How we rate investment platforms; our methodology
Written by Boring Money
24 April, 2026
Investors have a huge number of options when choosing where to invest and which products to buy. Our annual Best Buy Awards were established in 2018 to help them see the wood for the trees and choose the best home for their money.
Boring Money generates revenue through research, content, and website partnerships with investment providers, including some of the providers rated in these awards. Our ratings and awards are produced entirely independently of those commercial relationships. Providers do not pay to enter, pay to win, or pay to improve their scores. The methodology below applies equally to every provider we assess, regardless of whether they are a commercial partner.
Our comparison tables include major UK platforms that meet our coverage criteria. A platform does not need a commercial relationship with Boring Money to appear.
What are the Boring Money Best Buy Awards?
For nine years, the Boring Money Best Buy Awards have been recognising the best investment providers in the UK.
Our awards are the result of months of independent research, including 40+ live accounts, hours of call centre testing, rigorous cost analysis from our team of in-house analysts, and over 27,000 real customer reviews - all to determine the very best providers on the market.
Featured in ads on the tube, on brand homepages and even in national press, our Best Buy Awards are recognised by the industry and investors alike as a badge of honour for the providers who win our hard-won seal of approval.
How do we choose our winners?
The Boring Money Best Buy Awards take our in-house team of analysts over 3 months to research and collate to recognise all-round excellence.
They are compiled using a range of criteria which we believe represent a comprehensive customer experience. These include:
- Over 31,000 customer reviews
- Website analysis and logged-in testing from our live test accounts
- Feature testing across a wide range of criteria
- Detailed cost analysis for different portfolio sizes and trading assumptions
- Customer service testing for call centres and support
- The view of our Founder & CEO and investment expert, Holly Mackay
- Customer ratings on value, service, and website/app experience
- Size and longevity of the platform in the market
Explanation of components
- Front-end testing: Multiple analysts from the BM team conduct a thorough review of the brand’s website as a prospective customer sees it, rating a provider on various metrics, including navigation, guidance, tools, clarity, and engagement.
- Back-end testing: This focuses on the logged-in experience and includes an assessment of how portfolio performance is presented to customers, ease of accessing key documents, and the analytical functionality each provider offers.
- Feature testing: BM analysts look at over 25 features that an ideal investment provider should have (determined by our research & consumer feedback) and assess each provider on this metric.
- Holly Mackay's score: Our Founder & CEO, Holly Mackay, reviews every platform and gives a score from her perspective as a market-expert and primary test account holder.
- Customer ratings: Platform customers’ provider ratings for components of value, service, and website/app experience (as provided to us via our Platform Investor Tracker surveys or directly via our provider review pages).
- Cost score: BM analysts run through a series of cost scenarios with a range of inputs, factoring in various portfolio sizes and trading frequencies.
- Call centre analysis: BM calls each provider multiple times and provides a score based on answer waiting times. These calls are conducted across multiple days and are evenly spread throughout the day. BM also assesses the opening hours for the call centres of each provider.
- Investment range: BM assesses the range of investment types offered by each provider, covering funds, shares, ETFs, Investment Trusts, and Ready-Made Solutions.
- Size and longevity: BM determines a score for each provider based on the size and longevity of the provider in the market.
Providers need at least 100 reviews to be awarded a Best Buy in this category.
You may sometimes notice that our rating for a provider differs from what you see on Trustpilot or in other publications. This is expected, and it's because we're measuring different things.
Trustpilot scores reflect general customer sentiment, any customer, about any experience, at any time. Our scores are built from a specific methodology: weighted criteria covering cost, features, UX, customer service, and reviews from investors (not the general public) who actually use the platform for ISAs and pensions. A provider can have excellent customer sentiment on Trustpilot but score poorly on fees for a £50,000 ISA, and vice versa.
We also collect our own customer reviews directly from platform users via our Platform Investor Tracker — over 31,000 responses — which gives us a more targeted investor-specific data set than general review platforms.
If you ever want to cross-reference our view with others, we think that's a healthy approach. Our tables let you filter by customer reviews alone if you'd prefer to weight that more heavily.
Our rating criteria illustrated
The image below illustrates how the different criteria are used in different weightings to judge the winners of our Best Buy Awards.
Additional rating criteria by category
Our Best Buy awards are judged with relevant criteria that differ based on the wrapper and award. Some of the adjustments and specific factors we've considered for our awards can be found below:
Best Buy ISA
- Detailed cost analysis that covers over 20 scenarios across 7 different portfolio sizes, ranging from £1,000 - £300,000. Scenarios include share trading analysis, funds, and ready-made investment solutions
Best Buy Pension
- Cost scenarios were based on larger portfolios as average pension pots are larger than ISAs
- Detailed cost analysis that covers 18 scenarios across 9 different portfolio sizes, ranging from £1,000 - £750,000. Scenarios include platform administration charges and an all-in cost of investing with a ready-made investment option
Other factors considered included drawdown capability, the presence of any additional pension charges, consolidation functionality and support, as well as plan/wrapper administration.
Best Buy LISA
- Detailed cost analysis that covers 14 scenarios across 7 different portfolio sizes, ranging from £1,000 to £300,000. Scenarios include platform administration charges and an all-in cost of investing with a ready-made investment option. Guidance and information for less experienced investors was also considered.
