Bestinvest Review – Is It The Best Investment Platform For You?

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At Generation Money our purpose is to help you make better financial decisions. All of our articles are independently written and/or edited by finance professionals and adhere to strict editorial guidelines. This post may contain links which, if clicked, could result in a payment to the site. These links never impact our editorial policy and all rankings and product recommendations remain unbiased. For more details, read how this site is financed.

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This is our independent Bestinvest review.

In this review of Bestinvest I’ll go into detail on its features, account options, fees, safety and how it compares against its main rivals.

I’ve been trading and investing with my own money for 15 years and it’s my aim to review all of the major investment platforms in the UK here at GM. As a Chartered Accountant, I’m very much aware of how costs can impact returns over time, and I cover Bestinvest’s fees in detail later on in this review.

What You Need To Know

  • Bestinvest is one of the largest retail investment platforms in the UK, offering a Stocks & Shares ISA, SIPP, Junior ISA and trust accounts
  • In our view it has the best investment search tool of all the major platforms, making it easy to find and compare funds, with over 3,000 shares, mutual funds, investment trusts and ETFs to choose from
  • Bestinvest’s pricing is highly competitive, and its SIPP is one of the best-priced on the market
  • You can get free and unlimited coaching from a Bestinvest financial coach, and pay for personal financial advice
  • It has a choice of 19 ready-made portfolios, with its ‘Smart’ portfolios beating most robo-advisors on cost making it one of the best choices if you want to invest in a ready-made portfolio
  • However, you cannot open a Lifetime ISA with Bestinvest or invest in bonds, unlike with AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown
  • Overall, it’s one of the most user-friendly investment platforms in the UK, which also produces unique investment guides such as its famous ‘Spot the Dog’ publication

With investing, your capital is at risk.

Currently, Bestinvest is offering up to £1,000 cashback if you transfer investments worth at least £1,000 to them. This applies to Investment Accounts, Stocks and Shares ISAs and SIPPs. Transfers must be made by 30th November 2023. Terms apply and are available to read on the Bestinvest website. Click here to sign up.

Read on for my full Bestinvest review, or use the links below to skip ahead to a particular section:

Bestinvest Review: What Is Bestinvest?

Bestinvest is a full-service investment platform which offers DIY investing, ready-made portfolios and personal financial advice services.

Launched in 1986, Bestinvest is an investment platform which is part of Evelyn Partners who have been operating for over 180 years in the wealth management space.  

With over 100,000 clients and more than £50bn in assets under management, Bestinvest is one of the leading retail investment platforms in the UK. It’s also won a number of industry awards for its products and innovation.

Bestinvest Review: Bestinvest’s Features

Below is a summary of what we view as the key features provided by Bestinvest:

  • Investment Search feature – the best of the major platforms
  • Low fees on ready-made portfolios
  • Free and unlimited investment coaching service
  • Option to pay for personalised financial advice
  • Bare trust and discretionary trust accounts available
  • 19 ready-made portfolios to invest in
  • Thousands of funds and shares to invest in
  • Mobile app
  • Their Stocks and Shares ISA is a flexible ISA
  • Regular investing from just £25 per month
  • Minimum investment of £50
  • Mobile app and online web platform

Bestinvest Review: Products & Services

There are a comprehensive range of products, services and investment options to choose from at Bestinvest. It offers the main ISAs and pensions as well as personal financial planning and advice.

The only major ISA that Bestinvest doesn’t offer is a Lifetime ISA, unlike its rivals AJ Bell and Hargreaves Lansdown.

In this part of our Bestinvest review, we’ll take a look at each product in turn. Bestinvest’s Stocks and Shares ISA, Junior ISA, SIPP and General Investment Account are all charged the same way, using a tiered annual platform fee – we look at this in more detail later in this review.

Bestinvest currently pays 4.1% interest on uninvested cash held in any in any type of account. This beats many easy-access savings accounts.

Bestinvest Stocks And Shares ISA

A stocks and shares ISA is the core offering of most major investment platforms, and Bestinvest is no different. 

