Platform costs at a glance
Investment platforms allow you to hold several different investments in one place, including investment trusts. Our heatmaps make their costs easy to compare so you can see which platform might be cheaper for you.
There’s a wide choice of investment platforms that allow you to buy shares in investment trusts.
Most platforms charge you for buying and selling investment trust shares, while some will also charge you for holding them on the platform. It can be hard to compare platforms’ costs and charges because they depend on how much you hold on the platform, how much you trade, and what sort of account you have (for example, an ISA, a pension or a general investment account).
To help you compare platform costs, we’ve created the following heatmaps, which give you an idea of how much you might pay.
Please remember that cost isn’t everything. Service and ease of use are important too, as well as making sure the platform offers all the investments you want. But costs do eat into your investment returns over time, so it’s important to keep them under control.
How to use the heatmaps
The heatmaps below show you the cost of holding various combinations of investment trusts and ‘open-ended funds’. Open-ended funds are usually just called funds and are also called OEICs or unit trusts.
For example, one heatmap looks at the costs of holding a portfolio of investment trusts, while another looks at a portfolio that is split 50/50 between trusts and funds. Platforms often charge you differently for buying, selling and holding investment trusts compared to their charges for open-ended funds.
The different columns of each heatmap indicate different levels of assets (in pounds) you might hold on a platform. The values in the table show what you’d pay on each platform over one year if you held those assets. You can see these costs either in % terms (so, the % of your assets on the platform that you’d pay in platform charges per year) or as costs in pounds. Green indicates lower cost, red indicates higher cost.
Please note that the platform costs you pay, and which platforms are cheaper/more expensive, will depend on your individual circumstances. The heatmaps are only examples and you should not rely on them to make a decision.
About the heatmaps
The heatmaps are produced by the lang cat, a platform specialist, for the AIC. They show the cost of investing on each platform for one year, assumed to be the first year of investment on that platform. Investment is assumed to be within an ISA. Calculations include ongoing platform fees, any additional wrapper charges and trading where applicable. The data is based on publicly available information with some details verified via conversations with platforms. Please note that only platform charges are considered and there are other charges involved in investing in investment trusts; for example, management charges of the investment trusts themselves. The following is provided as general information and may not be appropriate or relevant for your individual circumstances. If in doubt, consult a financial adviser.
The heatmaps: platform costs at a glance
Please click on the images below to view the heatmaps. Each heatmap will open in a new window. Once you have opened a heatmap, you can choose to show the costs in pounds instead of percentages.
Source: AIC/the lang cat (last updated 30/01/26)
How to invest on a platform
Find out which platforms offer investment trusts, and which allow you to invest via an ISA or SIPP.
