What is your value to Freetrade?

Freetrade Chat 🔥
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I am a marketer’s nightmare as a low-worth who is therefore very careful about what I spend on. That said, I’ve found with Freetrade the low barrier to entry has meant I’ve got an ISA, and as I now make more higher value trades I prefer to pay £1 for a set price rather than risk paying more at 4pm.

As I’ve seen it, this is FT’s whole proposition to get lots of young people into the market when they’re cheap and turn them into much more profitable customers.

Would be intriguing to know how many other people have noticed themselves willingly handing over more money to the platform? Or are you holding tight to the free features like we all do with so many other products?

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If I spot a sharp dip in price, an irresistible bargain, I take that ÂŁ1 plunge. Generally though, I wait until 4pm.

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I’m I guess FT’s worst nightmare ie I wait for 4pm and I use a GIA rather than an ISA.

My view is I’d happily pay FT but the ISA charge is regressive for low value portfolios.

Cheers Mike

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With Mike here, currently avoid all costs… except for the hidden exchange one which is how they make their money out of me

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Which hidden exchange one?

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The 0.45% on buys and sells on US stocks

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The one that’s prominently listed on the pricing page that they’ve said they make no money from? Not sure how that counts as hidden

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Was being a bit facetious. Yeah it’s prominently placed etc etc but it’s not clear in the app when you make the purchase or sell

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They make interest off cash in your account. Think I read somewhere that they may get around the 0.45% FX in future, but will maybe still charge that rate and take the difference as fees.

Tried to find where I saw that, but couldn’t find it.

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To be fair, 0.45% is significantly lower than the margin most of the traditional brokers charge. And as mentioned by Rat_au_van, Freetrade do not make any money from that.

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Depends how much your trading.
I’d feel much better about it if it was FT doing the FX transfers, and therefore getting my money.

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Do ÂŁETFs that cover American companies avoid this?

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I’m a long term investor rather than a day trader so I never pay the £1 fee. I also only invest in ETFs so I guess I avoid the 0.45% fee? Finally my ISA isn’t here so I’m charged £0/month

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Only on stocks in dollars so yes

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Just curious - is it a Stocks & Shares ISA? The provider is probably making money from somewhere - so if not a monthly fee are they using a wider spread when buying/selling?

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I simply mean that I don’t pay any fee at FT, not that I don’t pay elsewhere. My S&S ISA is with iWeb so I pay when buying/selling but no fixed/% fee each year

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I only use basic trades, and I don’t have an ISA with FreeTrade so I don’t think they’ve made anything off me.

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My thought process for opening an ISA was, i’m assuming, the same as many others in the community - I just don’t want to have to concern myself with all the tax shenanigans.
I’ve started to invest enough each month to cover the £3 charge with dividend payments. I don’t mind paying a fee for a good platform and an informative forum like this :smile:

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Exact same situation for me. I’m a Freetrade freeloader. My ISA will have to remain with iWeb (possibly indefinitely due to the “no OEIC” policy), though I wish I could move it over to Freetrade.

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Continuing the discussion from What is your value to Freetrade?:

I think it matters how much your buying, I currently have only £60 in my stock account therefore £1 is around 2% of my entire fund. But if I had £6,000 and it’s around 0.02% then I would take the £1 hit. I also think stocks flutcurate so much throughout a day. (Like a £2.10 low and then a £2.20 high) people can make significant profit by buying at let’s say 11Am and selling at 2PM. I think it’s down to how much your buying.

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