Investment firms often give incentives like free cash to get you to give them your money.
These offers are extra cash payments and freebies you can get via starting an investment. We’re only sharing these promotions as a way to get some free cash rather than a recommendation of individual investment platforms or funds.
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Welcome offers
These are offers to tempt you to sign up for an account. There may be a minimum amount you need to add in order to get the bonus. Remember, we’re just sharing offers here and not recommending any individual ISA investment platforms, so do your research before applying. Our S&S ISA best buy tables are a good place to start.
You can reduce the custody fee to £0 per month when you place more than 3 trades in the previous quarter. New customers can get up to £200 of free shares when they sign up and invest at least £50 by 30 September 2025.
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Additional Info
FSCS Protected: Yes
Transfer in existing ISA?: Yes
Interest on uninvested cash: 4.5% on up to £100,000
Flexible ISA: Yes
Foreign exchange fee: 0.70%
Fund fees: If you invest in funds, you'll have to pay fund fees depending on the funds you choose
Offer details: You can get up to £200 of free shares when you sign up for a General Investment Account, ISA or Self Invested Personal Pension and invest at least £50 between 1 September and 30 September 2025 .
*New customers get a free tractional share worth up to $115 when you sign up via our link and use the code BECLEVER25
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Additional Info
FSCS Protected: If Lightyear goes out of business and there is a shortfall in the funds they are holding for customers, they may be able to claim for losses up to the value of £85,000 through FSCS
Transfer in existing ISA?: Yes
ETF trading fee: £0
UK shares trading fee: £0
EU shares trading fee: £0
US shares trading fee: £0
Fractional shares: Yes
Interest on uninvested cash: 2%
Flexible ISA: Yes
Foreign exchange fee: 0.35%
Fund fees: If you invest in funds, you'll have to pay fund fees between 0.03% and 0.78% depending on the funds you choose
Offer details: You need to use the code BECLEVER25 to get the free fractional share worth up to $115. Terms apply: lightyear.com/en-gb/signup-promotion-terms.
Further details: Capital at risk. ISA rules apply. The value of investments can go down as well as up. Lightyear UK Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 987226)
New customers get a free fractional share worth up to £100 when you sign up via our link or use the code BCWYC
More details ▼
Additional Info
FSCS Protected: Yes
Transfer in existing ISA?: Yes
Fractional shares: Yes
Interest on uninvested cash: 4.90%
Trading fee: £0
Flexible ISA: Yes
Foreign exchange fee: 0.15%
Fund fees: If you invest in funds, you'll have to pay fund fees between 0.03% and 0.78% depending on the funds you choose
Offer details: Once the account is open, you then need to add at least £1 to your account within 10 calendar days. It will take about three days for the share to be added. This offer is only for Trading 212 Invest or the Trading 212 Stocks & Shares ISA.
Further details: Remember, the value of any money invested, which includes your free share, could go up or down.
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ISA vs GIA
When you open these accounts you can usually choose between an ISA and a general investing account. If you haven’t used your full £20,000 ISA allowance this financial year, and you don’t plan to do so before 5 April, then that’s the best account for you as any gains you make will be tax free.
If you can’t or don’t want to add any more to an ISA, you can opt instead for the general investing account, although some of these offers may not be available for this account. In this account, you’ll only pay tax on profits after selling your share if it brings you over the Capital Gains Allowance – which is £3,000 in 2024/25.
Bonus offers
These platforms offer a bonus for opening an account or transferring existing accounts. Sometimes the amount you get will depend on how much you deposit or transfer, while other times, it might be a percentage of what’s in the account.
You can get £300-£1,500 cashback when you transfer an ISA between £20,000 and £200,000
More details ▼
Additional Info
Trading fees: You get £50 worth of free trades every 6 months. Funds cost £4 per trade and shares cost £10 per trade.