In a Bestinvest stocks and shares ISA you can choose to either invest in one of their ready-made portfolios (more on these later in our Bestinvest review) or pick your own investments. If picking your own investments, you can choose from thousands of assets across individual shares, funds, investments trusts and ETFs. 

The annual platform charges and dealing charges for Bestinvest’s stocks and shares ISA are highly competitive – more on fees and charges below.

Bestinvest’s Stocks and Shares ISA is a flexible ISA. This means that you can withdraw money from your ISA and repay it within the same tax year without affecting your annual ISA contribution allowance.

Not all ISA providers offer a flexible ISA, so it’s worth considering a Bestinvest ISA for this alone if you would like thart sort of flexibility. Note that Junior ISAs and Lifetime ISAs are not flexible.

Bestinvest Junior ISA

A Junior ISA can be opened for any child under the age of 18 and is controlled by their parent or guardian until they turn 18. The current annual investment allowance is £9,000 per year. 

When investing or saving through a Junior ISA, any gains or income attained in the account is free from capital gains tax, income tax and dividend tax. This makes a Junior stocks and shares ISA a tax-efficient way to invest for your child’s future. Read more about them in our guide to the best Junior Stocks and Shares ISA.

Bestinvest’s Junior ISA allows you to invest in its full range of investment options, including stocks, funds and ready-made portfolios.

Bestinvest SIPP Review

With a Bestinvest SIPP, you can invest in any of Bestinvest’s ready-made portfolios or you can pick your own investments from its wide range of funds and shares.

There are no setup or transfer-in costs, so if you’d like to open a new SIPP or move an existing SIPP to Bestinvest then there are no fees to do so. However, there is a minimum annual charge of £120 for holding a SIPP with Bestinvest. 

Currently, Bestinvest is offering up to £1,000 cashback if you transfer investments worth at least £1,000 to them, including on SIPPs. Transfers must be made by 30th November 2023. Terms apply and are available to read on the Bestinvest website. Click here to sign up.

If you sign up using Bestinvest’s transfer-in offer then the cashback helps it to become one of the best priced SIPPs on the market, effectively reducing the minimu charge to £20 in the first year. You should consider all of your options and potential exit fees before transferring a pension. If you need guidance, consider speaking to a financial advisor before transferring a pension.

As mentioned above in this Bestinvest SIPP review, you can choose how to invest in your SIPP. This includes picking your own investments or investing into one of Bestinvest’s ready-made portfolios. You’ll also have access to free coaching and personal financial advice (for a fee), just as with Bestinvest’s other products. 

With Bestinvest’s wide range of investment options and access to coaching and financial advisors combined with its competitive pricing, the Bestinvest SIPP is well worth considering.

Bestinvest Investment Account

Unlike a Stocks and Shares ISA, an investment account does not have tax advantages which means any income or gains may be subject to income tax and capital gains tax.

On the other hand, there’s no £20,000 cap on contributions into an investment account that you get with an ISA. 

Otherwise, the Bestinvest investment account operates in the same way as a Stocks and Shares ISA and you will have the same access to thousands of stocks, funds and ETFs, as well as ready-made portfolios.

Bestinvest Trust Accounts

A trust is a legal vehicle, or arrangement, that allows you to invest or save money for someone else’s benefit. A trust is managed by trustees, for example the parents of a child, and its aim is to hold assets which will eventually be distributed to the beneficiaries of the trust, for example children of the trustees.

As a Chartered Accountant, I’m well aware that trusts can be highly complex areas of tax and law. For more on trusts and how they can help you to save for your child’s future, I discuss them further in my best Junior Stocks and Shares ISA guide.

Bestinvest allows you to set up two types of trust – a bare trust and a discretionary trust. Unlike a Junior ISA, these are not automatically exempt from income tax, capital gains tax and dividend tax.

Bare trusts tend to be for the benefit of children, and allow the assets held in the trust to be used for the child’s benefit before they turn 18, for example to pay school fees.

