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Choosing the right platform will not only save you money, you could also benefit from better functionality and a wider range of investments.
Here, Telegraph Money takes you through the Isas on offer depending on how you want to invest and how much you want to invest via our cheat sheet that summarises the best value fund shop for you.
Best platforms for Isas under £50,000
For investors who want to build a portfolio that includes the whole spectrum of investments – including funds, investment trusts, passive funds including trackers and exchange traded funds (ETFs), as well as individual stocks – then you’ll need to choose one of the larger platforms offering everything you need.
Lang Cat analysis for Telegraph Money (see table below), shows that a modest £15,000 Isa portfolio from Vanguard would cost just £23 a year to run, based on four trades a year.
Vanguard charges 0.15pc as a platform fee capped at £375, with no charges for buying and selling funds. There’s a £250,000 maximum portfolio limit and at Vanguard you can only buy its own funds.
Lang Cat reports that good value is also offered by iWeb, which charges a £100 account opening fee, though you can get this refunded if you transfer in from an Isa with another platform worth at least £5,000. It charges £5 per trade so, based on our assumptions, a portfolio will cost just £20 a year.
To avoid the £100 outlay (if you’re not transferring an account), an AJ Bell YouInvest portfolio of £15,000 would cost £44 a year. It charges a 0.25pc platform fee and £1.50 for buying and selling funds or shares.
Steve Nelson, insight director at Lang Cat, said: “iWeb is a no-frills service which is entirely counterbalanced by the ability to get extraordinary value for money, but only if you know what you’re doing.
“If you’re looking for something more comprehensive then you can consider paying a little more for the likes of AJ Bell.”
Best platforms for Isas over £50,000
Because of different pricing structures, an Isa portfolio of £50,000 and over gets more expensive with some of the brands offering good value at a lower bracket.
Halifax Share Dealing, iWeb and Interactive Investor are those with the most compelling fees as shown in the table.
Mr Nelson said: “You can’t ignore that you can make serious cost savings at the fixed fee models so Halifax, Interactive Investor and iWeb come into play.”
Halifax charges a fixed fee of £36 a year and trading charges at £9.50, meaning a portfolio at any level attracts the same costs (factoring in the four trades again).
However, with trades at £9.50, if you buy or sell more frequently than four times a year, it’s worth crunching the numbers and considering somewhere with lower costs or free trades.
At Interactive Investor, for example, the charges are £9.99 per month, which includes free regular investing and one ad-hoc monthly trade making annual charges £120 a year.
Again, iWeb’s offering is attractive, costing £100 for year one and £5 per trade.
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