Fund fees: If you invest in funds, you'll have to pay fund fees between 0.03% and 0.78% depending on the funds you choose. There are no platform or trading fees when you invest in Charles Stanley Multi Asset Funds
FSCS Protected: Yes
Trading fee: £50 worth of free trades every 6 months
Transfer in existing ISA?: Yes
Fractional shares: No
Interest on uninvested cash: No
Flexible ISA: No
Foreign exchange fee: 1.00%
Offer details: The amount you'll get in cashback depends on how much you transfer. A transfer of £20,000 gets you £300 cashback.
I’ve opened accounts at both Trading 212 and Freetrade and received the free shares – thanks Andy. However, for anyone who intends to engage in more extensive share trading activity I’d sound a word of warning about Freeserve. Most share trading platforms only allow you to trade in whole shares. Some allow trading in “fractional” shares – instead of specifying the number of shares you want to buy you specify the amount you want to spend. So you might end up with, say, 2.3456789 shares in a particular company. That can be handy for “balancing” a portfolio or buying US stocks, which are typically much more expensive per share than UK ones – some US stocks cost hundreds of dollars for a single share. Where a platform offers fractional shares you usually get both options (Trading 212 provides this) – to buy a certain number of shares or set what you want to spend, in which case you’ll end up with a fraction. Freetrade, however, ONLY offers fractional shares and, even if you try to buy a set number by entering the precise price you’ll often end up with a tiny fraction more or less due to miniscule price changes between placing the order and execution. None of this is a problem in general use and provided you want to continue dealing through Freetrade. BUT fractional shares cannot be traded on the markets and, if you want to transfer away from Freetrade – say they change their fee free model and hike their dealing/platform costs – you’re going to have problems moving to a platform that doesn’t support fractional shares.
I should have added that this only applies to US shares – UK shares, ETFs etc can only be bought as whole shares. Although this isn’t entirely clear (and somewhat confusing) as you still have to enter the amount you want to spend rather than number of shares you want to buy, so you have to do a little mental arithmetic if you have a particular number of shares in mind.
Hi Andy, I get 4% off all my shopping at Morrisons and Sainsburys from the Vectis deal from Scottish Friendly. May I point out that if you’re willing to forgo the cashback, your investments with Scottish Friendly are a lot cheaper, though you pay more in. The My Prime has an all in charge of .5% per annum, against 1.5% for the other policies. A big difference, though if you only pay a small amount, say £100, mainly for the cashback and discounts, that’s not a bad idea either. Of course, 1.5% of £100 is only £1.50. You’d likely save that on one or two supermarket shops. I know this is not an investment site, but I’ve found the stock market returns are pretty good too. All you really need, unless you’re an investment hobbyist, or into esoteric shares. Very easy to manage too.
Hi Andy, I get 4% off all my shopping at Morrisons and Sainsburys from the Vectis deal from Scottish Friendly. May I point out that if you’re willing to forgo tha cashback, your investments with Scottish Friendly are a lot cheaper, though you pay more in. The My Prime has an all in charge of .5%, against 1.5% for the other policies. A big difference, though if you only pay a small amount, say £100, mainly for the cashback and discounts, that’s not a bad idea either. Of course, 1.5% of £100 is only £1.50. You’d likely save that on one or two supermarket shops. I know this is not an investment site, but I’ve found the stock market returns are pretty good too. All you really need, unless you’re an investment hobbyist, or into esoteric shares. Very easy to manage to.
I followed your link to receive the free share, but the section of the Trading 212 where I land had absolutely no mention of the free offer. Are you sure the link is correct?
Hi. Was there an actual promo code for Trading 212 in the article? I just clicked on the link and it prompted me to download app and sign up. Didn’t see a box for a promo code.
Hi Andy, pretty certain you can open an investment ISA if you’ve already paid into a Cash ISA in the current tax year, just not if you’ve already paid into another investment ISA. You can open Junior ISA in addition in either case. Cheers
ahh wish i knew about the £50 offer earlier. I don’t think i can open a current account in a date in time. I need a new stock and shares isa account. Do you have anymore recommendations?