Discretionary trusts are more flexible and allow greater control over how and when assets are distributed to the trust’s beneficiaries. 

Bestinvest is one of the only major retail investment platforms to offer a Discretionary Trust Investment Account, so if this is something you’re interested in then you may want to sign up to Bestinvest. It’s also one of the  few retail investment platforms to allow you to set up a bare trust, along with AJ Bell.

Bestinvest Coaching And Financial Advice

Alongside Bestinvest’s investment platform, you can also choose to speak to a financial coach or get financial advice from a regulated professional.

Speaking to a coach with Bestinvest is free. They will give you investing tips and guide you through the following:

  • Different investment options
  • How to implement an investment strategy 
  • Using your tax allowances
  • Setting up a financial plan

They will not give you investment recommendations, and this is the key difference between a coach and an advisor.

There are two types of financial advice available with Bestinvest, both of which will provide you with specific investment advice:

  1. Investing for your goals – £295 inc. VAT
    A Bestinvest financial advisor will go through your goals, timelines and risk appetite with you. You’ll then be sent a report by the advisor with either a recommended ready-made portfolio or a blueprint for creating your own portfolio if you’d prefer to do it yourself.
  1. Portfolio Health Check – £495 inc. VAT
    If you have already invested your money and built a portfolio, a Bestinvest investment advisor will talk through your portfolio with you. They will check to see if your current investments accurately reflect your goals and attitude towards risk. You’ll then be sent a report by the advisor with a recommendation on whether to keep or sell each of your existing holdings, what to buy instead or if you have spare cash, and advice on ready-made portfolios if you would prefer to simplify your portfolio.

The coaching and advice services offered by Bestinvest help it to stand apart from its rivals. The cost for financial advice is particularly competitive, and is cheaper than Hargreaves Lansdown and Nutmeg, for example.

If you’re new to investing then a free session with a Bestinvest coach is a great option to consider, and it’s not a service that’s available with many other investment platforms.

Bestinvest – Investments, SIPPs & ISAs

Low cost ready-made portfolios, free investment coaching and dealing fees from £4.95.

Access thousands of UK and US stocks, ETFs, funds and ready-made portfolios.

With investing, your capital is at risk.

Low cost ready-made portfolios, free investment coaching and dealing fees from £4.95.

Access thousands of UK and US stocks, ETFs, funds and ready-made portfolios.

With investing, your capital is at risk.

Bestinvest Review: What Can You Invest In With Bestinvest?

There are over 3,000 shares, mutual funds, investment trusts and ETFs to choose from on the Bestinvest platform. Its Investment Search Tool is one of the best search tools on the market, and in our view beats those at Bestinvest’s main rivals.

Below is a summary of the investments on offer with Bestinvest:

  • Shares (over 1,400)
  • Mutual funds, also known as unit trusts (Over 1,500)
  • Investment trusts (Over 200)
  • ETFs (over 300)
  • Ready-made portfolios (19)

One set of assets you cannot directly invest in through Bestinvest is bonds and gilts. So if you’re interested in investing in fixed income then you may want to consider Hargreaves Lansdown or AJ Bell. There are, however, ETFs and funds which invest in bonds available through Bestinvest.

Other platforms also have a wider range of ETFs to choose from. ETFs are a low-cost and popular form of investing at the moment, so you may want to consider a specialist ETF platform such as InvestEngine. For more on InvestEngine, including how it’s the cheapest way to invest in ETFs, read my detailed InvestEngine review.

However, with Bestinvest’s range of options across shares, funds and ready-made portfolios even experienced investors should be satisfied and find plenty of options to build a diversified portfolio.

Bestinvest Review: Ready-Made Portfolios

Of the major investment platforms, Bestinvest has arguably the strongest ready-made portfolio offering. 

Ready-made portfolios suit those who do not have the time or desire to research and pick their own investments. Instead, you can choose a portfolio that suits your level of risk or the broad themes you’d like exposure to. Your money is then invested into a portfolio managed by professional fund managers. 

Typically, they cost less than seeking individual financial advice from a regulated financial advisor as they are not personalised to you. 

