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Trading 212 is one of the UK’s best known trading and investing platforms, but there are some great Trading 212 alternatives out there too.
Although Trading 212 offers a huge range of investment options, tools and accounts it does have some areas where rival platforms have caught up, or even overtaken. Looking through crowdfunding sites like Seedrs and Crowcube, it feels as though a new digital investment platform is springing up every month!
In this article, I’ll run through the best alternatives to Trading 212 for a range of different investing needs.
Use the links below to skip ahead to the Trading 212 alternatives that suit you best, or read on for the full rundown.
- Best Trading 212 Alternatives For Stocks & Shares
- Best Trading 212 Alternatives For CFD Trading
- Best Trading 212 Alternatives For Ready-Made Portfolios
- Best Trading 212 Alternatives For Passive Investing
- Best Trading 212 Alternatives For Cryptocurrency Investing
- Best All-Round Trading 212 Alternative
- Alternatives To Trading 212 – Final Verdict
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Best Trading 212 Alternatives For Stocks & Shares
Although perhaps best-known for CFD trading, Trading 212 is also one of the leading platforms for commission-free stocks and shares investing.
Trading 212 charges no commission and no account fees when buying or selling stocks and shares, making it one of the best platforms around for share dealing. It also allows you to do so through a Stocks and Shares ISA, unlike its main rival eToro.
However, there are now several commission- and fee-free alternatives to Trading 212 when it comes to buying individual stocks and shares. Some of the below alternatives also have innovative features that you can’t get with Trading 212.
Lightyear
Founded in London by two former Wise employees, Lightyear launched onto the investing app scene in the UK in 2021. It offers over 3,500 stocks and funds to invest in, with low commission on share dealing and no account fees.
Lightyear also has a number of innovative features, including alerts when there’s a shareholder action coming up for a company you’re invested in. You can also create a profile with your current investments and share it with your friends.
It has a very impressive app which is easy to navigate and trade from. Lightyear recently also added a web platform.
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- Stocks, Shares & Funds: 3,500+
- Products: Multi-currency investment account, interest on uninvested cash
- Fees:
- UK Shares: £1 per successful order
- US Shares: 0.10%, maximum $1 per successful order
- EU Shares: €1 per successful order
- ETFs: Free of Lightyear execution fees. Other fees may apply
- FX Conversion Fee: 0.35% (you will need to convert your cash into the currency of the stock you want to buy)
- Bank Transfers: Free
- Fast Deposit Fee: First £500 is free, 0.5% thereafter
- Minimum Investment: £1 / 1 euro
- FSCS Protection: No
- Trustpilot Rating: 4.8
Although Lightyear offers over 3,500 stocks and funds to choose from, its UK share offering is somewhat limited with only 250 UK stocks and ETFs. In addition, the only types of funds you can currently invest in are ETFs and BlackRock’s money market funds so you won’t be able to invest in equity mutual funds.
While it doesn’t match the number of stocks and funds of Trading 212, Lightyear is consistently adding more features and investment options making it a platform to watch.
Capital at risk if you invest. The provider of investment services is Lightyear Financial Ltd for the UK and Lightyear Europe AS for the EU. Terms apply: lightyear.com/terms. Seek qualified advice if necessary.
Plum
Plum is an investment, savings and money management app that allows you buy individual stocks and shares as well as invest in funds. While Plum doesn’t offer a huge range of funds to invest in, it has thousands of stocks to choose from.
With a Plum basic account, you will have access to over 1,200 stocks to invest in, commission-free and fee-free. But the real standout with Plum as an alternative to Trading 212 is its built-in money management features.
- Stocks, Shares & Funds: 1,200 to choose from with Plum Basic, Pro & Ultra; 3,000 with Premium
- Products: Stocks & Shares ISA, SIPP, GIA, interest-earning savings accounts
- Fees:
- Individual stocks & shares: Free
- FX conversion fee: 0.45% (you will need to convert your cash into the currency of the stock you want to buy)
- Bank transfers: Free
- Fund investing: minimum £2.99 per month subscription
- Minimum Investment: £1
- FSCS Protection: Yes (but not for primary pocket)
- Trustpilot Rating: 4.4
Plum is slightly more expensive for investing in overseas stocks and funds compared to Lightyear, with a 0.45% FX conversion fee vs 0.35% with Lightyear, and vs 0.15% with Trading 212.
However, Plum offers a wide range of money management and investment features and tools that you won’t get with Trading 212 or Lightyear. These include auto-saving and investments, round-ups, a debit card and cashback.
Check out my in-depth, independent Plum investment review for more details.
Plum – The Ultimate Smart Money App
Invest, save and manage your spending with automation.
Through AI and automation, Plum puts saving, investing and money management at your fingertips. Capital at risk if you invest.
