Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA Review: Hands-On Test

The Test: Is Wealthify's Investment ISA Good?

Yes, I’ve tried it out and I think Wealthify has a good stocks and shares ISA, which is why I opened one when my wife and I decided not to replace our cleaner when she left to return to Brazil.

This departure meant we had an extra £65 a month in the Berry coffers. But what to do with the money? Mrs Berry said she would put it in her Lloyds account. I said this was a terrible idea as Lloyds was paying her a pitiful 1.1% interest – less than inflation and far less than the Bank of England interest rate of 4.5%. In real terms, we’d be losing about £13 a year.

There’s a Wealthify Cash ISA that was offering 4.33% AER / 4.25% tax-free per year (variable on a monthly basis), but as we were happy to put the money away for the long term, we plumped for an investing ISA.

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 when setting up your ISA is to let you play with a slider that gives you a projected future value of your portfolio based on how much you regularly invest and how much risk you’re willing to take.

Here’s What I Saw in the Wealthify App

The Portfolio I Picked

As I considered the £65 per month to be 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 (a questionnaire that’s pointless for experienced investors, but has its uses if you’re a beginner) as it told me that I didn’t understand the risks I wanted to take and should go for a lower risk portfolio.

But if I’d taken less risk, my projected returns over 10 years on a £65 initial investment, with  contributions of £65 a month, would have been £9,761.39 instead of £10,526.43, which is a difference in potential profit of over 40%.

So I took the test again, changed a few bits, passed and opted for the higher risk portfolios, which contain 77.74% shares. If I’d opted for the lowest risk portfolio, I would have been buying 76.92% bonds. These are income-generating investments that generally rise in value less than shares do, but are considered safer.

I wanted to see exactly what I was investing in, so I viewed the Wealthify Adventurous Plan Factsheet which gives the full portfolio breakdown; 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 up international markets 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. 👀

Having said that, crashes are, in my opinion, usually a good time to invest because the market generally rises again, and the major indices contain the biggest and most profitable public companies. If those companies start to lose money, they are replaced by others that are are doing better, and so on.

Overall, my Wealthify investment ISA was up and running in about 4 minutes, which was less than the time it took to drink my morning cup of coffee whilst my wife explained that it would now be my responsibility to do the vacuuming on Saturdays.

Market Access

Wealthify’s Stocks & Shares ISA offers 5 investment options: Cautious, Tentative, Confident, Ambitious, and Adventurous. All of these strategies have 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 and not much flexibility – you can’t invest in individual shares and funds.

Fees

Wealthify charges an annual fee of 0.60% for managing your investments. This means it’s not quite as cheap as InvestEngine (0.25%) which has some ETF portfolios, but it’s cheaper than Moneyfarm (0.75%) where you can invest in individual shares and bonds.

The other costs of the Wealthify ISA to consider are the Wealthify Investment Plans’ fund and trading fees, which are charged at 0.16% by the fund managers to 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 0.2% and Nutmeg’s vary from 0.19% to 0.32% depending on what type of account you have.

Wealthify’s Ethical Portfolio

There is an ethical investment portfolio available on Wealthify, where fund costs are 0.7%, but performance has typically been worse, and I personally think the ESG investing thing is a load of greenwashing. For instance, the 2 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 3 holdings… Microsoft, Amazon and NVIDIA.

But to be fair, its third largest fund is the Liontrust Sustainable Future UK Growth Fund. In this fund, the biggest holding is 3i, whose biggest portfolio investment is Action, a Dutch non-food retailer with double decker trucks that are said to carry 60% more than a regular truck, which is apparently “better for the environment and better for your wallet”.

Wealthify’s Stocks and Shares ISA vs Cash ISA

With a Wealthify investment ISA, your money is in a mix of funds and that mix depends on your attitude to risk. A Wealthify investment ISA is a good choice if you’re investing for more than 5 years.

But if you want no risk, and you’re putting money into an ISA for the short term, a Wealthify Cash ISA may be more appropriate.

Both these ISAs are flexible, meaning you can withdraw and replace funds during the same tax year without impacting your annual ISA allowance. You have to replace funds into the same ISA you withdrew them from.

Cashback Offer

The Wealthify investment  ISA currently has a cashback transfer and deposit offer.

Deposit or transfer to a Wealthify Stocks & Shares ISA, and you could earn £50–£500 cashback, with a minimum investment of £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’ll need to remain invested for 18 months following the date you register.

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.