You can hold Bestinvest ready-made portfolios in any of their 4 main account types: Stocks and Shares ISA, Junior ISA, General Investment Account or a SIPP. 

There are 19 in total, including:

  • 5 Smart Portfolios
  • 10 Expert Portfolios
  • 4 Direct Portfolios

Next, we’ll take a look at each of these types of portfolio in more detail. 

Smart Portfolios

Bestinvest’s Smart portfolios focus on keeping costs low by investing mainly in Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs). These are lower cost funds that tend to track major stock indexes and commodity prices, meaning they are usually passive funds. 

Due to their passive nature, they do not require hands-on expertise to manage and therefore have lower ongoing fund charges.

Experts at Evelyn Partners, the owners of Bestinvest, select ETFs and ETCs to put together these ready-made Smart portfolios. There are 5 to choose from, each with a different level of risk:

Cautious

  • Equity allocation: 42%; Bond allocation: 38%
  • Ongoing fund charge: 0.33%

Balanced

  • Equity allocation: 54%; Bond allocation: 27%
  • Ongoing fund charge: 0.33%

Growth

  • Equity allocation: 65%; Bond allocation: 22%
  • Ongoing fund charge: 0.35%

Adventurous

  • Equity allocation: 75%; Bond allocation: 14%
  • Ongoing fund charge: 0.35%

Maximum Growth

  • Equity allocation: 91%; Bond allocation: 4%
  • Ongoing fund charge: 0.32%

Generally, the higher the allocation to equities the greater the risk and the greater the potential returns of the portfolio. This is because the stock market has a higher level of volatility than the bond market – historically, at least – and is considered higher risk, particularly over shorter time frames.

All of the above portfolios have the expectation of long term growth, meaning they will not suit you if you don’t plan to invest for at least a few years. The ongoing fund charges compare well against most robo-advisors – more on this below under fees and charges.

Expert Portfolios

By contrast to its Smart portfolios, Bestinvest’s Expert portfolios are actively managed funds. This means Bestinvest (Evelyn Partners) fund managers will seek to maximise growth for the given risk level of their portfolio mandate by picking the actively managed funds that make up the portfolio.

In total, Bestinvest’s Expert portfolios have over £7bn in Assets Under Management (AUM). There are 10 to choose from, including 9 growth portfolios and 1 income portfolio, and they vary by risk level.

Because they’re actively managed by fund managers the costs are higher than with Smart portfolios, ranging from 1.42%-1.53%. 

Defensive Clean (lowest risk)

  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.52%

Conservative Clean

  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.53%

Cautious Clean

  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.53%

Balanced Clean

  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.53%

Growth Clean

  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.50%

Adventurous Clean

  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.49%

Maximum Growth Clean (highest risk)

  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.50%

Sustainable Cautious Clean

  • A lower risk ethical focused portfolio that seeks to invest in ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) investments. You may prefer this if you would like to invest your money in a more sustainable way.
  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.45%

Sustainable Adventurous Clean

  • A higher risk portfolio than Sustainable Cautious Clean that also seeks to invest in ESG products. Suitable if you would like to invest in what is considered a more sustainable or ethical way.
  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.54%

Income Clean

  • The income fund has a higher exposure to fixed income than the model for the above growth funds but is not restricted in which assets it invests in. 
  • Ongoing fund charge: 1.42%
  • Yield: 2.70% (as at 13th July)

Direct Portfolios

In addition to Smart and Expert portfolios, Bestinvest recently launched 4 multi-asset portfolios called Direct portfolios, each with differing risk levels.

These funds have a mandate to invest in individual stocks and bonds rather than in funds or ETFs. In theory this means exposure to individual company risk, but may also generate higher returns. 

As they launched in January 2023 there is not much data available on them yet. Ongoing fund charges are 1.05% for each of the 4 funds, and are actively managed by Evelyn’s expert fund managers.

Overall, the wide range of fund choices across Smart, Expert and Direct options, including catering to income seekers and those looking to invest sustainably, makes Bestinvest one of the best choices if you’re looking for ready-made investments.

