Hargreaves Lansdown Review (HL): The Waitrose Of The Investing World

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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.
Richard Berry
Richard Berry
Good Money Guide Founder

Hargreaves Lansdown Customer Reviews

3.8

1,747 Good Money Guide reviewers have given this provider an average rating of 3.8 out of 5 based on their genuine experience.

Excellent27%
Very good38%
Average24%
Poor7%
Terrible4%

Leave a review and tell us what you think to help others make more informed financial decisions.

Great LISA and savings provider

15th June 2024

Great LISA and savings provider

Neil Forland-Butten

Good for trading account in…

15th June 2024

Good for trading account in stocks and shares, less so for trading in unit trusts and in an isa.

Ray Ring

Reliable great service and established….

15th June 2024

Reliable great service and established. A platform you can trust

Phillip Fielding

4/5

15th June 2024
Mark Phillips

Good website but expensive

15th June 2024

Good website but expensive

Richard Skinner

fine

15th June 2024

fine

Glenn Carver

Good but fees are far…

15th June 2024

Good but fees are far too high.

Derek Evans

Solid, low cost provider.

15th June 2024

Solid, low cost provider.

Euan Laird

Opaque, not user friendly, hard…

15th June 2024

Opaque, not user friendly, hard to understand reports

Fiona Kay

NA

14th June 2024

NA

Anil Lala

They are not the cheapest…

14th June 2024

They are not the cheapest but v good support

Jeremy Philips

fairly dear – could use…

14th June 2024

fairly dear – could use faster payment system

Mike Beaumont

Good site easy use friendly…

14th June 2024

Good site easy use friendly staff will always help if you need it

Lee wonnacott

x

14th June 2024

x

David Collins

Offer all services easy to…

14th June 2024

Offer all services easy to use and trustworthy

Gary Jordan

No thoughts

13th June 2024

No thoughts

Ewan Macintyre

Very good & easy to…

13th June 2024

Very good & easy to use

Barry Addison

Good service, expensive for funds,…

13th June 2024

Good service, expensive for funds, less so for individual shares

STEVEN DENNIS

Excellent for varied investment ways

13th June 2024

Excellent for varied investment ways

John Terry

Bit expensive but sound

13th June 2024

Bit expensive but sound

Douglas Dulcamara

Capital at risk

Hargreaves Lansdown Expert Review

There is no denying that Hargreaves Lansdown is one of the best investment platforms in the UK. They offer a huge range of investments and excellent customer service. In my Hargreaves Lansdown review, I explain what they are good at, what they are too expensive for and what sort of investor they are most suited to.

Hargreaves Lansdown Review
Good Money Guide Recommended 2024

Name: Hargreaves Lansdown

Description: 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. The company was founded by Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown in 1981 and is now listed on the London Stock Exchange.

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.

Pros

  • Wide range of investments
  • Most investment account types
  • Excellent research and analysis

Cons

  • There are cheaper options for fund investing
  • Limited portfolio hedging tools
  • Pricing
    (4)
  • Market Access
    (5)
  • Online Platform
    (5)
  • Customer Service
    (5)
  • Research & Analysis
    (5)
Overall
4.8

I’ve spoken to the founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, Peter Hargreaves a few times. First when I interviewed him over the phone and then a few follow-ups after that via email. I have to say that he’s to the point, detailed, charismatic and clearly has a huge amount of passion for the business.

Of course, Peter Hargreaves no longer runs the business, but for this review, I interviewed the then  CEO Chris Hill, but the mentality of HL doesn’t seem to have changed. Hargreaves Lansdown is still one of the best investment platforms out there. Its research, market data, and market range are unrivalled. There are cheaper “free stockbrokers” out there, but your choice of investment is limited, customer service is basically a chatbot and many are still raising funds and running at a loss. Sure people complain that HL can sometimes be expensive, but in finance, you get what you pay for.

Founded in 1981, Hargreaves Lansdown is one of the largest fund management and investment platforms in the UK with 1.8 million clients and £142bn funds under management. Operating from its Bristol base, it offers a huge range of investment tools, ready-made portfolios, ISAsSIPPs (pension), cash savings and foreign currency exchange. They also offer financial advice with a free initial consultation, research, webinars and guides to investment. The scale and scope of their offering mean they offer one of the widest range of choices for investors of all levels.

For those that are more risk averse HL Active Savings offers access to some of the highest-paying savings accounts.

In the Good Money Guide Awards, HL is a regular winner and in 2022 won the award for ‘Best Stockbroker’, ‘Best Investing App’ and ‘Best SIPP account’. 100% of those who took the 2022 survey said they used HL for longer-term investing, with only 33% saying they also made short-term speculative investments on the platform.

