Our Methodology & Ratings
FeesWizard exists to answer one question honestly: which broker costs you the least for how you actually invest. Here is exactly how we research, score, and stay independent.
How we make money
FeesWizard is free to use. When you open an account through a link on our site, the broker may pay us a commission. This is how we fund the research. It does not change our rankings, our fee data, or which broker the calculator names as cheapest — those are driven entirely by the numbers. We also list brokers we have no commercial relationship with when they are the right answer.
How we collect fee data
Every fee figure is taken from each broker's official published fee schedule and help centre, then cross-checked against independent industry sources. We record the figures in a structured dataset so the same numbers power our tables, comparisons, and calculator. Broker fees change often, so each figure carries a verification date.
Fees last verified: August 2026. Currently covering 23 platforms: eToro, Trading 212, Plus500, XTB, Robinhood, Webull, Revolut, AvaTrade, Capital.com, Fortrade, Pepperstone, Freetrade, InvestEngine, DEGIRO, Trade Republic, Scalable Capital, Lightyear, Hargreaves Lansdown, AJ Bell, interactive investor, Vanguard UK, Fidelity, Interactive Brokers.
How the fee calculator works
Our fee calculatorestimates what each broker would actually charge you over a year, given the portfolio you hold and the way you invest. Every charge in a broker's published schedule that we can model is included as its own line:
- Dealing commission — flat, percentage, or per-share, including minimums, caps, free-trade allowances and commission-free turnover limits.
- Platform and custody fees — the annual percentage of your portfolio, including tiered bands and annual caps. This is the largest cost for most buy-and-hold investors and the one the industry states least clearly.
- Subscriptions — monthly plan fees. Where a broker sells several plans we price all of them and report the cheapest one for you, naming it.
- FX conversion — charged on the money you actually convert in the year, not on your whole portfolio.
- Dividend, deposit and withdrawal fees — including free allowances.
- Inactivity fees — modelled against how often you actually trade and the dormancy period each broker applies, rather than as an all-or-nothing charge.
Fund ongoing charges are shown separately. The ongoing charge of an ETF or fund is paid to the fund manager, not the broker, and is the same wherever you hold it — so including it in the broker ranking would be misleading. We show it, and we exclude it from the comparison.
The assumptions we make, stated plainly. When you are adding new money, we assume you buy with it. When you are not, dealing and FX costs depend on how much you turn over, so we make that an input you can see and change rather than a constant hidden in our code — the default is 10% of the portfolio a year, which is normal rebalancing for a long-term investor. Fees quoted in another currency are converted at a fixed reference rate rather than a live feed, so that every figure we publish can be reproduced by a reader. Five-year figures compound the drag: money paid in fees in year one is money that earns nothing in years two to five, which is why a five-year gap is always wider than five times the annual gap.
What we cannot model.Stamp duty and other government levies are taxes rather than broker charges, so they are excluded. CFD platforms price through the spread; their cost is not comparable to share dealing and they are excluded from the calculator entirely. Promotional rates and introductory offers are ignored. Always confirm current fees on the broker's own site before opening an account.
How we calculate broker scores
Every broker on this site carries a score out of 5. It is computed, not assigned — generated at build time from the same fee data that drives the calculator, using the formula below. A score cannot be edited by hand, and nothing about our commercial relationships is an input to it.
- Cost — 45%.The broker's average annual charge as a percentage of the portfolio, measured across three benchmark investors: a £10,000 ETF investor, a £50,000 buy-and-hold investor and a £100,000 investor contributing £12,000 a year. Using three benchmarks stops a broker scoring well by being cheap at only one portfolio size. The scale decays exponentially rather than linearly, so it keeps discriminating between free and nearly-free: 0% a year scores 100, 0.25% scores 54, 0.5% scores 29 and 1% scores 8.
- Regulation and protection — 20%. Which regulators authorise the firm, weighted towards tier-one authorities (FCA, BaFin, SEC and equivalents) over second-tier ones.
- Market and account breadth — 15%. How many of the asset classes we price are offered, and how many account types are supported. A focused platform loses a few points here but is not treated as defective.
- Accessibility — 10%. Minimum deposit, fractional shares and whether there is a mobile app.
- Fee transparency — 10%. Whether the broker publishes a schedule complete enough for us to model every charge without guessing, whether we have verified it against source, and whether it charges an inactivity fee.
The weighted total is mapped onto a 1–5 scale. Each broker's review page shows its score for every dimension and the reason for it, so you can check our arithmetic rather than take our word for it. Where a broker is best for a specific need — lowest fees, beginners, advanced traders — we say so explicitly rather than crowning a single winner for everyone.
Deliberately not in the formula: the commission we earn, whether an affiliate program is live, and whether a broker has approved us. We do not accept payment for placement.
One dataset behind everything
Each figure lives in a structured, per-broker data file — the single source of truth. The same dataset drives every comparison table, every review, and the calculator, so there is never an "editorial" number that disagrees with the table. Change a fee once and it changes everywhere. It also means a correction flows automatically to every page that used the figure.
What we don't do
- No pay-to-rank. A broker cannot buy a place in a list.
- No reordering for commission. Rankings follow the data, not the payout.
- Brokers cannot buy a better score, edit their review, or approve it before it publishes.
Editorial independence & review
Our content is researched and maintained by Yaniv Barshaf. Comparisons are updated as fees and features change. If you spot a figure that looks out of date, tell us and we will recheck it against the source. Full details in our editorial policy, and the affiliate model is spelled out in how we make money.
Not financial advice
FeesWizard provides factual, decision-support information, not personal financial advice. Capital at risk. This is not financial advice. Investing involves risk of loss. Consider your own circumstances, and seek regulated advice where appropriate, before investing.
Last updated: 3 August 2026.