InvestEngine Review 2026: £0 DIY Fee, 0.25% If Managed
InvestEngine charges nothing on DIY ETF portfolios and 0.25% managed. What that costs on £20,000, the once-a-day trading catch, and the accounts it lacks.
This InvestEngine review comes down to one trade-off. InvestEngine charges no account fee and no dealing commission on a DIY portfolio, in its ISA, its SIPP, its general account and its business account, so the only cost you pay is the ETFs themselves. In return you get ETFs and nothing else, trades that go through once a day rather than when you tap the button, and no interest on cash you leave sitting uninvested.
For a long-term investor who wants a few global index ETFs in an ISA or pension, that is about as cheap as investing gets in the UK. For anyone who wants individual shares, a Lifetime ISA, a Junior ISA or to time a trade, it is the wrong app.
Every fee and feature below was checked on InvestEngine’s own pages on 1 November 2026. Confirm them in the app before you open or transfer an account.
InvestEngine at a glance
| DIY portfolio | Managed portfolio | |
|---|---|---|
| InvestEngine fee | £0 | 0.25% a year |
| Dealing commission | £0 | £0 |
| Currency conversion | £0 | £0 |
| Minimum to open | £100 | £100 |
| Regular top-ups | from £10 | from £10 a week |
| What you can hold | 890+ ETFs | InvestEngine’s portfolios |
| ETF running costs | from 0.03% a year | averages 0.12% (Growth portfolios) |
InvestEngine (UK) Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, firm reference 801128. You can check that on the FCA register before you sign up.
Which accounts InvestEngine offers
- Stocks and shares ISA: the £20,000 yearly allowance, no account fee, and it is a flexible ISA, so money you take out can be put back in the same tax year without using fresh allowance. ISA transfers in are free.
- Personal pension (SIPP): no account fee and no dealing fee, with tax relief added at 20% and higher or additional-rate relief claimed through your tax return. Pension transfers in are accepted from most major providers. You can access the money from 55, rising to 57 from 2028.
- General investment account: no fee, for money above your ISA allowance.
- Business account: no fee, for limited companies investing surplus cash.
What is missing matters as much. InvestEngine does not offer a Cash ISA, a Lifetime ISA or a Junior ISA. Some comparison sites still list a Lifetime ISA or Junior ISA in their tables. If you want one, look at our best Lifetime ISA apps or best Junior ISA apps instead.
DIY or Managed: what each one costs
DIY: £0 to InvestEngine
You pick from a curated range of more than 890 ETFs covering shares, bonds and commodities, set a target weight for each, and InvestEngine buys in those proportions. Fractional investing means a single ETF order can be as small as £1, so a £100 portfolio can still be spread across five or six funds.
The tools are better than the price suggests. One-click rebalancing puts the portfolio back to your weights after markets move. Savings Plans invest a set amount weekly, fortnightly or monthly. AutoInvest sweeps any cash that lands in the account into your chosen ETFs. The look-through view shows the companies, sectors and regions your ETFs hold between them, which is useful for spotting that three “different” funds are mostly the same US tech stocks.
Managed and LifePlan: 0.25% a year
Answer a risk questionnaire and InvestEngine’s team runs an ETF portfolio for you for 0.25% a year, calculated daily and usually taken monthly. LifePlans are ready-made managed portfolios at the same 0.25%. InvestEngine says no management fee is charged on the cash part of a managed portfolio.
What it costs on £20,000
On a £20,000 ISA, the InvestEngine fee works out like this:
- DIY: £0. Your only cost is the ETF charge, for example £6 a year on an ETF charging 0.03%, or £24 on one charging 0.12%.
- Managed: £50 a year in management fee, plus ETF costs (InvestEngine’s Growth portfolios average 0.12%, about £24) and market spreads (it puts these at around 0.07% a year, about £14).
For comparison, InvestEngine’s own fee table, dated 7 July 2026, lists Hargreaves Lansdown’s ISA charge at 0.35% (£70 a year on £20,000) and Vanguard’s at £4 a month on balances up to £32,000 (£48 a year). Those platforms each have their own reasons to exist, but neither beats zero.
The catches
Trades go through once a day
InvestEngine pools everyone’s orders and trades them together, which is a large part of how it keeps dealing free. Its order execution policy says it typically trades once daily, and it can push an order to the next trading window if markets are disrupted. You see the price after the trade, not before. That makes no difference to a monthly investor; it rules InvestEngine out if you want to buy at a specific price on a specific afternoon.
No interest on uninvested cash
InvestEngine says plainly that it keeps the interest earned on uninvested cash in DIY and managed portfolios, and that this cash earns nothing for you. If you park £5,000 in the account while you decide what to buy, you lose whatever a savings account would have paid. Turn on AutoInvest, or keep cash somewhere else until you are ready. Our page on Trading 212 cash interest covers the main alternative that does pay.
ETFs only
There are no individual company shares, investment trusts or traditional unit trust funds. If you want to hold Tesco shares or a specific investment trust alongside your index funds, you need a second account elsewhere.
Support hours, not phone lines
Support runs Monday to Friday from 5.30am to 11pm and at weekends from 7am to 10pm, through the app and help centre. Trustpilot reviewers mostly rate it highly, but slow replies are the most common complaint.
Is InvestEngine safe?
Your cash sits in pooled client bank accounts and your ETFs in a client account at CREST, registered in the name of InvestEngine Nominees Limited and kept separate from the firm’s own money. If InvestEngine went bust, those assets are not available to its creditors.
If something went wrong and assets were missing, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme covers eligible investment claims up to £85,000 per person per firm. The £120,000 limit you may have seen applies to bank deposits, not investment firms. Neither protects you against the value of your ETFs falling.
Who InvestEngine suits
- Suits you if you want a cheap ISA or SIPP holding a handful of global index ETFs, you invest monthly, and you never plan to trade individual shares.
- Suits you if you want someone else to run an ETF portfolio for a flat 0.25% a year; Nutmeg, by InvestEngine’s own comparison, charges up to 0.75% on balances up to £100,000 before fund costs.
- Look elsewhere if you want individual shares (see our Trading 212 review or Freetrade review), a Lifetime or Junior ISA, interest on cash, or to trade at a price you can see.
For how InvestEngine stacks up against every other ISA app, see our best stocks and shares ISA apps and best SIPP apps.
Frequently asked questions
Is InvestEngine really free? On a DIY portfolio, InvestEngine charges no account fee, dealing commission, currency fee, withdrawal fee or transfer fee. You still pay the running costs of the ETFs you hold, from 0.03% a year, and a small market spread when you buy and sell. InvestEngine earns money from managed portfolio fees and from keeping the interest on uninvested cash.
What is the minimum investment at InvestEngine? You need £100 to open a portfolio in any account. After that, a single DIY ETF order can be as small as £1, and regular Savings Plan top-ups start at £10.
Does InvestEngine have a Lifetime ISA or Junior ISA? No. InvestEngine offers a stocks and shares ISA, a SIPP, a general investment account and a business account, but no Cash ISA, Lifetime ISA or Junior ISA.
Does InvestEngine pay interest on cash? No. InvestEngine keeps the interest earned on uninvested cash. Use AutoInvest so new money is invested straight away, or hold cash in a savings account until you need it.
Can I buy shares on InvestEngine? No, only ETFs. It lists more than 890 of them, covering shares, bonds and commodities, but no individual company shares or investment trusts.
When does InvestEngine buy my ETFs? InvestEngine pools orders and typically trades once a day, so your order fills at that day’s trading window rather than instantly. In volatile markets it can move an order to the next window.