With a history stretching back four decades, HL brings the security, scale, and reputation of an established FTSE 100 company.

Now, onto the nitty-gritty of Hargreaves Lansdown and our ratings explained.

Pricing

Cheap for stocks, expensive for funds – that’s the basics.

Over the years, though, HL has become cheaper, and I expect it to continue becoming more competitive. They have a huge legacy client base that won’t switch to another broker no matter what, so that will be milked for a while with these reduced rates. However, newer customers should see commissions come in line with other major investment platforms.

HL is still horrendously expensive for US stocks, as their FX fees are quite high, and since there is no cap on fund account fees, these can add up very quickly for big accounts.

The jewel in the pricing crown, though, is the Junior ISA, which is free to hold and to buy shares and funds.

Hargreaves Lansdown Market Access

Excellent, with pretty much full market coverage.

If you’re a UK investor, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a listed instrument you can’t invest in through HL. So, if you’re looking to build a very diverse portfolio over the years and want access to a wide range of small-cap stocks, corporate bonds, and funds, HL is a good choice for investment options.

Plus, they offer the most types of accounts as well. In our comparison tables, only Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell offer access to the full range of accounts including:

If you click on the links above, you can see our ratings for each of the key Hargreaves Lansdown account types.

Platform & Apps:

Generally, one of the best apps and platforms around.

The Hargreaves Lansdown website and app have been the go-to for stock market research. I should know – I sold them bond data, rankings, and analysis for years.

The website has an excellent market data section, so you can read through company reports, and the HL app is much more comprehensive than competitors.

Everything is easy to use: lots of order types, account statements, etc. It all just works. Let’s be honest, if you are investing with Hargreaves Lansdown, you’re going to use the platform and buy something in the long run. You don’t need lots of flashing lights and algo API connectivity.

These were all developed by a hugely experienced team that has now gone on to run Navos (fintech.co.uk), which builds investment systems and infrastructure for some of the biggest financial institutions in the UK.

They are grown-up platforms and apps for serious investors.

Customer Service At Hargreaves Lansdown:

You get what you pay for here. HL always picks up the phone quickly.

Whenever we test platforms, we always try to find a problem so we can phone customer support to test their response time. Some of the apps are woeful at getting back to customers. But then again, I’d say that investing apps are for small investors, while investment platforms and stock brokers are for when you have a bit more and need a bit of help looking after it.

For this review, and you can watch this in our video of me testing the platform live. There was an issue with cancelling the a stop on a position I had closed out. I managed to get through straight away and was given the answer after speaking to a couple of their staff.

Hargreaves Lansdown does have a reputation for being expensive, but then again, it’s not cheap employing and training staff to ensure that if you have a problem, it can be dealt with quickly – and may I add, politely.

Research & Analysis:

Superb, with lots of market data screens for non-customers and even more information when you are logged in.

Hargreaves Lansdown is a DIY platform, which means you have to make your own decisions. Now, I’m not being commercially cynical here, but when I was a broker, we wanted our customers to make lots of decisions. Because the more investment decisions they made, the more commission we made.

And how do you get your customers to make more investment decisions? Well, you provide them with the tools, stimulus, and research to help them make them.

As Hargreaves Lansdown is one of the biggest companies in the UK, listed on the LSE with a market cap of £5.27bn (as of 22/09/24), you can assume that they are providing a lot of people with a lot of research and analysis to help them make more decisions…

Capital at risk

Hargreaves Lansdown Video Review

Watch as we test the Hargreaves Lansdown investing platform and app. In our video review and test we buy and sell some Hargreaves Lansdown shares (LON:HL) and demonstrate some of the stock broker’s features.

Capital at risk

Hargreaves Lansdown Awards

Hargreaves Lansdown always wins awards with us, over the years Hargreaves Lansdown has won Good Money Guide Awards for:

  • 2023: Best DIY Stocks & Shares ISA & Best Junior SIPP
  • 2022: Best Investing App, Best Stock Broker, Best SIPP & Best Junior SIPP
  • 2021: Best Full-Service Stock Broker
  • 2019: Best Stock Broker, Best SIPP Account
  • 2018: Best SIPP and Stocks & Shares ISA Broker
@good_money_guide Best DIY Stocks & Shares ISA… #goodmoneyguide #goodmoneyguideawards #investing #shares #stocks #stockmarket ♬ original sound – Good Money Guide


I’m afraid though, we don’t have any footage of Hargreaves Lansdown collecting an award because as yet they’ve not turned up to collect them.

