Lightyear Customer Reviews & Expert Rating

Is Lightyear Good for Investing?

Lightyear was voted best investing app in the 2026 Good Money Guide Awards and is a simple and approachable way to invest in stocks and ETFs without unnecessarily large fees. A very well-designed low-cost investing app with discounted FX charges, limit and recurring orders for investing in local and international markets.

Special Offer: Sign up with the code GOODMONEYGUIDE to get up to £100 in fractional share to your GIA. Capital at risk.

– – Terms apply: https://lightyear.com/en-gb/signup-promotion-terms. You must be a new user and deposit at least £100 within the first 15 days after signing up. The reward can be withdrawn 6 months after it’s credited.

Fees: Lightyear is cheap for investing. The GIA has no account fee and charges only £1 commission for UK trades and up to $1 for US stocks but free for trading ETFs. If you are investing in a stocks and shares ISA, there is no commission on buying and selling stocks and shares. Much like the founders’ alma mater, Lightyear makes its money from FX fees which it adds to the interbank rate, so conversion costs are transparent.

When I interviewed Martin Sokk, he told me Lightyear planned to expand internationally fast so that its users could invest in both their local and the US markets, since many people want to invest in US stocks.

And rightly so: US shares are all household names, and one of the key drivers for investing is to buy companies you love and use. Lightyear will make money charging 0.1% per trade  (or $1, whichever is bigger) and converting GBP, HUF & Euros, etc. into USD when people buy US stocks.

Lightyear charges 0.35% for converting money into USD and EUR, which is higher than Interactive Brokers’ 0.02% but much lower than the 0.5% charged by AJ Bell, Saxo Markets and IG, or the 1% from Hargreaves Lansdown and Interactive Investor.

FX must be a key part of Lightyear’s monetisation strategy: if you charge very low commission and account fees, you have to make money somehow. So Lightyear aims to make its money in the background, initially from foreign exchange fees. FX is a good way to make money because a) no-one really understands how the pricing works and b) you don’t see the charge, it’s built into the buy/sell spread.

You can see in the example below what the fees were when I bought some Tesla shares while testing the app for this Lightyear review.

Quite a nice touch is that you get the option of making purchases repeat orders, a great way to build good investing habits. Just by investing small amounts each month, the genius of compounding returns will help you build a larger portfolio over time. Check it out with our investing returns calculator.

Market Access: Lightyear constantly adds new instruments, bringing the total up to almost 6,500. These include well-known UK names such as Rolls-Royce, easyJet and IAG; to defence ETFs, US stocks. This is great because one of my concerns about new investing apps is that they normally just cater to the most heavily traded stocks, which means they are not great for more adventurous investors. It’s great to see Lightyear providing wider market access.

Plus, it’s proactive. Lightyear says it has put live 98% of non-complex US instruments asked for by customers in just 3 months.

One of the other really cool things about Lightyear is that you can listen to earnings calls directly on the app.

As well as being able to buy fractional US shares, ETFs though limit orders and regular investing, you can also quickly see which shares pay the highest dividends or make the most money relative to their share price to help you pick stocks.

Multicurrency account & order types

Another point to make here is that you also get a multi-currency account, where you can hold foreign currency. The advantage of this is that you don’t need to do as many FX conversions which can help keep costs down.

Related guide: Compare FX rates for buying US stocks from the UK.

Progression to servicing local customers and local markets

When Lightyear first started, you could only invest in a handful of UK stocks, and they were ADRs listed in the US denominated in USD, rather than the local listings on the LSE. So, you were paying an FX fee when you really shouldn’t have to. Admittedly, there is no stamp duty so technically paying 0.35% on FX rather than 0.5% to HMRC is cheaper.

Lightyear has a cash and investment ISA, but no SIPP account, but I suspect that is next on the “product roadmap”.

But anyway, if you want to invest in UK shares like Lloyds, you can actually buy them on the LSE, something that eToro is yet to do.  With eToro, you still have to buy USD-denominated shares.

I’ve mentioned how annoying that is many times and yet eToro continues to serve itself as a global broker instead of its customers as locals. It’s nice to see that Lightyear fixed that problem early on.

Are your investment safe with Lightyear?

Yes, it’s safe to invest with Lightyear. Lightyear U.K Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 987226). Lightyear is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). FSCS protection applies to client money only where held with banks, not where held in QMMFs.

In the unlikely event of anything happening to Lightyear, there’s no way for creditors to get hold of the investments or cash that customers hold with us.

Keep in mind, though, that your investments are not safe from losing money with Lightyear. Overall, the market generally goes up, but there are peaks and troughs along the way.

Like Transferwise, like Lightyear

To draw on one final Transferwise comparison, it is very easy to use app-as-a-tool to help you start investing as cheaply as possible. The thing is though is that, transferring money is like car insurance. No-one really has any loyalty to their insurer, they just do it and move on. Investing is different. Investing is not like insurance, when you open an investing account, you could be using it for the next 30 years.

I think there will always be a place for traditional investment platforms because they provide excellent customer service and brand loyalty, they are mature platforms for mature investors and fees will eventually come down, as they have done in the past. Same as with Simpsons Tavern, it may not be as good for you as veganism, but if it survives, people will continue to go because they like it.

But, if low-cost investing apps are a gateway to getting more people to invest for their future, then they are the future too and will hopefully mature along with their customers, and Lightyear, in particular, is a great place to get started.