AJ Bell: Best investment platform all-rounder

AJ Bell is a great option for both experienced and inexperienced investors alike.

Although AJ Bell is pushing those who are new to investing towards their streamlined, ultra-low-cost investment service, Dodl, the main AJ Bell platform is still a solid option for beginners. The platform design is smart, making it simple to use, and oodles of FAQs, explainers, articles and guides mean it’s easy to get to grips with the hows, whys and whats of investing.

AJ Bell’s low-cost fees, charged on a percentage basis, means it’s a viable option for those with smaller portfolios, who won’t be disproportionately impacted by the flat fees charged by some competitors. A note of caution on fees, though: while custody fees are capped for those holding shares in their account, if you add funds, the custody fees on that proportion of your account value will not be capped until you reach the £500k threshold, beyond which, custody fees are no longer applied: that can work out pricey! (See my ‘Fees’ section for just how pricey.)

Even though AJ Bell provides some suggestions in the form of ‘Starter portfolios’ and ‘Favourite funds’, this is still very much a platform for those who have the time and confidence to manage their own investments. If you are looking for tailored advice on an investment strategy, this kind of DIY platform isn’t right for you. You could try a robo-advisor instead, such as Moneyfarm which offers human advice alongside its robo-advice.

At AJ Bell, you can invest in any of the following products:

• Dealing account
• Stocks and Shares ISA
• Junior ISA (JISA)
• Lifetime ISA (LISA)
• Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP)
• Junior SIPP

It’s one of the widest selections in the UK (as the chart below shows):

All AJ Bell investment accounts are free to open and there’s no account minimum unless you choose an AJ Bell fund. You can pay into your account whenever you want by setting up a direct debit, or by using your debit card. If you want to save smaller amounts regularly, the regular investment service lets you put in as little as £25 every month.

Note, AJ Bell’s LISA is a stocks and shares LISA, and not a cash LISA. That means you’ll need to feel confident choosing stocks or funds to invest your savings into. Visit our Best LISAs page for our views on the top-ranked LISA products.

Few providers offer a Junior SIPP: it's a great way to give your child's pension a head start with every contribution you make being topped up with 20% extra from government tax relief. And with decades to grow (it can't be accessed for anything other than retirement), there's plenty of time for compound interest to do its thing.

Assets

You’ll find an impressive choice of investment options at AJ Bell, including the majority of UK shares, 24 international share markets, over 2,000 funds as well as investment trusts, bonds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

You can also invest in:

• Warrants and covered warrants (you'll need to complete an online test to demonstrate your ability to trade in these)
• Exchange-traded commodities (which are similar to ETFs, but track a commodity instead of an index).

One real disappointment with AJ Bell’s asset offering, however, is that it does not offer fractional shares. So, if you want to invest in big-ticket stocks, you’ll need to be willing to spend enough to buy at least one full share, which can be hundreds of pounds in some cases. You may not want to commit that much to just one stock if you’re building a diversified portfolio on a small budget.

I’ve also discovered that some shares are only compatible with certain types of accounts at AJ Bell, which is a shame as it adds a level of uncertainty to what you can hold, and means extra checks to begin with. You can see which kinds of products are compatible with different stocks by looking at the bar underneath the stock fundamentals. In the case below, TSM can only be held in a dealing account or a SIPP.

Contrast that with the EasyJet share below, which AJ Bell allows you to hold in a Dealing account, SIPP, ISA or JISA. I have spoken to AJ Bell about this issue and they have explained that this is down to some shares not being compatible with ISAs as they are not in fact shares, as recognised by the UK government. AJ Bell uses something called an American Depository Receipt (ADR) which takes the place of an actual share when that share cannot be purchased from the exchange itself. It was explained to me that, in the case of TSM’s shares, they are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, an exchange that isn’t recognised by HMRC. Therefore, it can’t be held in your ISA. For a general dealing account or SIPP, AJ Bell will use ADRs to get hold of the stock instead, but they cannot be included in an ISA.

If you’re in any doubt, check the stock on the website if it’s a strong buy for you. However, the issue will only apply to a very small number of stock exchanges and therefore depends solely on where the underlying stock is listed. If you’re in any doubt, I’ve found AJ Bell’s customer service team excellent. They directed me to the Dealing Desk who answered my call immediately and had all the answers to my questions.