Capital at risk

Hargreaves Lansdown Facts & Figures

⬜ Public Company✔️
👉 Number Active Clients1,800,000
💰 Minimum Deposit£1
💸 Client Funds£142 billion
📅 Founded1981
Account Costs
👉 Investment Account
0%
👉 SIPP
0.45%
👉 Stocks & Shares ISA
0.45%
👉 Junior ISA
0%
👉 Lifetime ISA
0%
Dealing Costs
👉 UK Shares
£11.95
👉 US Stocks
£11.95
👉 ETFs
£11.95
👉 Bonds
£11.95
👉 Funds£0

Capital at risk

Hargreaves Lansdown Review

Hargreaves Lansdown Global Income fund targets DIY investors

The launch of the Hargreaves Lansdown Global Income fund brings another easy-to-use portfolio building tool to do-it-yourself investors on the platform. The new Global Equity Income fund invests in a portfolio of dividend-paying companies around the world favoured by selected expert managers. The strategy seeks to strike a balance between risk and … To read

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Hargreaves Lansdown clients swap investments for cash

Hargreaves Lansdown clients have been switching their investments to cash, the broker stated in its most recent quarterly trading update. Client cash balances at the firm rose to £12.7 billion during the three months to the end of September, up from £12.4 billion at the end of the first quarter of the financial year. Hargreaves

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currency hedging for business

Does Hargreaves Lansdown offer currency transfer services?

Yes, you can transfer currency abroad with Hargreaves Lansdown, but not directly, HL uses a specialist third-party currency specialist to facilitate international payments. Here’s a look at its currency transfer services in more detail. Currency transfers with Hargreaves Lansdown If you want to use Hargreaves Lansdown’s currency transfer services, you need to open a currency

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Hargreaves Lansdown Index Funds

Is Hargreaves Lansdown good for funds?

Fund investing is where Hargreaves Lansdown gets very expensive. unlike share dealing there is no cap on the fees charged for holding funds with HL. You can invest in over 3,000 funds or choose from Hargreaves Lansdown funds picked by a team of in-house investment experts that manage a range of Multi-Manager funds (fund-of-funds) and

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OEICs Open-Ended Investment Company

How much does OEIC investing cost on Hargreaves Lansdown?

It’s free to buy and sell OEIC (open-ended investment companies) on Hargreaves Lansdown, but there is an ongoing charge. In our HL OEIC review below we go through the charges and specifics about investing in open-ended investment companies with Hargreaves Lansdown. There is no charge for buying and selling open-ended investment companies. Accounts … To

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Hargreaves Lansdown Lifetime ISA

Is Hargreaves Lansdown A Good LISA (Lifetime ISA)?

Yes, Hargreaves Lansdown’s Lifetime ISA is a great way to take advantage of the 25% government bonus with you £4,000 Lifetime ISA allowance as fees are low and there are a huge amount of markets to invest in. When you deposit money into a Hargreaves Lansdown lifetime ISA, the government will top that amount up by

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Hargreaves Lansdown Junior ISA

Junior ISAs are now free on Hargreaves Lansdown

Since Hargreaves Lansdown removed the fees from of its JISA (Junior ISA) account it is now one of the cheapest ways to invest for your children.. This is good news as Hargreaves Lansdown is generally acknowledged to be not only the largest provider of direct-to-consumer investment services but also the most expensive. An HL JISA

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ETF Investing Platforms

Is Hargreaves Lansdown good for ETF Investing?

We rate Hargreaves Lansdown as one of the best ETF investment accounts as HL has access to a huge range of UK and international Exchange Traded Funds. Plus the costs of holding ETFs are capped as they fall into their stocks and shares category. Hargreaves Lansdown’s ETF platform offers a huge range of exchange-traded funds tailored

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Hargreaves Lansdown Versus Interactive Investor

Is it time to move your money away from Hargreaves Lansdown? Hargreaves Lansdown has been making headlines recently. This is due to the fact that the firm – which operates the largest investment platform in the UK with nearly two million customers – has received multiple bids from a private equity consortium (good news for long-term

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Are Hargreaves Lansdown in trouble because of short sellers?