I’ve opened accounts at both Trading 212 and Freetrade and received the free shares – thanks Andy. However, for anyone who intends to engage in more extensive share trading activity I’d sound a word of warning about Freeserve. Most share trading platforms only allow you to trade in whole shares. Some allow trading in “fractional” shares – instead of specifying the number of shares you want to buy you specify the amount you want to spend. So you might end up with, say, 2.3456789 shares in a particular company. That can be handy for “balancing” a portfolio or buying US stocks, which are typically much more expensive per share than UK ones – some US stocks cost hundreds of dollars for a single share. Where a platform offers fractional shares you usually get both options (Trading 212 provides this) – to buy a certain number of shares or set what you want to spend, in which case you’ll end up with a fraction. Freetrade, however, ONLY offers fractional shares and, even if you try to buy a set number by entering the precise price you’ll often end up with a tiny fraction more or less due to miniscule price changes between placing the order and execution. None of this is a problem in general use and provided you want to continue dealing through Freetrade. BUT fractional shares cannot be traded on the markets and, if you want to transfer away from Freetrade – say they change their fee free model and hike their dealing/platform costs – you’re going to have problems moving to a platform that doesn’t support fractional shares.
I should have added that this only applies to US shares – UK shares, ETFs etc can only be bought as whole shares. Although this isn’t entirely clear (and somewhat confusing) as you still have to enter the amount you want to spend rather than number of shares you want to buy, so you have to do a little mental arithmetic if you have a particular number of shares in mind.
Hi Andy, I get 4% off all my shopping at Morrisons and Sainsburys from the Vectis deal from Scottish Friendly. May I point out that if you’re willing to forgo the cashback, your investments with Scottish Friendly are a lot cheaper, though you pay more in. The My Prime has an all in charge of .5% per annum, against 1.5% for the other policies. A big difference, though if you only pay a small amount, say £100, mainly for the cashback and discounts, that’s not a bad idea either. Of course, 1.5% of £100 is only £1.50. You’d likely save that on one or two supermarket shops. I know this is not an investment site, but I’ve found the stock market returns are pretty good too. All you really need, unless you’re an investment hobbyist, or into esoteric shares. Very easy to manage too.
Hi Andy, I get 4% off all my shopping at Morrisons and Sainsburys from the Vectis deal from Scottish Friendly. May I point out that if you’re willing to forgo tha cashback, your investments with Scottish Friendly are a lot cheaper, though you pay more in. The My Prime has an all in charge of .5%, against 1.5% for the other policies. A big difference, though if you only pay a small amount, say £100, mainly for the cashback and discounts, that’s not a bad idea either. Of course, 1.5% of £100 is only £1.50. You’d likely save that on one or two supermarket shops. I know this is not an investment site, but I’ve found the stock market returns are pretty good too. All you really need, unless you’re an investment hobbyist, or into esoteric shares. Very easy to manage to.
I can’t get the Freetrade offer as I’m a dual British/US citizen
Hi Andy,
I followed your link to receive the free share, but the section of the Trading 212 where I land had absolutely no mention of the free offer. Are you sure the link is correct?
Yes it’s strange isn’t it! But it does work
Hi. Was there an actual promo code for Trading 212 in the article? I just clicked on the link and it prompted me to download app and sign up. Didn’t see a box for a promo code.
Yes, it’s weird isn’t it!? I thought the same. But the link does work.
Did the same had to chase and show evidence of offer but got allocated a redrow share worth £5.73 after contacting them.
Hi Andy, pretty certain you can open an investment ISA if you’ve already paid into a Cash ISA in the current tax year, just not if you’ve already paid into another investment ISA. You can open Junior ISA in addition in either case. Cheers
I received my 1 free share in National Grid within an hour. £8.71 value.
Cheers Andy
ahh wish i knew about the £50 offer earlier. I don’t think i can open a current account in a date in time. I need a new stock and shares isa account. Do you have anymore recommendations?
I’ve heard Vanguard have very low fees for trackers.
Invest Engine have zero platform fees and offer Vanguard funds