Freetrade

We simply looked at just the initial balance.

But yeah, the fees are nowhere near as drastic as if you're comparing, say, HL for buying shares to 212 or Freetrade.

As is always the case, the robo-investors are just charging a premium for the convenience that they offer.

And behind the scenes, really, they're just buying index funds.

And that is the fact that Trading 212 are currently not allowing new people to sign up.

And Freetrade are.

As a result of the whole GameStop thing, Trading 212 have shut their doors to new customers, and for the last six weeks, they haven't shown any sign of opening them again.

I contacted 212 to ask when they will reopen, and the answer was basically, we have no timescale for this.

The free trade ISO fee is a barrier to some people, especially those of you who want to invest a smaller amount each month.

But neither Free Trade or 212 charge a percentage-based management fee on an annual basis, like all of the other platforms that we've discussed today.

So that means once you've got a few thousand pounds invested with Freetrade, it actually becomes cheaper than a lot of these other platforms anyway.

So you can see as your portfolio grows or if you're someone that invests a larger amount, that that £3 fixed fee might actually be quite attractive.

Are you a genius? Was it a fluke? Should I sell it now and cash in my gains? Never has it been more the case that what was once a cheap and fairly priced business can quickly become an overvalued one.

It feels like now, due to the way information is shared across the world quickly and the ease of accessing investments with discount brokers like Robinhood, 212, and Freetrade, momentum can get behind a company and push it up real quickly.

They call it herd mentality.

Lovely way to describe people that.

Pretty simple concept.

The main ones are Trading 212, Freetrade, who I did a review on when I first started, and recently Coinbase.

Freetrade and Coinbase tick over nicely.

I get roughly one sign-up per day from each of them.

It's probably around 1,000 pounds in earnings over the last eight months, which is just lovely.