Best Buy JISA
- Detailed cost analysis that covers 12 scenarios across 6 different portfolio sizes, ranging from £1,000 - £100,000. Scenarios include platform administration charges and an all-in cost of investing with a ready-made investment option
We also incorporate a custom JISA score, which is based on factors like:
- Streamlined account management
- Ease of gifting
- Non-guardian contributions
- Guidance and information support
Best App
Factors considered include subjective Boring Money UX testing, feature analysis, App Store/Google Play reviews, and scores from customer reviews on app experience across 2025.
Best For Beginners
- Website, app and feature testing with a focus on beginner needs
- Detailed cost analysis that covers 10 scenarios across 5 different portfolio sizes, ranging from £1,000 - £50,000. Scenarios include platform administration charges and an all-in cost of investing with a ready-made investment option
- Increased weighting on guidance and UX
Minimum investment sizes and onboarding journeys factored into the process.
Best for Share Traders
This award is more subjective and does not formally incorporate customer reviews. We looked to recognise those platforms which combine features and charges to offer a compelling platform for share traders.
Boring Money researchers reviewed features and functionality with a focus on share trading. 7 different portfolios were assessed for costs, across different sizes and trading patterns. The costs were modelled on listed securities only.
We also considered:
- Dealing fees
- Choice and range of listed securities available
- Access to international markets
- Analysis tools available on specific shares
- Share-based content
- Clarity and distinction between shares and CFDs
Best For Customer Service
This award is assessed with several factors which include input and scores from thousands of customers, as well as in-house research by Boring Money, including:
- Scores from 20,000 users about their last interaction with their platform
- 9 calls to each provider at different times and on different days
- Call centre answer & opening times
- Customer ratings on service
- Customer recommendation scores
- Feature analysis including webchat, FAQ sections & secure messaging functionality
Best For Investment Trusts
Price, range, investment-specific research, shortlists, proxy voting capabilities, filtering tools, and front/back-end detail were all considered, amongst other factors.
Best For Investment Research
Feature testing, investment analysis and tools functionality, quality and range of content, breadth and detail of market updates, innovative features, and back-end research capabilities were all considered, amongst other factors.
Best For Low-Cost ISA
This award is purely focused on cost and does not factor in customer reviews or feedback, nor Boring Money feature testing.
Different portfolios were assessed across a variety of sizes, taking into account both platform charges and the total cost of investing in a ready-made solution.
Best For Low-Cost ISA - Funds and Shares
This award is purely focused on cost and does not factor in customer reviews or feedback, nor Boring Money feature testing.
Different portfolios were assessed across a variety of sizes, taking into account platform charges on portfolios invested in funds and shares.
Providers included must offer a decent range of mutual funds and direct access to shares.
Best For Low-Cost Pension <£50k
This award is purely focused on cost and does not factor in customer reviews or feedback, nor Boring Money feature testing.
Portfolios were assessed across a variety of sizes under the £50k threshold, taking into account both platform charges and the total cost of investing in a ready-made solution.
- Scores are weighted to reflect the primary offering of the platform, with greater emphasis placed on administration charges or ready-made solutions, depending on the platform.
Best For Low-Cost Pension >£50k
This award is purely focused on cost and does not factor in customer reviews or feedback, nor Boring Money feature testing.
Different portfolios were assessed across a variety of sizes, taking into account both platform charges and the total cost of investing in a ready-made solution. We modelled costs for:
- £50,000
- £100,000
- £250,000
- £500,000
- £750,000
Best for Low-Cost Advice
We selected the best options for low-cost advice and planning, focused on people with between £50k and £150k of investable assets.
We considered charges, fee structure, the level of support received by customers, the range of issues that support and advice could be provided on, the quality of help offered to customers, the usefulness of recommendations, whether or not the wider financial situation was factored into the process, eligibility to use the service, and overall ease of process.
Best for ETFs
Considerations include costs across a range of scenarios, fee structure, range of options, quality of content, investment specific analysis, user experience, and an assessment of the purchasing journey, amongst other factors.
Best for Ready-Made Solutions
To calculate this award, Boring Money have assessed the following factors:
- 5-year performance to the end of 2025
- Boring Money assessed 3 portfolios per provider, choosing a low risk, medium risk, and high risk option, based on equity allocation, from a range of portfolios offered by the provider
- High and medium risk solutions had a greater contribution to the performance score than the low risk solution
Value For Money Award
The Value For Money category relies entirely on the customer perspective, acknowledging the complex and subjective nature of value. This award is voted by platform users and is not scored or judged by Boring Money. Throughout 2024, we collected a rating from 11,266 platform customers who were asked to score the platform they used for Value For Money out of 10.
Boring Money Rated - Workplace Pensions
Boring Money evaluates workplace pension providers using a balanced four-pillar rating system: Customer Reviews (we examine feedback from Google, Trustpilot, and our own platform to gauge real user satisfaction), Service Quality (we test apps, customer support, and complaint handling firsthand), Performance (we analyse 1, 3 and 5-year investment returns compared to market quartiles), and Fees & Charges (we calculate total costs including hidden fees against market benchmarks). We also look at longevity and corporate backing to ensure we are working with solid, established businesses.