Invest, save and manage your spending with automation.
Through AI and automation, Plum puts saving, investing and money management at your fingertips. Capital at risk if you invest.
Capital at risk if you invest.
Best Trading 212 Alternatives For CFD Trading
Trading 212 has been my CFD platform of choice for a number of years now, except for FX trading (more on my preferred FX broker below). CFD stands for Contract For Difference and is essentially a bet with the broker on the direction of the price of an underlying asset.
They are usually traded with leverage, too, making them especially risky instruments to use as losses (and profits) can be significantly amplified. It’s an FCA requirement in the UK for CFD brokers to state the percentage of customers who lose money trading CFDs with them.
For Trading 212, 81% of customers lose money trading CFDs. This is actually on the higher end, in my experience, with many brokers in the 60-75% range. Perhaps this is because Trading 212 generally attracts a less experienced audience. Below are my two preferred Trading 212 alternatives for CFD trading – Fineco and eToro.
Fineco Bank
Fineco is an Italian bank that specialises in online brokerage. It’s only open to UK and Italian customers, and it offers slightly different services for each of these audiences. You can open an account with Fineco with no minimum investment. Plus, it doesn’t charge you to make deposits or withdrawals.
- Stocks, Shares & Funds: Over 20,000 financial assets including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds, CFDs, options and futures
- Products: Stocks & Shares ISA (see below for Fineco’s ISA offer), GIA, multicurrency accounts, debit cards
- Fees:
- UK share dealing: £2.95 per transaction
- Funds: 0.25% platform fee no matter the size of investment
- Fineco offers a huge range of products and investment options, so check out their pricing page for full details
- Minimum Investment: £1
- FSCS Protection: No, but FCA and PRA regulated
- Trustpilot Rating: 4.1
You have access to a huge range of investment options with Fineco across stocks, bonds, commodities and funds. In addition it allows you to trade using CFDs, like Trading 212, as well as options and futures contracts.
The main reason it’s a great alternative to Trading 212 for traders is its FinecoX trading platform, previously known as PowerDesk. It’s one of the best web trading platforms that I’ve used, with sophisticated tools and chart analysis that’s more typically seen with FX brokers than stocks and shares platforms.
If you’re familiar with FX trading platforms, you will probably like FincoX as it offers a huge range of tools and features.
You cannot use FinecoX with your ISA though, only with a GIA. Aside from CFD trading, you can also buy stocks and shares, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs so Fineco offers a wide range of investments.
In my opinion, FinecoX is for experienced investors only. Aside from share dealing, bonds and funds, Fineco also allows you to trade CFDs and other derivatives. These are highly leveraged instruments and should be used with caution.
Share dealing with Fineco usally costs £2.95 per trade for UK shares. However, Fineco is currently offering £500 of trading commission for free, giving you commission-free dealing on hundreds of UK stocks.
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Fineco is currently offering £500 worth of trading commission if you open an account by 30th June 2023. This gives you over 100 commission free trades!
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If you sign up to a Fineco Bank ISA, or switch an existing ISA to Fineco, you will not have to pay platform fees until 5th April 2024.
You must open or transfer a Stocks & Shares ISA by 29th September 2023 to take advantage of this offer. After that, annual fees are capped at 0.25% making it a very competitve ISA option. Click here or click the button below to use this offer.
eToro
Perhaps the best-known Trading 212 alternative, and arguably its closest rival, is eToro.
Like Trading 212, eToro offers commission-free stocks and shares dealing as well as CFD trading on a range of assets. Unlike Trading 212 though, it does not offer an ISA so you cannot keep your investments in a tax-wrapper.
- Stocks, Shares & Funds: Over 3,000 financial assets including stocks, ETFs, commodities & cryptocurrencies
- Products: Trading Account / GIA, Pro Account, eToro Money Account; CFD trading, Copy Trading, Smart Portfolios
- Fees:
- Trading fees: market spread on all orders, additional broker spread on all CFD trades, daily financing charges on CFD trades held overnight
- Other fees:
- $5 withdrawal fee on all withdrawals
- FX conversion fee on non-USD deposits and withdrawals (fee applied in pips, varies by deposit/withdrawal method),
- $10 monthly inactivity fee after 12 months without logging in
- Minimum Investment:
- Minimum first time deposit of $50. Minimum deposit after this is $10. Minimum trade size is $10
- Minimum investment of $500 for Smart Portfolios
- FSCS Protection: Yes
- Trustpilot Rating: 4.3
Social Trading is where eToro sets itself apart from rivals. Once you’ve signed up, eToro has a social media-like platform which allows you to see posts from other traders which you can like and comment on.
More interestingly, you can sign up to automatically copy the trades of others within the eToro platform. You’re able to see their trading performance before copying other traders. This is an innovative feature and something that Trading 212 is now catching up on.