Performance

The below table compares Bestinvest’s ready-made portfolios to the 3 main robo-advisors – Moneyfarm, Nutmeg and Wealthify

PortfolioBestinvest 2022 PerformanceMoneyfarm 2022 PerformanceNutmeg 2022 PerformanceWealthify 2022 Performance
Defensive-3.54%-7.51% (Portfolio 1)-8.60% (Portfolio 1)-11.2% (Cautious)
Balanced-6.29%-7.4% (Portfolio 4)-13.2% (Portfolio 5)-10.3% (Confident)
Maximum Growth-11.74%-10.1% (Portfolio 7)-9.6% (Portfolio 10)-9.10% (Adventurous)

At the lower and medium risk levels, Bestinvest showed the strongest performance, although its highest risk portfolio performed slightly worse than its robo-advisor rivals.

Bestinvest Review: Ethical Investing

Ethical investing means different things to different people, and includes terms such as ‘impact investing’ and ‘socially responsible investing (SRI)’. 

Generally, those seeking to invest their money ethically have a lot more choice than in the past, but there’s a lot of jargon to wade through. Bestinvest has a useful jargon buster on its site which explains the nuances around ethical investing. 

It also offers ready-made sustainable portfolios, which we covered above, although there are only two to choose from which doesn’t compare well to the wider range available with specialist robo-advisors.

You can also filter by ‘ESG’ as an option on Bestinvest’s Search Tool so that you can narrow down all of the ESG funds available.

For more on ethical ISAs you can read our guide to the best ethical stocks and shares ISAs.

Bestinvest Review: Other Tools and Services

Alongside the ability to invest in over 3,000 stocks, funds and ETFs, Bestinvest has a range of tools and guides that can help you decide what to invest in. 

This is especially useful if you don’t want to invest in one of Bestinvest’s ready-made portfolios and instead want to pick your own investments.

As mentioned earlier in this Bestinvest review, the Investment Search tool is in our view the best search tool of all the major platforms including Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell

This is primarily because it’s much nicer to use. The layout is clear and has lots of filter options to narrow down your investment search. In this way, it looks and feels like the sophisticated search you would see on a large retail website. 

You can either enter a search term or choose one of the preset filters to show investments that you’re interested in. Filters include different types of funds and ready-made portfolios.

Once you’ve produced an initial set of results you then have lots of options to filter options down further. These include charges, yield and unit type (accumulation or income). 

The results will show a summary of key information for the investment including price, ongoing charges, yield and 1-year, 3-year and 5-year performance.

In addition, you can sort results by high to low, for example high to low on 5-year performance to show the best performing fund or share over the last 5 years for your query. 

You’re also able to select results to compare against each other. The search function is easy to use, well designed and intuitive, and much better than those seen at some of Bestinvest’s rivals.

Bestinvest investment search tool for Bestinvest review

One of our favourite filters is on performance which allows you to filter and sort investments by their performance over 1, 3 and 5-year periods. Not many other investment platforms allow you to do this quickly and easily like Bestinvest does. In fact, a lot of the other major investment platforms have, quite frankly, clunky search functions.

Best Funds List

Bestinvest produces its take on “the ‘best’ funds from the different sectors”, which they think are capable of outperforming their peers and benchmark. 

To produce their list, Bestinvest applies a consistent framework of “10 commandments” to each fund for it to feature. Some of the criteria is whether the fund manager invests in their own fund, and therefore has skin in the game, as well as looking to exclude fund managers who seek to only replicate a benchmark rather than outperform it. 

Bestinvest cannot guarantee that any of the funds it features will indeed outperform their benchmarks, however it has “conviction in them”. In our view this guide is a helpful tool to add to your own fund research.

Spot The Dog

By contrast to Bestinvest’s Best Funds list, it also produces a collection of the worst performing funds, or ‘dogs’. These are funds that have “consistently and significantly underperformed”, and the Spot the Dog list is a well-known publication in the investment management industry, often featuring in major publications. 