I should also make clear, this isn’t an AJ Bell-issue; this is a UK government stipulation that will affect any UK platform that offers ISAs and assets from exchanges that aren’t recognised by the UK government, so it’s not a reason to avoid AJ Bell.

Important: Your capital is at risk. Investments can go down in value as well as up, so you could get back less than you invest.

Ready-made portfolios

While AJ Bell doesn’t offer any personal financial advice service, if you’re looking for guidance selecting investments, there is some help in the form of AJ Bell funds. You pick your fund and then let AJ Bell do the management legwork.

Funds can make investing easier as they avoid the need to pick individual stocks and shares. However, with thousands of funds to choose from, this can turn into an arduous task. To help with selection if you’re feeling in the dark, AJ Bell has a ‘Favourite funds’ list. The list, compiled by AJ Bell analysts, highlights the funds from across their whole selection that they believe are most likely to provide you with an income, or with medium- to long-term growth.

Alternatively, you can reduce the number of decisions you need to take by choosing an AJ Bell Starter portfolio. These are ready-made portfolios which are built by AJ Bell’s in-house investment research team. This option might be suitable if you're finding it difficult to choose investments for your ISA or SIPP, but remember, once you’ve invested in a Starter portfolio, the responsibility for managing it rests with you. In that sense, this is still only an option for those who have the time, knowledge and confidence to keep on top of their investments.

These portfolios aren’t completely rigid – you can still top up with other funds from the ‘favourite funds’ list, making them a good middle ground for those who wouldn’t know where to start with a list of thousands of available funds, but would still like the option to tailor their portfolio in some way.

You’ll need to make a minimum investment of £1,000 with these funds though, and each portfolio is designed to be held for the long term – five years or more – so they’re not suited for those pursuing short-term income growth goals.

We conducted in-depth fund research into AJ Bell’s ready-made portfolio performance, to analyse the performance of AJ Bell’s funds over the past five years against the industry average. To find out whether AJ Bell performs well or not, skip to the ‘portfolio performance’ section, below.

Savings account

AJ Bell also offers a ‘Cash savings hub’ where you can browse competitive interest rates for your cash savings. This is a really nicely designed feature – ideal for those who have money left over after reaching the limit on their tax wrappers, and want the best possible fixed interest on savings. (Remember that even at interest rates of 5%, it’s very unusual for cash to outperform the stock market.)

It’s free to use as AJ Bell is paid by their partner banks, not customers, although you’ll need a minimum of £1,000 to get started. There’s zero paperwork so it’s very simple to set up, but you’ll need to be an existing AJ Bell customer – you can’t open a savings account in isolation.

Once you’ve just selected the rates you want to access, then just pay the cash you'd like to deposit – it will transfer automatically into the savings account you’ve applied for, and transfer back again when your term is up. Simple!

Current best rates offered by AJ Bell:

• <1 Year: 5.06% AER
• 1-2 Years: 4.90% AER
• 2-3 Years: 4.17% AER
• > 3 Years: 3.80% AER

Joint account

AJ Bell allows for Dealing accounts to be opened in joint names. ISAs and SIPPs cannot be opened in joint names (as is standard).

Corporate account

Directors of limited companies can apply for a corporate AJ Bell Dealing account. That’s helpful for those wishing to use their limited company status to take advantage of more favourable capital gains tax rates or offset losses against personal income.

We conducted in-depth fund performance research, gathering data from 160 different funds across 24 different providers. Here’s how AJ Bell’s ready-made portfolios performed – and how they compare to the industry average:

Voting rights

If a corporate action applies to any shares in your account (such as a vote on takeover), AJ Bell will send you a secure message and tell you how to go about casting your vote.

If you want to attend or vote in an AGM, you won't be told in advance when they're going to be so you need to contact AJ Bell via secure message to let them know your intentions at least five days before the meeting is due to happen.

Dividends

If dividends are paid out on any shares you own, AJ Bell will ensure you are allocated an exact number of shares – the precise amount is potentially rounded down so it’s a whole number as AJ Bell doesn’t support fractional shares.