In addition, eToro offers Smart Portfolios, which is its version of ready-made investing (or robo-investing). These have a higher minimum investment of $500 but have no ongoing management fees.
*CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Cryptocurrencies markets are high risk. Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment, and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 minutes to learn more.
Best Trading 212 Alternatives For Ready-Made Portfolios
Ready-made portfolios have become a popular option for new investors, especially with the rise of robo-advisor platforms. Trading 212 recently launched its own version called Pies & AutoInvest.
Although Trading 212 does not provide personalised portfolios for you, you can instead browse its ‘Pie Library’ and automatically copy it to your portfolio. You can then set up regular investments according to your pie allocation, and tweak the allocation whenever you want to.
However, specialist robo-advisors will match you to a ready-made portfolio based on your attitude to risk. This is then managed and rebalanced over time by professionals. You won’t get this level of professional involvement with Trading 212.
My favourite alternatives to Trading 212 for ready-made portfolios are Moneyfarm and &me:
Moneyfarm – Top Pick
Moneyfarm is ideal for investors who want a hands-off approach and it’s well-suited for beginners. Moneyfarm gets to know you by asking you to complete a questionnaire on sign-up. From this, it recommends which of its 7 risk categories your money should go into.
- Portfolios: 7 actively managed, 7 ethical, 5 fixed allocation, Thematic Investing
- Products: Stocks & Shares ISA, SIPP, Junior ISA, GIA
- Fees:
- Up to £10,000: 0.75%
- £10,000 – £19,999: 0.70%
- £20,000 – £49,999: 0.65%
- £50,000 – £99,999: 0.60%
- £100,000 – £249,999: 0.45%
- £250,000 – £499,999: 0.40%
- Over £500,000: 0.35%
- Minimum Investment: £500
- FSCS Protection: Yes
- Trustpilot Rating: 4.6
Moneyfarm allows you to invest with minimal fuss involved – complete its questionnaire and confirm your risk level and off you go. I’ve used it for 6 years now and keep it as my primary robo-advisor investment.
Check out my in-depth, independent Moneyfarm review for more details.
&me
If you want ready-made portfolios that come with the backing of a large financial institution, then &me could be what you’re looking for. &me is the creation of M&G Wealth, which is part of M&G plc, one of the largest asset managers in the UK. It offers 6 ready-made portfolios to invest in.
- Portfolios: 6 actively managed, 6 targeted (ethical)
- Products: Stocks & Shares ISA, SIPP, Junior ISA, GIA
- Fees:
- Up to £10,000: 0.75%
- £10,000 – £19,999: 0.70%
- £20,000 – £49,999: 0.65%
- £50,000 – £99,999: 0.60%
- £100,000 – £249,999: 0.45%
- £250,000 – £499,999: 0.40%
- Over £500,000: 0.35%
- Minimum Investment: £500
- FSCS Protection: Yes
- Trustpilot Rating: TBU – launched in Jan-23
&me is actually powered by Moneyfarm’s technology and digital capabilities, but the portfolios it offers are overseen by M&G Wealth’s investment experts. You can also easily chat to an investment consultant via the app, or book a video meeting, for no extra cost.
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Click below to get 3 months of investing with zero fees with &me. Must use the link below for offer to be valid. Terms apply.
Best Trading 212 Alternative For Passive Investing
If you simply want to invest in index funds that track major market indices then there are specialist alternatives to Trading 212.
InvestEngine
A relatively new investment platform, InvestEngine allows you to invest in ETFs fee-free if you pick your own investments. So, if you want to invest in passive tracker funds you can do so through InvestEngine without paying any dealing or platform charges.
In fact, it is cheaper to invest in Vanguard’s funds through InvestEngine than it is to do so directly with Vanguard. Read my InvestEngine vs Vanguard comparison for more.
There are over 550 ETFs to pick from on the platform, and you can do so through a Stocks & Shares ISA. You also have the option of investing in ready-made portfolios but these come with a 0.25% platform fee. However, this still beats most robo-advisors on cost.
InvestEngine is FCA regulated and has FSCS protection.
Up To £50 Welcome Bonus
Over 550 ETFs to invest in. Commission-free.
Get a free welcome bonus of up to £50 when you invest at least £100 with InvestEngine.
Ts&Cs apply. Capital at risk if you invest.
Up To £50 Welcome Bonus
OFFER: Get a Welcome Bonus of up to £50 when you invest at least £100 with InvestEngine.
Ts&Cs apply. Capital at risk if you invest.
Read our in-depth, independent InvestEngine review for more details.
Best Trading 212 Alternatives For Cryptocurrency Investing
Although Trading 212 currently allows you to trade in cryptocurrencies, it has in the past removed them from its platform. So if you want to invest in crypto it’s useful to have an alternative to Trading 212.