Spot the Dog performs a useful service in the industry, as it arguably helps to protect investors from poor performing funds, especially as fund performance is not always necessarily clear to the less informed investor.

The list also includes Bestinvest’s “pedigree picks” alternatives to the “dog” funds, where they suggest viable alternatives which may perform better. Like its Best Funds list, the Spot the Dog list is a useful tool to have as part of your investment research. 

Bestinvest Review: How Good Is The Bestinvest App?

As with most major investment platforms, Bestinvest has a mobile app available for iOS and Android users. 

It has many of the features of the web platform including buying and selling investments, making deposits and setting up regular monthly contributions. 

You can also book a free coaching session directly through the Bestinvest app:

Bestinvest app coaching tab for Bestinvest review

When testing the app, we found it to be simple to use with a clear layout. It’s neatly organised into 5 main tabs, with the default tab being the Investments summary where you can see an overview of your portfolio and its performance. 

You will need to have funded your account to be able to invest through the app. 

Bestinvest Review: Fees & Charges

Investment platforms tend to charge platform fees in one of two ways – either an annual percentage charge of the assets you hold with them or a fixed monthly subscription fee.

Bestinvest charges using the former – a percentage of the value of your investments held with them. The fees you pay with Bestinvest will depend on how you invest and what you invest in. For platform fees, Bestinvest has streamlined its pricing so that all account types have the same tiered pricing structure. It does, however, vary depending on which type of investments you hold. 

In this section of our Bestinvest review, we look at the fees involved for each type of investment as well as Bestinvest’s dealing fees.

Annual Platform Fees

Below covers the annual platform fees for investing in funds, investment trusts, ETFs and shares. It excludes investing in Bestinvest’s ready-made portfolios and US shares, which are priced differently and we cover this further below.

These fees are paid to Bestinvest and are in addition to any underlying fund charges, as is the case with all investment platforms:

ProductAmount InvestedBestinvest Annual FeeAdditional Info.
General Investment Account (GIA), ISA, Junior ISA, SIPPUp to £250,0000.40%Minimum charge of £120 per year for SIPP, excluding Child SIPPs
General Investment Account (GIA), ISA, Junior ISA, SIPP£250,001-£500,0000.20%
General Investment Account (GIA), ISA, Junior ISA, SIPP£500,001-£1,000,0000.10%
General Investment Account (GIA), ISA, Junior ISA, SIPPOver £1,000,000No charge

Ready-Made Portfolios And US Shares Fees

Bestinvest charges the same annual platform fee structure for its ready-made portfolios and for investing in US shares. Note that US shares have no dealing fees but do attract an FX fee of 0.95% of the value of the trade. More on dealing fees further below.

ProductAmount InvestedBestinvest Annual FeeAdditional Info.
General Investment Account (GIA), ISA, Junior ISA, SIPPUp to £500,0000.20%Minimum charge of £120 per year for SIPP, excluding Junior SIPPs
General Investment Account (GIA), ISA, Junior ISA, SIPP£500,001-£1,000,0000.10%
General Investment Account (GIA), ISA, Junior ISA, SIPPOver £1,000,000No charge

Dealing Fees

Bestinvest charges dealing fees when you trade in certain assets. Below we’ve summarised these charges:

Type of dealFee
Online dealing in funds (mutual funds/unit trusts)Free
Online dealing in UK shares (including ETFs and investment trusts)£4.95
Online dealing in US shares (including ETFs and investment trusts)0.95% FX fee
Dividend reinvestmentFree
Deals over £100k£4.95
Phone dealing£30

Bestinvest’s online dealing fee of £4.95 for shares is cheaper than Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell, two of its main rival platforms.

Coaching And Advice Fees

Bestinvest is one of the only major platforms to offer free financial coaching as well as paid-for financial advice.

Earlier in this Bestinvest review we outlined their advice services and below are the costs of Bestinvest’s two advice packages:

  • Investing for your goals – £295 inc. VAT
  • Portfolio Health Check – £495 inc. VAT

There’s a minimum investment of £50 as this tends to be the minimum amount you can invest in mutual funds. This applies to all account types.