AJ Bell states that any dividends due to you will be paid in sterling, “as soon as possible” after AJ Bell receives them. In my case, I received my dividends two working days after they were issued. I was sent a secure message and email to let me know so it was hassle-free and the cash was paid into my account automatically, although it’s also possible to have them reinvested automatically using AJ Bell’s dividend reinvestment service; it was my choice.

Mobile platform

The AJ Bell mobile app is great. You can manage and monitor your portfolio, apply for new accounts and fund your account. You can deal on the go with ‘at best’, ‘stop-loss’ or ‘limit’ orders, create watchlists and view the live prices of shares.

It’s available on both iOS and Android and is well-designed with a clean and tidy user interface, making it worthwhile downloading for use on the go. It doesn’t have exactly the same functionality as the website, however, so if you want to research a trade, or dig deep into your assets, then you’re better off using the website.

Biometric authentication can be enabled to protect you in the event someone tries to hack into your account.

On the Google Play Store, the AJ Bell app scores an impressive 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Web platform

I find the web platform very intuitive and easy to navigate with a bit of practice. The same amount of information is accessible on the mobile platform, but there’s more space for more data to be displayed on one screen on the web platform, making it my preference.

Demo account

There is no AJ Bell demo account.

On the whole, AJ Bell’s fees are very low. Charges primarily consist of a custody charge, paid monthly, with an additional ‘dealing charge’ which you pay each time you buy or sell shares or funds.

I’ve discovered a couple of areas you don’t want to get caught out on, however. I’ll explain more in my verdict on fees, below.

SIPPs / Junior SIPP / Stocks and shares ISA

For SIPPs, Junior SIPPs and stocks and shares ISAs, the same fees apply, and they consist of:

Custody fees

• For shares / ETFs / investment trusts / gilts / bonds: 0.25% (max £10 per month)
• For funds: 0.25% on value up to £250k
• 0.10% on value £250k – £500k
• 0% for value over £500k

Share dealing fees:

• Standard share dealing charge: £5.00
• Frequent shares dealing charge (10 or more trades in the previous month): £3.50
• Funds dealing charge: £1.50
• AJ Bell fund: no dealing charge

Lifetime ISA

If you open a Lifetime ISA, you’ll need to pay:

Custody charge:

• For shares / ETFs / investment trusts / gilts / bonds: 0.25% (max £3.50 per month)
• For funds: 0.25% (no cap)

If you want to trade, you’ll need to pay dealing charges:

• Shares dealing charge: £5.00
• Frequent shares dealing charge (10 or more trades in the previous month): £3.50
• Funds dealing charge: £1.50
• AJ Bell fund: no dealing charge

Junior ISA

Unlike Hargreaves Lansdown, which offers a fee-free Junior ISA, AJ Bell charges fees of:

Custody charge:

• shares / ETFs / investment trusts / gilts / bonds: 0.25% (max £2.50 per month)
• Funds: 0.25% (no cap)

Shares dealing charge:

• Regular shares dealing charge: £5.00
• Frequent shares dealing charge (10 or more trades in the previous month): £3.50
• Funds dealing charge: £1.50

The verdict?

AJ Bell’s custody fees come with one of the lowest headline rates in the UK market – 0.25% – and thanks to a recent reduction in dealing fee rates, it’s possible to keep overall fees lower than those of most other investment providers.

However, there are a couple of things it’s worth noting:

• Funds!

You may have noticed from the fee listings above, that there is a cap on how much you can be charged when your account consists of shares / ETFs / investment trusts / gilts / bonds. This is not the case where you hold funds. Therefore, if you intend to solely invest in funds, beware: your custody charge could work out far more expensive with AJ Bell, than with their competitors. Just take a look at these examples to see the differences I’m talking about:

£625 to hold funds vs £42 to hold shares is crazy! Of course, this is assuming you only hold shares / ETFs / investment trusts / gilts / bonds, or funds. Many people will hold a mixture of assets so your fees will be somewhere between the two extremes listed in the table above.