Coinbase – Best For Active Crypto Investors
Coinbase is a US-based cryptocurrency exchange with over 70m active users. Users can trade and invest in around 100 cryptocurrencies.
If you’re interested in investing in crypto, then Coinbase is a good beginner-friendly option with a wide range of assets to choose from. The minimum amount you need to buy cryptocurrency on Coinbase is £1.
Upon signing up, you gain access to two platforms: the original Coinbase platform, where you can buy, sell, send and spend cryptocurrencies, and Coinbase Pro which is designed for more serious crypto traders.
Coinbase is a specialist cryptocurrency platform and has much more in the way of crypto features and news making it a great alternative to Trading 212.
PROMO: you can currently get up to £10 of free Bitcoin if you’re a new customer and sign up to Coinbase using this link.
After registration, you need to complete the verification of your account using photo ID. Once you’ve made your first buy order, you will get up to £10 of bitcoin added to your account.
Cryptocurrency disclaimer: Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more
Revolut – Best For Casual Crypto Investors
Revolut describes itself as a digital finance ‘super app’ and is best-known as a leading digital banking app in the UK. However, it also allows you to invest in stocks and shares, commodities and a select number of cryptocurrencies.
It costs 1.49% to 1.99% in exchange fees to buy and sell cryptocurrencies through Revolut, depending upon your account type. Revolut currently offers over 80 cryptocurrencies to choose from, and you can set up recurring orders.
Revolut is a good option for you if you want an innovative digital banking app that also allows you to invest in several different asset classes.
Disclaimer: Cryptocurrencies are not protected by investor compensation schemes. Value can go down as well as up. Trading may be subject to tax.
Revolut – The Digital Finance Super App
One app, all things money.
From easy money management, to travel perks and investments. Open your account in a flash.
Revolut – The Digital Finance Super App
One app, all things money.
From easy money management, to travel perks and investments. Open your account in a flash.
Best All-Round Trading 212 Alternative
The above alternatives to Trading 212 are great for specific investing needs. But as an all-round Trading 212 alternative, Hargreaves Lansdown is a great option.
Hargreaves Lansdown
With over £120bn in total client assets, Hargreaves Lansdown is the largest retail investment platform in the UK.
It offers the full range of tax-free products across Stocks & Shares ISAs, Lifetime ISAs, Junior ISAs and Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs). This makes it a great alternative to Trading 212 if you want to maximise your ISA options, as well as saving and investing for retirement.
You can also invest in bonds, which typically you cannot do with CFD brokers, as well as get personal financial advice from a regulated professional.
- Investment Options: Thousands of investment assets across mutual funds, investment trusts, ETFs, shares, corporate bonds and gilts
- Products: Stocks & Shares ISA, Lifetime ISA, Junior ISA, SIPP, Junior SIPP, GIA, personal financial advice, Cash ISA, Active Savings
- Fees:
- Holding funds:
- Up to £250,000: 0.45%
- £250,000 – £1m: 0.25%
- £1m – £2m: 0.10%
- £2m+: 0%
- Holding shares:
- Fund & Share Account: no charge
- Stocks & Shares ISA: 0.45% (capped at £45)
- SIPP: 0.45% (capped at £200)
- Online share dealing: £5.95 – £11.95
- Holding funds:
- Minimum Investment: £1 to open Fund & Share Account (GIA), £100 minimum investment for funds. £100 for ISA & SIPP, unless regularly depositing £25+ per month
- FSCS Protection: Yes
- Trustpilot Rating: 4.2
While Hargreaves Lansdown offers a much wider range of ISAs and accounts, it also offers bonds, mutual funds and investment trusts. These assets are not available to invest in through Trading 212.
On the other hand, its dealing fees of up to £11.95 make it an expensive option if you want to trade frequently. It also charges annual fees for holding investments with them.
For more on how Hargreaves Lansdown compares Trading 212, read my detailed Trading 212 vs Hargreaves Lansdown comparison review.
Hargreaves Lansdown – Switch Your Money On
ISAs, Pensions, Funds and Shares.
Thousands of stocks, bonds & funds to choose from with the UK’s largest platform for private investors.
ISAs, Pensions, Funds and Shares.
Alternatives To Trading 212 – Final Verdict
While there are great options as alternatives to Trading 212, there’s a reason it’s one of the UK’s most popular trading platforms.
It has over 12,000 global stocks and ETFs, as well as offering crypto and FX trading. You can invest through a Stocks & Shares ISA, unlike eToro, as well as trading CFDs through a trading account.
However, it’s somewhat lacking when it comes to ready-made investments and wider money management features. The above Trading 212 alternatives show that, depending on your reason for investing, there are competitive and innovative alternatives out there.