However, the minimum amount for some funds on offer is higher and can start from £100. 

Bestinvest Review: Is Bestinvest Safe?

Bestinvest is regulated by the FCA and has Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection. 

FSCS protection means that any deposits up to £85,000 held with Bestinvest will be guaranteed by the regulator in the event that Bestinvest was to go bust. All major banks have this protection, which is a type of insurance ultimately guaranteed by the government, and should give you some comfort over your deposit with Bestinvest.

As with all investing, your capital is at risk.

To add to its credibility, Bestinvest is owned by Evelyn Partners which has been trading for over 180 years and has more than £50bn in assets under management.

Bestinvest Pros & Cons

Bestinvest Pros

  • Full range of main investment options: pick your own investments, ready-made portfolios and personal financial advice
  • In our view, it has the best investment search tool of all the major platforms
  • Its main Stocks and Shares ISA is a flexible ISA
  • Competitive dealing charges for shares and funds
  • Great value pricing for its Smart portfolios compared to robo-advisors
  • One of the few retail platforms to offer discretionary trust and bare trust investment accounts
  • Also offers Small Self-Administered Pensions Scheme (SASS) Investment Accounts, although these are highly complex schemes and you should consider expert advice if you’re interested in them
  • Free investment coaching
  • Competitively priced personal financial advice
  • Simple, straightforward mobile app and online platform
  • Access to original research and insights, such as ‘spot the dog’

Bestinvest Cons

  • Does not offer a Lifetime ISA, unlike some of its rivals
  • You cannot invest in bonds or gilts
  • ‘Expert’ portfolio charges are on the higher side

Bestinvest Customer Reviews

On Trustpilot, Bestinvest has a rating of 4.4 from over 700 customer reviews and ratings with 53% of reviewers rating it as ‘Excellent’.

Many of the positive reviews comment on Bestinvest’s excellent customer service. In particular, some reviewers mention how useful Bestinvest’s comprehensive coaching service is.

Feedback from less positive reviews include some who experienced a long wait time to transfer an ISA to Bestinvest, as well as sometimes slow deposits/withdrawals.

Bestinvest Review: Final Verdict

As a comprehensive investment platform, Bestinvest has a number of strengths compared to its rivals. Its dealing charges are highly competitive, its SIPP is one of the most keenly priced on the market and its Investment Search tool is, in our view, the leader among the major platforms.

Bestinvest’s offering of ready-made portfolios, thousands of stocks and funds to build your own portfolio and personal financial advice means that it covers the needs of most investors. Offering these three main investment options at competitive prices make Bestinvest a great platform, suitable for both beginner investors and those with more experience. 

However, Bestinvest does not quite have the widest range of products and investment options on the market. It doesn’t offer a Lifetime ISA for example (unlike Hargreaves Lansdown) and it doesn’t allow you to deal in bonds or gilts.

Beyond this, though, Bestinvest is well-known for regularly producing useful research papers such as its ‘Spot the Dog’ analysis. These will be useful tools for you to use on your investing journey, especially for beginners.

If you’re looking for an easy-to-use platform which covers a wide range of investing needs, including free investment coaching, then Bestinvest is a great choice.

OFFER: Bestinvest is offering up to £1,000 cashback if you transfer investments worth at least £1,000 to them. This applies to Investment Accounts, Stocks and Shares ISAs and SIPPs. Transfers must be made by 30th November 2023. Terms apply and are available to read on the Bestinvest website. Click here to sign up.

Bestinvest – Investments, SIPPs & ISAs

Low cost ready-made portfolios, free investment coaching and dealing fees from £4.95.

Access thousands of UK and US stocks, ETFs, funds and ready-made portfolios.

With investing, your capital is at risk.

Low cost ready-made portfolios, free investment coaching and dealing fees from £4.95.

Access thousands of UK and US stocks, ETFs, funds and ready-made portfolios.

With investing, your capital is at risk.

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