I should also point out that once you own over £500k of assets in funds, AJ Bell scraps the custody charge on anything above that amount, so you won’t find yourself paying ever increasing amounts if you hold £millions. For those somewhere in the middle, however, it’s a pricey way to hold funds.

• Dealing fees

Dealing fees of £5 / £3.50 per trade soon add up. If you want to trade shares regularly, it might make more financial sense to look at one of the newer trading platforms offering zero commission. Trading 212, Freetrade, and AJ Bell's pared-back, no-frills investment app Dodl, offer zero dealing fees on shares. More on Dodl, below.

• There is a cheaper way to trade with AJ Bell

If you’re happy having a slimmed down selection of assets to trade, you could check out AJ Bell’s ultra-low-fee brand, Dodl. It’s well-suited to those wanting to start small and keep costs to the bare minimum (custody fees are 0.15% vs 0.25% with the mainstream AJ Bell accounts). And, as I pointed out above, there are no dealing fees on shares and funds either.

Interest paid on cash

AJ Bell pays interest on uninvested cash in SIPPs and ISAs, and additionally, doesn’t apply its annual platform custody charge to cash balances.

Current rates are:

Although not bad at the top end, these are far from the highest rates available, especially for those with smaller balances. For comparison:

All figures were correct at the time of publishing. While we attempt to update figures as soon as we become aware of changes, the most accurate way to obtain the latest data is to check with the provider directly.

Transfer fees

There are no fees for transferring in or out of your AJ Bell account.

Deposit fees

There are no charges for depositing money into your AJ Bell account.

Minimum deposit

The minimum amount you can deposit into a cash savings account is £1,000. For all other accounts, there is no minimum; you can pay in what you want, when you want. If you want to save smaller amounts regularly, you’ll need to commit to a minimum of £25 per month.

FX fee

A foreign exchange charge is levied when trading in an international currency. At AJ Bell, the rates charged are:

• 0.75% for the first £10k
• 0.50% for the next £10k
• 0.25% on values over £20k

Those rates, especially on the higher amounts, compare very well to other providers:

AJ Bell provides excellent research tools that will more than meet the needs of the average investor.

With the help of a stock screener, you can select the stock you want to research and view insights such as:

• Price data including P/E, P/S, P/B, P/C ratios
• Recent news about the company
• Interactive and customisable charts

Events and indicators including:

• Simple Moving Average (SMA)
• MA Envelope
• Exponential Moving Average (EMA)
• Momentum
• Bollinger Bands
• ULT Oscillator
• Parabolic SAR
• Directional Moving Index
• MACD
• Money Flow Index
• Relative Strength Index
• On Balance Volume
• Rate of Change
• Volume Accumulation
• Commodity Channel Index
• UP/Down Ratio
• Williams %R
• Volume by Price
• Slow & Fast Stochastic
• Fast Volatility
• Price Channel
• Weighted Moving Average
• Accumulation/Distribution
• Volatility
• Mass Index
• Force Index
• Average True Range
• Keltner Index

There are also customisable and interactive charts which give you the ability to draw trend lines, Fibonacci Arcs, and Fibonacci Fans, among others.

You won’t find any analysts ‘Buy’/’Sell’/’Hold’ ratings or forecasts for stocks, however. But those can be accessed externally without cost quite easily.

You won’t have access to some of the bells and whistles of an advanced trading platform like Interactive Brokers. But that isn’t what AJ Bell is set up to do. AJ Bell products are designed primarily for people looking for medium- and long-term investments and not day-traders.

All round, an excellent research offering that is designed to be clear enough on first view to be helpful to new investors, with a toolset which allows that first view to become so much more detailed for those seeking in-depth data.

Executing a trade is clear and simple with AJ Bell.
You can set up a limit order which automates trades to happen at specific buy or sell prices. I couldn’t, however, find any way of setting price alerts which is a real shame as they’re useful for keeping an eye on prices without committing to a limit order.

For shares, investment trusts and exchange traded funds (ETFs), your deal will be processed immediately, but it could take 1-2 working days for the deal to settle after a trade.

Trades on funds are processed each business day at a time that is dictated by the fund in question (check the research page for that particular fund for more details). Trades placed after the dealing cut off time, will be executed the next working day.