Hargreaves Lansdown is one of Britain’s largest stockbrokers and retail investment platforms helping millions of retail investors manage their savings investments and stock trading. So there is a certain amount of irony that the stock should be in the sights of that most speculative group of market participants, the short sellers. Why would you sho…

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Hargreaves Lansdown announces a new ready made pension plan for SIPP holders

The UK’s largest direct-to-consumer investing platform and stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown has announced that it plans to introduce a new all-in-one investment plan for the firm’s Self-Invested Personal Pension or SIPP. Hargreaves Lansdown Ready Made Pension Hargreaves Lansdown hopes will remove “ a lot of the difficult decision-making” that clients face, when they try to pick

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Hargreaves Lansdown now offers ready-made and managed investments

Ready-Made Index Funds and Managed Hargreaves Lansdown Investments are now available on HL for those who want a bit of help with their investments. A new range of index funds were made available from June 6th and complement the firm’s existing HL-managed ready-made fund range that was launched in 2023. The four new Hargreaves Lansdown

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Hargreaves Lansdown cut direct debit & dividend reinvestment fees

Hargreaves Lansdown, one of the UK’s largest brokers and direct-to-consumer investing platforms,  has removed fees for investors who invest regularly via direct debit and reinvest their dividend payments. Reducing direct debit and dividend reinvestment fees As of Tuesday, April 11th customers who invest regularly via direct debit payments to Hargreaves Lansdown, will no longer be

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Hargreaves Lansdown Financially Fearless

Hargreaves Lansdown launches Financially Fearless

Hargreaves Lansdown has launched “Financially Fearless” a new initiative to coincide with International Women’s Day,  that aims to help close the gender investment gap between men and women. What is the gender investment gap? Men and women invest differently, men have historically been more inclined to invest, and have had more money to invest when

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Why is the Hargreaves Lansdown falling? (LON: HL)

Hargreaves Lansdown is a leading investment platform in the UK Stock is stuck in a bear trend due to macro uncertainty LON:HL remains profitable; watch to buy on a further setback When Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown started their financial venture back in 1981 in Bristol (reputedly in Peter’s bedroom!), few would have anticipated the financial colossus

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Hargreaves Lansdown’s trading update disappoints the market

The Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HL) trading update showed net new business in Q1, worth £0.70 billion, though that figure was below analysts’ forecast of £0.85 billion. AUA or assets under administration rose to £122.70 billion as a result The D2C investing giant attracted 17,000 new customers in the first quarter and now has 1.754 million clients

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Hargreaves Lansdown adds Santander to its Active Savings service

Hargreaves Lansdown, the UK’s largest investment and savings platform, has added Santander International to its Active Savings lineup. Santander International is the trading name for the Jersey and Isle of Man branches of Santander Financial Services plc, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Santander UK Group Holdings plc, which itself is part of

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Jefferies highlights the challenges of old age at Hargreaves Lansdown

US investment bank Jefferies has published a research note on the UK’s largest and some argue best investment platform, Hargreaves Lansdown. Jefferies has updated their coverage of Hargreaves Lansdown in an 11-page note the upshot of which is that the broker has downgraded the investment platform to underperform from its prior rating of hold, and

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Hargreaves Lansdown boosts its Cash ISA interest rates

Hargreaves Lansdown the UK’s largest D2C savings and investment platform has raised the interest rate available to new Cash ISA customers. Hargreaves Lansdown cash ISA interest rates Hargreaves Lansdown has raised the interest rates that new customers can expect to receive on cash ISAs at the firm. The rate has been hiked by 20 basis

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Hargreaves Lansdown bets on data and ESG, with a human touch

Hargreaves Lansdown the UK’s largest D2C investment and share trading platform, published interim results for the 6 months until the end of Dec 2021, this morning. Client funds up 17% The earnings release showed net new business of £2.30 billion taking assets under administration to £141.20 billion, a gain of +17.0% over the same period

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Is Hargreaves Lansdown’s keeping up with the cool kids?

The last 18 months have been a period of strong growth for investment platforms and businesses within financial services particularly those that meet the needs of retail clients. Or so we thought because, despite headlines about sharply increased online trading activity and thousands of new accounts being opened, that hasn’t translated into increased profitability at

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Hargreaves Lansdown between the rock and the hard place

The UK’s leading retail investment platform, Hargreaves Lansdown reported figures for the full year ending 30th of June 2021 this week, and though the headline numbers looked impressive, as is so often the case the devil was in the detail. HL net new business grew by £8.70 billion and assets under administration, or AUA rose

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Hargreaves Lansdown Cash ISA: What to Expect

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Peter Hargreaves, Chairman of Blue Whale Capital on investment strategies and the importance of investing in the next generation of fund managers

What do you do when you’ve stepped away from a FTSE 100 listed investment firm valued at around £9 billion you set up and have run for nearly four decades? Evidently, you set up another one. That’s what Peter Hargreaves the co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown has done with Blue Whale Capital. Sometimes doing these interviews

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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
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