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 for opening an investment account. We’re only sharing these promotions as a way to get some free cash rather than a recommendation of individual investment platforms or funds. Sometimes the type of account you open matters, so take a look at the T&Cs to double-check. We’ve split them into Stocks & Shares ISA offers and General Investment Account offers.
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Here at Be Clever With Your Cash, we’re not regulated to give you financial advice. We aim to give you the facts about a provider or investment but it’s up to you to decide if it’s suitable for you. If you’re looking for more personalised guidance, find a financial adviser who can give you specific advice. Remember that your capital is at risk when investing — don’t invest more than you are prepared to lose.
These are offers to tempt you to sign up for a new ISA or transfer existing ISAs. 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.
ISA offers
Customer rating
4.7/5
- OfferFree fractional share up to £100*
- Annual fee£0
- Type of investingDIY investing
- Minimum deposit£1
- FSCS Protected? Yes
- Transfer in existing ISA? Yes
- Fractional shares Yes
- Interest on uninvested cash 3.8%
- Flexible ISA Yes
- Foreign exchange fee 0.15%
- Fund fees If you invest in ETFs, you'll have to pay fund fees depending on the funds you choose
- Offer details To get the offer, you need to open a Trading 212 Stocks and Shares ISA or Invest account and deposit at least £1 within 10 calendar days
- Important details Remember, the value of any money invested, which includes your free share, could go up or down
- Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority Yes: FRN 609146
- Risk warning Capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up
Customer rating
4.7/5
- Offerfree share worth £10 - £100*
- Annual fee£0
- Type of accountDIY investing
- Minimum deposit£1
- FSCS Protected? Yes
- Interest on uninvested cash 1% on up to £1,000
- Fractional shares Yes
- Transfer in existing ISA? Yes
- Flexible ISA Yes
- Foreign exchange fee 0.99%
- Fund fees If you invest in funds, you'll have to pay fund fees depending on the funds you choose
- Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority Yes: FRN 783189
- Risk warning Capital at risk. The value of your investments may go up or down
- Offer New customers can get a free share worth between £10 and £100. To get it, sign up for Freetrade and deposit at least £50 to your account. The probability is weighted, so more expensive shares will be rarer.
Customer rating
4.3/5
- Offer£150 in free trades*
- Annual fee£5.99 per month for portfolios up to £100,000
- Type of investingDIY or ready-made
- Minimum deposit£0
- FSCS Protected? Yes
- Transfer in existing ISA? Yes
- Interest on uninvested cash Yes – tiered interest is paid on cash balances within your ISA, based on the amount held.
- Fees £5.99 per month (up to £100,000), £14.99 per month (no upper limit)
- Flexible ISA No
- Foreign exchange fee Core plan: 0.75%; Plus plan: 0.75% (first £50,000), then 0.25% above this
- Fund fees Ongoing fund charges vary depending on the investments you choose. These are set by fund managers and typically differ across funds.
- Trading fees Funds: from £3.99 per trade, UK & US shares (including ETFs and investment trusts): £3.99 per trade, Other international shares: from £9.99 per trade, Regular investing: free
- Investments available Shares (UK and international), Funds, ETFs, Investment trusts, Bonds
- Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority Yes: FRN 141282
- Risk warning Capital at risk. The value of your investments may go up or down
- Offer details You can get £150 towards your trading fees when you open an ISA. Open to new customers only and ends 31 October 2026.
General Investment Account offers
GIA offers
Our top pick
Customer rating
4.7/5
- OfferFree fractional share up to £100*
- Annual fee£0
- Type of investingDIY
- Minimum deposit£1
- FSCS Protected? Yes
- Fractional shares Yes
- Interest on uninvested cash 3.8%
- Foreign exchange fee 0.15%
- Fund fees If you invest in ETFs, you'll have to pay fund fees depending on the funds you choose
- Offer details To get the offer, you need to open a Trading 212 Stocks and Shares ISA or Invest account and deposit at least £1 within 10 calendar days
- Offer New customers get a free fractional share worth up to £100 when you sign up via our link or use the code BCWYC
- Important details Remember, the value of any money invested, which includes your free share, could go up or down
- Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority Yes: FRN 609146
- Risk warning Capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up
Customer rating
4.6/5
- OfferChoose a free share*
- Annual fee£0
- Minimum deposit£0
- FSCS Protected? Yes
- Fractional shares Yes
- Interest on uninvested cash 4.50%
- Foreign exchange fee 0.50%
- Fund fees If you invest in funds, you'll have to pay fund fees depending on the funds you choose
- Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority Yes: FRN 522157
- Risk warning Capital at risk. The value of your investments may go up or down
- Offer details New XTB customers can get a free share of their choice (choose from Tesco, BP, Glencore, Barclays, Rolls‑Royce Holdings). You need to be a new XTB customer, open a General Investment account and make a deposit to get the offer
Customer rating
4.8/5
- Offer£15 bonus*
- Annual fee£2.99 per month + 0.45% annual fee
- Minimum deposit£1
- FSCS Protected? Yes - up to £85,000
- Important details You need a Plum Pro account which costs £2.99 per month to start investing in funds
- Interest on uninvested cash No
- Fractional shares Yes
- Foreign exchange fee 0.45%
- Fund fees If you invest in funds, you'll have to pay fund fees depending on the funds you choose
- Investment funds available You're limited to 16 funds to invest in, and can invest in the full range of 26 funds with the Premium plan which costs £9.99 per month
- Authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority Yes: FRN 900573
- Risk warning Capital at risk. The value of investments can go down as well as up
- Offer Get a £15 bonus if you transfer at least £250 into the account and keep it there for 4 months using our link. Offer valid until 31 December 2026.
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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 Investment 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.
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