here whose entire portfolio is less than Ā£120; for them, a Plus subscription would seem quite expensive. On the other hand, @Brap_the_younger recently cashed in a portfolio worth more than Ā£50,000, and @soko considers paying Ā£240/year for Level 2 data to be inexpensive.

What counts as a ā€˜big portfolioā€™ is very different from one person to another!

7 Likes

Most of my aim shares are plus, which I think hurts those small companies as the new or small investor canā€™t access them through the free account.

Iā€™ve no problem ft making money and love much of it, but I feel that barrier targets the small caps.

1 Like

Totally agree :+1: The point is more about the business needs to be viable and people seem to want FT to work in a way that would make it unviable :joy:

1 Like

Fair enough, but FT would go bankrupt without the Plus option as it is. Nothing in the world is really FREE but FT do a great balance for the vast majority in making it as close to free as possible whilst making actual trades not expensive.

Also, FT is not a charity for the small caps so not really sure why that would be a consideration and small caps would be more aiming to the people who would not be worried about Ā£7 a month (ISA must be considered) for Plus membership.

It would be nice if it was free but not realistic :+1:

3 Likes

Given my chosen id, itā€™s fair to say that I donā€™t have a lot of money invested here. I started out with around Ā£900 - all that I could really justify - a little while after the pandemic crash. Iā€™ve thrown Ā£500 each at a couple of IPOs elsewhere and could now invest Ā£2,000 or so and Ā£100 monthly comfortably. So I donā€™t have a lot of money to throw around.

Despite the above, I feel like Plus offers good value. If :freetrade: is your primary investment platform and you donā€™t see yourself switching anytime soon. Others offer more without upfront fees, but will perhaps change their FX fee at fairly short notice :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I feel that limit orders alone make Plus good value.
Assuming Ā£500 of shares that average Ā£1 each, a 20 pence increase per share is Ā£100. The price you get when selling can vary quite significantly in seconds on some stocks. Perhaps youā€™ll ā€œloseā€ 10 pence a share if you chose the wrong time to hit the sell button with a market order. Thatā€™s Ā£50 gone. This of course also applies for a varied portfolio and prices trending upwards on some of the shares that you hold. Trying to take advantage of a volatile price on a given day or week may lose you a lot per share. A limit order will allow you take advantage if trading conditions are right. Plus is Ā£10 monthly and includes the ISA youā€™re likely paying for anyway.

Iā€™d guess that most here have more than Ā£500 invested in total. I can see why those who only want to trade without fees and have Ā£100 or less invested wouldnā€™t want to pay for Plus. Iā€™d also argue that those who want to invest a lump sum every so often and for the long-term donā€™t necessarily care about short-term price differences. For them, Plus likely isnā€™t worthwhile, either.

We should also keep in mind that things will change. The 3% on up to Ā£4K cash held was a nice surprise and removes the Plus fee for many. Other features will be coming to Plus. Iā€™d be surprised if all the shares in the European expansion are available to those without Plus. I can already imagine the posts complaining about certain types of shares on one countryā€™s exchange being Plus only. Despite the fact that some UK shares are Plus only.

3 Likes

This seems the weirdest statement in the whole conversation. If you donā€™t think itā€™s worth it, donā€™t pay for it.

As other have said, and I myself was unaware of originally, FT only makes its money from the monthly subscription fees, such as Plus, ISA and SIPP. With every service in life, the company prices a product according to where they feel they can make a profit, and you choose if you want those features enough to justify the cost. In this case, if you expect you can earn more than Ā£10 a month by trading the stocks available in plus, you should pay for it. If not, donā€™t.

As Iā€™ve said before, I donā€™t even use any of the features of Plus other than the interest. For me, that alone is more than enough to make it better value than the Ā£3 a month fee for the ISA. Obviously FT gets something back in the interest they can earn on my Ā£4000, or increased subscription numbers for better success at funding rounds, or whatever it is. But for me, Plus is a simple value proposition.

Perhaps a better way of thinking about your question is asking why Sky doesnā€™t let you purchase individual channels. When I was a subscriber for Ā£30+ a month, I only watched Sky Atlantic. By the logic of just paying for what I needed, surely they should have had a package just for me at 50p a month because I didnā€™t watch the other 100s available?

6 Likes

I think the Ā£3pm isa fee is very reasonable. Iā€™ve only started investing in shares this March. I had a Halifax share account but the Ā£11.95 fee each time was very expensive! I would not have been able to buy and sell shares reasonably any other way presently, (T212 not taking new customers).

4 Likes

Iā€™m not sure whatā€™s weird about it. I said I question it. When I have the answer to that question that will determine whether or not I continue my subscription. For now, I can justify it because I am investing in companies who are probably locked behind the paywall. But once that money is in and Iā€™m happy with my investments then I may go months without using a single Plus feature. I suppose I could unsubscribe at that point because the ability to sell is still available.

Yes, and Free Trade makes Ā£0 from people who feel the service is too expensive for how often they would use it. Having a Ā£5 service (for example) with less functionality may well convert some of those Ā£0s into Ā£5s.

Your Sky example was terrible. Sky are well known for having lots of different packages with different sets of channels or different services. Movies package, sports package, entertainment package, 4k package, multi room package etc. Youā€™re not forced to subscribe to everything or nothing. Sure you canā€™t subscribe to individual channels but Iā€™m not sure people want to subscribe to individual stocks.

Sure the 3% interest is nice but Ā£4000 is a lot of money to some people. It wouldnā€™t make sense for me to hold that much in cash in my account. Plus why not earn more by investing it?

At the end of the day Free Trade are welcome to do whatever they want with their subscriptions, but you donā€™t need to defend it for them because having different levels of subscription might actually earn them more money overall. Maybe they are/have even considered it. Would be silly not to. Itā€™s not exactly an alien concept for online services.

TBF the Sky package is a great analogy as they have different packages yes but if you want sports and not movies etc the savings are rubbish. Sometimes it is just no saving unless you get a bigger package. This is similar to the ISA or SIPP savings when with Plus. I canā€™t get sky sports on its own at a decent price so end up with a bigger package :+1:

Having said that though you are correct as Sky wouldnā€™t let you have anything for free :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

1 Like

I see what youā€™re saying, but they are still making 0.45% of non-sterling FX conversion fees and will earn some miniscule amount on the interest of everyoneā€™s spare cash.

But this dilemma is one every company faces. Sure, having a Ā£5 price point will probably convert some of the free people into paying Ā£5, but it could also convert many Ā£10 people into paying Ā£5 too. And it makes the pricing model more complicated. One advantage of lumping everything together is that it makes the value proposition seem better. If you paid for what you wanted, you probably would just decide you didnā€™t need most of the features, if you get everything for one price, youā€™ll probably try the other things and find you like them too and itā€™ll reinforce your idea that you made the right choice.

And back on Sky, in fact I cancelled my basic HD subscription because I considered it poor value for money (Ā£30+) when I only really wanted to watch one channel. My example wasnā€™t entirely fictitious! If the basic package wasnā€™t so expensive, I would have continued with it.

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 416 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.