To be fair, I personally dont feel that the pricing is complicated, but that the pricing is potentially locking some of the SIPP demographic from investing with Freetrade.
Regarding fees, yes you are correct. I am a Buffett/Munger/Jason Zweig disciple when it comes to fees vs fund performance. Each to their own, but I would rather get fees to a healthy level, given they will eat away at my pension for many years. Bell fees are high for ETFs and shares. Admittedly, if I transferred there, I would avoid those and stick with funds and the GBP1.50 charge. It’s worth mentioning that the SIPP is static and I do not plan to contribute to it in the near future, so my thinking is I could effectively spend GBP15 by investing in 10 accumulating index funds and then only pay the management fee and fund fees every year. But I take your points on the charges vs a subscription.
Out of interest, do people really prefer Vanguard to Bell? What have you heard?
Its always tough to compare apples to apples because of the pricing structures and business models. But to give some context, I hold most of my non-SIPP investments with Freetrade. Recently, I have tweaked that strategy. I can effectively have a GIA with Freetrade and buy UK shares or ETFs there, US shares on Robinhood and pay no fx or on T212 and pay 0.15% vs 1% on Freetrade, and I can buy European shares on Trading 212 for the same fx fee. I could have an ISA and pay no custody fee with them too. At the end of the day, I want a GIA and a SIPP and would have liked to have both at Freetrade, but it’s not cost-effective to do so, which feels like a shame to me. But as I say, I’m not aiming to criticise Freetrade with this, but just to get a feel for the reasoning behind it.
Maybe an idea would be to allow people to build their own bundle. So if I want a GIA and SIPP but no ISA, then I could have the standard plan and have the two accounts under that subscription? Thats an offering that would solve the issue I am experiencing and others may too.