Broker Fees Explained: What You Really Pay to Invest (2026)

Fees are the one part of investing you can actually control. The market does what it wants, but what you pay to access it is up to you, and over a few decades that gap adds up to a surprising amount. Put some numbers into our fee calculator and you’ll see how a 0.2% all-in cost against a 0.8% one can quietly cost you tens of thousands over a lifetime of investing.

The catch is that the cost of investing isn’t a single number. There are several, spread across your broker, the fund itself, and the moment you place a trade. Providers tend to lead with whichever ones look cheapest, which is fair enough, but it does mean the headline rate is rarely the full story. None of this is sinister. It’s simply how the industry is priced. Below is every line you actually pay, in plain English, followed by how to keep your own total low. Where the figures matter, check your broker’s published fee schedule, because the exact numbers move around over time.

The five costs that always apply

1. Platform or account fee

This is what the broker charges to hold your investments. There are two common models:

• Percentage fee: a percentage of your portfolio each year, common on UK platforms like Hargreaves Lansdown and AJ Bell. Cheap when your pot is small, pricier as it grows, though some providers cap it.
• Flat fee: a fixed monthly or annual charge, as interactive investor uses in the UK, or €0 at many EU neo-brokers (Trade Republic, Scalable, Trading 212) and some UK ETF platforms such as InvestEngine.

The crossover is the thing to watch. A flat fee usually beats a percentage fee once your portfolio gets big enough.

Portfolio	0.25% percentage fee	£120/yr flat fee	Cheaper
£10,000	£25/yr	£120/yr	Percentage
£50,000	£125/yr	£120/yr	About even
£150,000	£375/yr	£120/yr	Flat

Illustrative figures. Check each provider’s current schedule and caps.

2. Dealing or trading commission

What you pay per trade. It runs from a few pounds or euros per order at traditional brokers down to commission-free at neo-brokers and most app-based platforms. If you invest through a regular savings plan, check the cost of each execution. The leading neo-brokers run €0 savings plans, while some banks charge a percentage (around 1.5%) on every one, which sounds small but gets paid month after month.

3. The fund’s own cost (TER)

This one isn’t charged by the broker. It belongs to the fund, but you still pay it, so it counts toward your total. The Total Expense Ratio, sometimes called the Ongoing Charges Figure, is the annual percentage the fund itself takes. Broad, low-cost index UCITS funds tend to be very cheap, often somewhere between 0.05% and 0.22% a year. Actively managed funds usually charge a good deal more. Because it comes out inside the fund, you never see it on a statement, but you pay it every year all the same.

4. FX or currency-conversion fee

The sneakiest one, because it’s so easy to miss. If you buy an asset priced in a currency other than your account’s base currency, say a dollar-listed line, or a fund traded in euros from a sterling account, the broker converts your money and usually takes a cut on the way through. It can be tiny, a few basis points at the cheapest brokers, or north of 1% elsewhere, and it often lands again when foreign dividends are paid.

How to avoid most of it: buy UCITS ETFs in your own base currency where you can, since many popular funds list in both euro and sterling lines. Failing that, use a broker with genuinely low FX costs or proper multi-currency accounts. Compare what brokers charge with our FX fee comparison tool, and it’s still worth checking a broker’s rate before you commit.

5. The bid-ask spread

The cost nobody prints on a statement. At any given moment there’s a slightly higher price to buy and a slightly lower one to sell. That gap is the spread, and you effectively pay half of it going in and half coming out. It’s negligible on large, liquid index ETFs traded during main market hours, and wider on thinly traded funds or when the underlying market is closed. You keep it small by sticking to liquid, mainstream funds and not trading at odd hours.

The occasional ones to watch

Not everyone charges these, but they’re worth a look at the fee schedule:

• Inactivity fees: for not trading for a while. Rarer now, but they still exist.
• Withdrawal or transfer-out fees: some brokers charge to move your holdings elsewhere, which can quietly lock you in.
• FX on dividends: the conversion taken again each time a foreign dividend lands.
• Real-time data or premium tiers: optional, but easy to opt into by accident.

”If it’s free, how does the broker make money?”

A fair question, and the answer is straightforward and openly disclosed. Zero-commission brokers usually earn through some mix of interest on your uninvested cash, securities lending, FX fees, premium subscriptions and, historically, payment for order flow (PFOF), where a broker is paid for routing your orders to a particular market maker.

That last one is worth knowing rather than worrying about. The EU is phasing out PFOF, with a ban taking effect in 2026, and the brokers that relied on it are already adapting. The practical point for you isn’t outrage. It’s understanding what a free model can imply, such as a single execution venue rather than your pick of the market. A broker earning a fair, disclosed margin is perfectly normal. You just want to know where that margin sits so you can weigh up the whole deal. Every broker publishes how it makes money, and it’s worth five minutes to read.

Adding it up: your total cost of ownership

Your real annual cost is roughly this:

platform fee, plus dealing or savings-plan cost, plus the fund TER, plus FX if any, plus the spread when you trade.

For a typical buy-and-hold index investor, the big recurring levers are the platform fee, the fund TER and FX. Get those three low and you’ve won most of the battle. Drop your own numbers into the fee calculator to see the 30-year impact. It tends to be the most persuasive argument going for keeping costs down.

Keeping your costs low: the short checklist

1. Pick a broad, low-TER index UCITS fund as your core holding.
2. Match the fee model to your pot: flat or €0 once your portfolio is sizeable, a percentage platform while you’re starting out.
3. Keep FX to a minimum by buying in your base currency where you can.
4. Don’t over-trade, since every trade can mean commission and spread.
5. Check for exit fees before you commit, so you’re never locked in.
6. Use free regular-investing or savings plans where they’re available.

The goal isn’t to find the single cheapest broker in the abstract. It’s the lowest total cost for the way you actually invest. Compare brokers on exactly these lines with Brokerlens, and remember that a clear, disclosed fee you understand beats a cheap headline hiding one you don’t.

Educational information, not personal advice. Fee figures are illustrative and change over time, so always check the broker’s current schedule.