- Hargreaves Lansdown is highly rated in both expert and user reviews, boasting an average of 3.8/5 from 1,774 user reviews. Users appreciate the platform’s extensive range of investment options and the quality of customer service, while experts commend its comprehensive research tools and user-friendly interface.
- Experts highlight Hargreaves Lansdown as a top-tier investment platform, noting its wide array of investment types and accounts, excellent customer service, and high ratings across various criteria, including a total rating of 4.9. However, they caution that it may not be the most cost-effective option for fund investing.
- Users frequently praise the platform’s intuitive app and responsive customer service, with many noting the ease of use and the variety of investment options available. However, some users express concerns about high fees and the need for improvements in the app’s navigation and overall user experience.
Website
Excellent platform for stocks, shares and cash investing.
Class
Amazing customer service
Efficient
Very simple app. Brilliant customer service. Good range of ETFs, which I use for long-term investing. Brilliant Cash ISA also, with great interest rate. Trusted and credible. I trust my money is in a safe place.
Good
Communication
Intuitive
Good, intuitive app. Very responsive customer service.
Excellent
Easy platform to use
Confidence
Easy to use platform, very supportive and excellent telephone service.
fantastic
They listen then execute the right strategy
Accessible
Easy to use and patient/friendly when contacted. 5he brand provides access at all investment skill and money levels.
Great for junior ISA
Provide good junior stocks and shares ISA
Quality
Been with them for years and I have always felt they provide me with the best service for my needs as being retired now , not the force of old but heh ho still looking . Pb
Bereavement Support – Incompetent and Difficult
Where do I start.
Claiming they sent forms when they didn’t. Then sent them in an email, but the forms were not attached.
Provided all information requested.
Week later I get an email requesting more information. We are all HL clients but they have made a bad situation so much worse because of their incompetence and awkwardness.
I have NEVER dealt with a more difficult organisation in thise who bereavement process.
They offer good products but I am seriously considering moving my considerable financial invesment away from HL.
Utterly appalled.
Overall good but the app could be easier to use.
One of only a few providers of a JISA where you can pick and manage your investments. Setting up the account was reasonably easy. The app UI is ok but not great. Can only fund the account through a card payment is a little frustrating but not a deal breaker.
Free JISA and app is great
Opened up a JISA on HL due to fees and ease of use. Good stock universe and the app works very well. Got no complaints
Good but room for improvement
HL Junior ISA is okay but their website and app need improvement compared to competitors like InvestEngine and Trading212.
Operating outside of Law Demanding Facial Recognition to Verify / Fake Reviews
Hargreaves Landsdown operate outside of the law demanding Facial Recognition to verify accounts of both new and existing customers. They will tell you its the only way to verify, but when you look into the privacy law, this is simply not the case.
The system they use is MITEK. A quick search will show you who owns MITEK. Its the same corporations whom own everything.
Furthermore, HL are using extremely unscrupulous resources to keep their image squeeky clean by using BLACK MARKETING sources to write positive reviews. They pay approx £10 a review. Search Black Marketing and you will find many people happy to lie and cheat for money.
Go onto Trustpilot and see how many reviews they receive per day. I just counted over 20 in 24 hours. This is a statistical impossibility.
Now, do you really want a company that lies and cheats and sells your data to look after your hard earning money?
Think about that
I have been a customer of theirs for many years and i am absolutely disgusted at their practices and you should be too.
Good service
one of the very few services that allows for some investments… It could be improved and made even more powerful (i.e. investments in other currencies) but really probably the best platform for easy access and universe of investments possible!
Not as good as they used to be
I’ve used HL for more than 10 years. They used to be low cost. Customer service was excellent. Online platform was great. Still not bad, but other platforms are now cheaper. Slower to resolve the occasional problem.
Cheap and easy to trade with, but lacking advanced features for active traders
Hargreaves Lansdown are good value for those that are low volume traders of stocks. If you hold funds then they are not such great value because of the admin fees that they charge. However, they don’t charge dealing fees on funds which is a good point. A negative thought is that fund trades have to be placed by 9am or 8am for some in order to receive that day’s valuation price. Many other brokers have a cut-off time of 11am-11.30am. HL are also one of the slowest to update fund prices – if you check Fidelity, Morningstar or AJ Bell, at 4pm, most fund prices are update, whereas HL take until 6pm or later.
The process of placing a deal with HL using the app is the best of many brokers that I have used as it is so smooth and quick. Very quick to login. However, there are many small companies, foreign companies or investment trusts that don’t load up on the app and only can be viewed or traded on the desktop website.
The app and website are my first choice for checking share prices and news/RNS releases for UK stocks. Historical performance indicators are good too. However there is no provision of key metric data like P/CF, Forward P/E, Debt/Equity, Quick ratio, current ratio, Free cash flow yield, ROCE, ROE, ROA etc so I have to go to Reuters or other sites to check such details.
HL has always been very unaccommodating for those who wished to subscribe to IPOs or share offers, I have found other brokers providing access to new IPOs but HL will not.
They also have a strange system whereby they put dividends you receive into a hidden account and then only 2 weeks later transfer them to your capital account to allow you to trade with that cash.
Watchlists are very good in providing current prices and being well layed out.
It would be good if we could see futures prices for US markets and individual stocks in the morning when the UK is open. I have to check marketwatch or investing.com for that.
Why can’t you make charts with HL of different stocks all on the same chart?
The total return chart function is great for funds but why can’t that be extended to longer than 5 year periods and for stocks as well?
