- Experts rate Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP & Pension highly, noting its competitive pricing structure and excellent customer service. The platform offers a wide range of investment options, including access to over 3,000 funds and extensive research tools, making it particularly suitable for beginners. However, they caution that it can become expensive for larger portfolios, especially after promotional discounts end.
- Across 1,775 user reviews on Good Money Guide, averaging 3.8/5, customers frequently highlight the platform's user-friendly app and responsive customer service. Many appreciate the extensive range of investment options available, particularly for Junior ISAs. However, some users express frustration with high fees and occasional difficulties in navigating the platform, alongside concerns about customer support during complex processes.
Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP & Pension Expert rating
Our expert rating is the average of the areas listed here, each scored out of 5 by our team.Our experts have rated Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP & Pension across five key areas of our review framework.
- Pricing4.0
- Market Access5.0
- Online Platform5.0
- Customer Service5.0
- Research & Analysis5.0
Pros
- Widest range of shares, bonds and funds to invest in.
- Get started with as little as £100 or a £25 regular investment
- Share fees capped at £200
- Excellent research & data to help you choose what to invest in
Cons
- Can be expensive for large fund portfolios
See full expert review
Our verdict
Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP & Pension is great for those that want excellent service & research. We consistently rank Hargreaves Lansdown as one of the best SIPP providers in the UK (HL won best SIPP in our 2022 Awards). The main advantage of Hargreaves Lansdown’s SIPP is that it offers access to a vast range of investments. Investors have access to domestic and international equities, over 3,000 funds, bonds, as well as plenty of research and investment tools. Customer service is also top notch, with really helpful and knowledgable staff that can provide guidence if needed.
Capital at risk
Is Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP (Pension) Any Good?
Yes, Hargreaves Lansdown SIPP costs start at 0.45% of your portfolio value. The account charge for shares is capped at £200 per year. Funds are charged at 0.45% for the first £250,000, then 0.25% between £250k and £1m, then 0.1% between £1-£2m. There is no charge above £2m. There is no charge for buying funds, but shares are charged at £11.95 per deal or £5.95 if you do over 20 deals per month.
But, if you open a SIPP with HL before the 30th June with £10k or more you'll get a discount of 40% on account fees. As HL is generally quite expensive, this is a great deal, and could save you £180 in fees. But keep in mind that when this discount ends in 2026, if you have £100,000 in your SIPP with HL it will cost £450 a year, versus £155.88 with interactive investor.
For beginners and smaller accounts Hargreaves Lansdown, is a great choice, as HL offer one of the best apps on the market and provide stock research and analysis on the most heavily traded stocks in the UK and US. Hargreaves Lansdown is also good for beginners because they are quite simple to use and have an excellent reputation for customer support from their Bristol based offices.
They may be a little more expensive that some of the other platforms, but you certainly get what you pay for.
Some SIPP accounts are better suited to beginners than others. Generally speaking, beginner investors require a SIPP that is easy to use, cost-effective, and offers access to products that are well suited to beginners such as ready-made portfolios.
So, if you are a complete beginner to SIPP investing and are not confident enough to choose what individual stocks and shares you want to own in the long term. A private pension may be more appropriate. One private pension account (which is not actually a SIPP because you can’t buy individual shares) that is well suited to beginners is Wealthify. Wealthify is a robo advisor (or digital wealth manager) that offers a managed pension product. With Wealthify, you choose an investment style based on your risk tolerance. However, the disadvantages of Wealthify are that the minimum pension investment is £5,000 and there are only a few investment portfolios to choose from.
Customer reviews for Hargreaves Lansdown
Customer ratings come from reviews left on this site. Every review is read and approved before it is published.Based on 1,775 reviews
- Excellent27%
- Very good38%
- Basic24%
- Poor7%
- Bad4%
Read customer reviews
hideous experience
just speechless! I created the kids accounts. They changed the primary person on my child's account without telling either parent, locked me out when I Phoned about a login issue, then dictated what I do in my own home and with whom. Never had an experience like that!
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?