Order types

You can execute trades using the following order types at AJ Bell:

• At-best order
• Limit order
• Stop Loss order

When selecting a provider for your investments, it is very important to first ensure they meet certain minimum safety standards. We judge AJ Bell to meet the threshold for a ‘safe’ provider because:

• AJ Bell is authorised and regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
• It is part of the AJ Bell Group, which is a financially secure and regulated company. AJ Bell has 499,000 customers who trust the company with £81.6 billion in assets under administration. This makes it one of the biggest low-cost online investment platforms and stockbroker services in the UK.
• AJ Bell is part of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That means, in the unlikely event that something were to happen to AJ Bell, your money would be protected up to a maximum of £85,000 per eligible person and claim.
• Cash is held in FCA-approved banks.

Account safety

AJ Bell uses biometric authentication to secure mobile app login, and two-factor authentication whenever you login using a new device or browser.

Remember that investing involves risk. The value of your investment can go up as well as down, and you could get back less than you put in.

AJ Bell’s new ‘Learn to Invest’ hub contains a mountain of helpful information and insights on useful topics. There are detailed investment guides, a ‘jargon buster’ feature, and two podcasts: the Money and Markets podcast; and the Money Matters podcast aimed at closing the gender investment gap with advice tailored to women.

It’s all delivered in a welcoming and easy-to-digest format. As AJ Bell describes it: it’s the “hows, whys, and whats of investing, from the basics to the nitty gritty.” Perfect for beginners.

You'll also have the chance to join regular webinars on a variety of useful topics, which are recorded so you have the opportunity to watch back at your convenience if you miss the live event. Again, these are pitched just right considering their audience includes investors at all different experience levels.

AJ Bell does really well on customer service with a very quick response time when I called their UK-based customer service phone line, and a similarly quick response when I used their web chat service.

AJ Bell has an exceptional score of 4.8 stars on Trustpilot (at the time of writing) from over 5,000 reviews.

The three options for contacting AJ Bell are:

• Webchat in the app
• Email
• Telephone: 0345 54 32 600
• Monday to Friday: 8am to 7pm
• Saturday: 10am to 2pm

Phone lines are open 6 days per week and there’s a choice of email addresses to help you get straight to the department you need:

• General enquiries: help@ajbell.co.uk
• Account application updates and questions: newaccounts@ajbell.co.uk
• New customer enquiries: customeraccounts@ajbell.co.uk
• Dealing services: dealingservices@ajbell.co.uk
• General transfer queries, including transfers from another provider: transfersin@ajbell.co.uk
• To check the status of a transfer to another provider, email: Customertransfersout@ajbell.co.uk
• Cheques and direct debits: customercontributions@ajbell.co.uk
• Electronic payments: cashapplications@ajbell.co.uk
• Product switches: cash.movements@ajbell.co.uk
• Withdrawals: withdrawal@ajbell.co.uk

A solid 5 out of 5 for AJ Bell’s customer service.

Account opening

Opening an account with AJ Bell is straightforward and fully digital. You’ll just need your personal details, National Insurance number and details of any account you want to transfer.

Watch this video to view the AJ Bell account opening journey:

*Video is in Loom*

Closing your account

It’s not possible to close an account without getting the help of AJ Bell customer services. You can either log in and contact them via a secure message in your account, or via the customer services team at help@ajbell.co.uk.

You can only cancel a SIPP within the first 30 days if you haven't made any investments in it. Unfortunately, for an account you close within the first month, you’ll still need to pay AJ Bell’s custody charges on a pro rata basis from the beginning of the month.

Transferring accounts

Transferring into AJ Bell is easy. First you’ll need to open the account you want to transfer to, if you haven’t opened it already. It takes less than ten minutes to open an account, and you can do it online. During the application, you'll be asked to enter the details of the account(s) you want to transfer.

If you already have an account you want to transfer into, you can start the transfer process by logging in and from the ‘My account’ menu, choosing ‘Transfers’ and entering the details of the account(s) you want to transfer.

Have a question about AJ Bell that I haven't covered? Ask it here and we’ll come back to you with an answer.

This review is the result of my first-hand experience as an account holder at AJ Bell and in no way represents financial advice.