Excellent App but high buying fees
HL is an excellent platform as it’s easy to use and set up. It does however have rather large fees when buying a share. Considering the number of clients they have I’m surprised they remain high and is the reason I am looking for an alternative for my Stocks and Shares ISA
Hargreaves Lansdown Review: The Waitrose of the investing world
Provider: Hargreaves Lansdown
Verdict: Founded in 1981 Hargreaves Lansdown is one of the largest investment platforms in the UK. They offer investing, savings, ISAs and SIPP account to over 1.8 million clients with 142bn in assets under management.
Is Hargreaves Lansdown a good broker?
Yes, Hargreaves Lansdown is one of our best-rated stock brokers and investment platforms. HL offers access to a huge range of investment types, through a wide range of general and tax-efficient accounts and is suitable for almost all types of investors.
I always think of Hargreaves Lansdown as the Waitrose of the investing world. Yes, it may be a bit pricier sometimes, but I think it’s just a nicer, safer place to shop for stocks.
Pros
- Wide range of investments and accounts
- Top-notch customer service
- Excellent research and analysis
Cons
- There are cheaper options for fund investing
- Limited portfolio hedging tools
- Pricing (4.5)
- Market Access (5)
- Online Platform (5)
- Customer Service (5)
- Research & Analysis (5)
Overall
4.9Tell us what you think of this provider.
Hargreaves Lansdown FAQs
Yes, we rate Hargreaves Lansdown as one of the safest share dealing accounts in the UK because they are well established, listed on the London Stock Exchange, and regulated by the FCA. Hargreaves Lansdown is also a profitable company with millions of private and corporate customers.
As an FCA-regulated stock broker, if Hargreaves Lansdown were to go bust, client cash on account would be protected by the FSCS scheme. Client investments are held in nominee accounts on CREST and can be transferred to another FCA-regulated investment platform.
Yes, Hargreaves Lansdown is considered one of the more expensive trading apps, as they charge a commission per share deal as opposed to commission-free investing apps like Freetrade, CMC Invest or Dodl, where it is free. Hargreaves Lansdown is also very expensive for holding funds on account as there is no cap on their fund account charge. Whereas, AJ Bell fund fees are capped and Interactive Investor charges a flat monthly subscription.
Hargreaves Lansdown is a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange meaning anyone can buy shares. But only around 25% of HL shares are traded on the LSE as 75% of the company is still owned by the founders Peter Hargreaves, and Stephen Lansdown and employees. You can see the breakdown of Hargreaves Lansdown shareholders in our HL share price performance section.
Yes, Hargreaves Lansdown offers access to a huge range of UK-listed Government and corporate bonds that you can invest in to build an income-generating portfolio. We actually used Hargreaves Lansdown to demonstrate buying Retail Charity bonds when we reviewed them.
No, you cannot buy commodities directly on Hargreaves Lansdown directly, to do that you need a commodities broker. But, you can invest in commodities on HL through a commodity ETF which is listed on the stock exchange like the Legal & General Longer Dated All commodities UCITS ETF (CMFP).
No, you cannot buy fractional shares on Hargreaves Lansdown, you can only buy whole shares, ETFs and units of funds. If you want to invest in small slices of company shares or want to invest in monetary amounts rather than shares you can compare the best brokers for fractional shares investing here.
No, you cannot trade options on Hargreaves Lansdown. I view this as quite a significant disadvantage because options are a great way to hedge your long-term investment portfolio against potential short-term stock market falls. If you want to trade or invest with options you can compare the best options brokers here.
No, you cannot buy or invest in gold directly on Hargreaves Lansdown, to do that you need a gold trading platform. But, you can get exposure to gold and invest in a gold ETF that tracks the price of the gold and can be bought and sold on the Hargreaves Lansdown platform just like shares for example, SPDR Gold Trust, iShares Gold Trust or Aberdeen Standard Physical Gold Shares ETF.
No, you cannot short stocks or go short on the Hargreaves Lansdown platform. But if you think that the Hargreaves Lansdown share price will go down it is possible to short Hargreaves Lansdown shares with a short-selling broker using CFDs, options or financial spread betting. However, if you want to go short the overall stock market to hedge your portfolio held at Hargreaves Lansdown you can buy an inverse ETF (which goes up when the market goes down) like
Absolutely not! Hargreaves Lansdown is a traditional stock brokerage and is most suitable for those investing in the long term. Cryptocurrency is a very high-risk product and not apprapriate to hold alongside ISA or SIPP accounts. Having said that, the SEC has recently approved a Bitcoin ETF, which can be bought and sold on the stock market, so some UK investors may be able to buy cryptocurrency on HL if they pass the sophisticated investor threshold.
Capital at risk
Richard is the founder of the Good Money Guide (formerly Good Broker Guide), one of the original investment comparison sites established in 2015. With a career spanning two decades as a broker, he brings extensive expertise and knowledge to the financial landscape.
Having worked as a broker at Investors Intelligence and a multi-asset derivatives broker at MF Global (Man Financial), Richard has acquired substantial experience in the industry. His career began as a private client stockbroker at Walker Crips and Phillip Securities (now King and Shaxson), following internships on the NYMEX oil trading floor in New York and London IPE in 2001 and 2000.
Richard’s contributions and expertise have been recognized by respected publications such as The Sunday Times, BusinessInsider, Yahoo Finance, BusinessNews.org.uk, Master Investor, Wealth Briefing, iNews, and The FT, among many others.
Under Richard’s leadership, the Good Money Guide has evolved into a valuable destination for comprehensive information and expert guidance, specialising in trading, investment, and currency exchange. His commitment to delivering high-quality insights has solidified the Good Money Guide’s standing as a well-respected resource for both customers and industry colleagues.