Best UK Stocks & Shares ISA Accounts Compared & Reviewed

The Test: Is Wealthily a good investment ISA?

Yes, I think Wealtify has a good stocks and shares ISA, which is why I opened one when my wife decided she no longer wanted a cleaner. Let me explain why. We’d just got back from holiday and to our utter horror, there was dust behind one of the many pots we have in the sitting room. Don’t worry, we’re not evil, our cleaner told us just before we headed off to Andorra that she was pregnant and returning to Brazil with her husband to be with her family. So we haven’t sacked her for poor dusting skills, we just decided not to replace her.

Which meant we had an extra £65 a month in the Berry coffers. But what to do with the money we’d be saving? Mrs Berry decided she was going to open a savings account and put the money in her Lloyds account. Which I said was a terrible idea as Lloyds only pays a pittiful 1.1% interest, which is bit less than inflation and far less than the Bank of England interest rate of 4.5%.

Which, in real terms, would mean we’d be losing about £13 a year. There is a Wealthify Cash ISA savings account that currently pays 4.25% tax-free p.a (variable on a monthly basis), but we’re not saving for something in the short term; we’re tucking this away for the future.

As it happens, Wealthify’s compliance department have been giving me grief about the flippant wording of my reviews so I’ve had to rewrite them, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to the put the Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA to to the test in real life again, especially as the 2025 ISA allowance has just reset.

One of the things I’ve always liked about Wealthify is that it tells you how much money you could make in the future. One of the simple steps the app takes you through whilst setting up the ISA, lets you play with their slider that gives you a projected future value of your portfolio based on how much you invest on a regular basis, based on how much risk you are willing to take.

As this is semi-found money, and I’m a natural risk taker, I opted for the highest risk portfolio with the best potential returns. Typically, I failed the suitability test (which is a really annoying questionnaire that asks pointless questions for experienced investors, but I suppose has it’s uses if you are a beginner) as it told me that I didn’t understand that risks I was about to take, should go for a lower risk portfolio and wouldn’t let me invest my hard earned savings with too much risk.

But I didn’t want to do that because if I’d taken less risk, my projected returns over 10 years on a £65 initial investment with regular contributions of £65 a month would have been £9,761.39 instead of £10,526.43, which is a difference in profit of over 40%.

So I took the test again, changed a few bits and passed and opted for the higher risk portfolios, which contain 77.74% shares. If I’d opted for the lowest risk portfolio, I would be buying 76.92% bonds. Which are income-generating investments that generally don’t go up in value as much as shares do, but are considered safer.

If you want to know exactly what you are invested in you can look at the Wealthify Adventerous Portfolio Factsheet which gives the full portfolio breakdown, but the kicker is the 28% allocation to the HSBC America Index fund which contains the usual Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, META and Alphabet tech stocks that have held international marktes up over the last few years.

I must say at this point that past performance is no indication of future returns. Because, as we well know, the stock market can crash at any time. 👀

But having said that, when the stock market crashes, in my opinion, it’s usually a good time to invest because it generally always goes back up because the major indices contain the biggest and most profitable public companies. If those companies start to lose money, they are replaced by ones that do and so on. The stock market’s entire purpose is to go up.

Overall I got a Wealthify Investment ISA set up and running in about 4 minutes, which was less than it took to drink my morning cup of coffee whilst my wife explained to me that it would now be my responsiblity to do the vacuming on Saturadays after I’d taken our youngest son for his tennis and swimming lessons.

Market Access: Wealthify’s Stocks & Shares ISA offers five different investment options. The options are: Cautious, Tentative, Confident, Ambitious, and Adventurous. All of these strategies are constructed with a mix of low-cost passive and active funds. Funds contain a collection of investments and are a convenient and cost-effective way to invest. Investors also have the option to build an ethical portfolio.

One downside to Wealthify is that, like Nutmeg, there are only a few investment options to choose from. There is not a lot of flexibility and you cannot invest in individual shares and funds.

Fees: Wealthify charges an annual fee of 0.60% for managing your investments.

Wealthify is not quite as cheap as InvestEngine (0.25%) which has some ETF portfolios, but it is cheaper than Moneyfarm (0.75%) where you can invest in individual shares and bonds.

The other cost of the Wealthify ISA to consider is the “Fund Investment Costs”, which are charged at 0.16% by the fund managers that run the funds that Wealthify invests in. Investment fees are fairly non-negotiable and are standard for all investment platforms. However, some robo-advisors or digital wealth managers choose different products with different costs. For example, the underlying fund fees Moneyfarm charges are 0.21% and Nutmeg varies from 0.19% to 0.16% depending on what type of account you have.

There is an ethical investment portfolio available at Wealthify where fund costs are 0.93%, but performance is worse, and I personally think the whole ESG investing thing is a load of greenwashing rubbish.

For instance, the two biggest funds in the Wealthify Ethical Portfolio are the Brown Advisory US Sustainable Growth Fund (22%) and FTGF ClearBridge US Equity Sustainability Leaders Fund (16%), which both have as their top three holdings… You guessed it… Microsoft, Amazon and NVIDIA.

But to be fair, it’s third largest fund is the Liontrust Sustainable Future UK Growth Fund who’s biggest holding is 3i, who’s biggest portfolio investment is Action, a discount-dutch non-food retailer that has trucks that has double decker trucks that carry 60% more than a regular truck which they say is “better for the enviroment and better for your wallet”.

Wealthify’s Stocks and Shares ISA versus a Cash ISA

When you invest in an investment ISA with Wealthify your money is invested in a mix of funds depending on your attitude toward risk.. This means you are taking on some risk for potentially better returns. But, if you don’t want to take on any risk Wealthify has just launched a cash ISA.

A wealthify Investment ISA is a good choice if you are investing for more than 5 years and are prepared to take on more risk for greater returns. However, if you are putting money into an ISA for the short term, a Wealthify Cash ISA may be more appropriate as you do not run the risk of losing money in the stock market.

Cash Back Offer: The Wealthify investment  ISA currently has a cash-back transfer and deposit offer.

Deposit or transfer to a Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA, and you could earn between £50 – £500 cashback. Minimum investment £5,000. Offer registration ends 30/06/25. You’ll then have 6 months to make your qualifying deposit(s) or start your transfer(s).  You will need to remain invested for 18 months following the date of registration. Cashback varies by total deposit and/or transfer amount. T&Cs Apply. Capital at risk.  Tax treatments depend on your individual circumstances and may change in the future. Find out more. Wealthify is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.