Why get everyone investing?
In some ways, everyone is an investor already.
We invest our most important currency, our time, every day.
We also invest our money every day. Almost everything in modern life is made or provided by companies. And, companies are the primary way wealth is created in the world.
Our goal is to give access to everyone to benefit from that wealth creation if they feel that they have the tolerance for the risks involved. We believe we can make an impact on rising inequality and make the world a more equitable place by providing access to financial markets and championing investor education.
Why are we different?
We don’t think the investing industry works well for most current and future investors. High commissions and clunky products from traditional stockbrokers can make it complicated and too expensive for people to start investing. Additionally, business models built on nudging investors towards high-risk speculative products can cause general distrust.
That’s why we created Freetrade — to break down barriers and open up stock market investing to everyone, creating a stockbroker you can trust. We have a transparent and simple freemium pricing model, and we’ve built the tech behind our award-winning app from the ground up.
How Freetrade started
Our Founder & CEO Adam Dodds relocated from Canada as a Manager at KPMG and had been investing since he was a teenager.
When he arrived in the UK, he was shocked by the quality of investment platforms here, in terms of cost and usability. They were all archaic and clunky, without good design and had little concern about fees.
They were not built to include even him, a financial services professional.
If you don’t like what’s available, you start to wonder whether you should build it yourself.
And that’s exactly what Adam did.
Our own brokerage platform
To sustainably offer commission-free trading and ever-improving features, we have built our own brokerage platform using third-party solutions. That allows us to execute your trades in a cheaper and faster way.
By owning our modern technology platform, we’re able to manage costs more effectively and we’re in control of our destiny.
Making money in a fair, transparent way
We have a simple, transparent freemium pricing model where you can pay for the premium features you want. This helps us to build a sustainable business model which also prioritises the best outcomes possible for our customers.
We don’t charge commissions on trades, as most traditional stockbrokers do, removing financial barriers to investing.
We also don’t charge a markup on the spread when customers place a trade, nor do we benefit from incentives like payment for order flow, which are not permitted in the UK.
What does Freetrade offer?
We offer over 6,200+ stocks and ETFs on our app, which you can invest in, commission-free.
We enable you to make your own investing decisions, so we don’t offer advice.
If you’re unsure whether investing is right for you, you should always seek independent advice.
And remember, while we won’t charge commission on your trades, other charges may apply.
Also, the value of your investments can go down as well as up and you may receive back less than you invest.
As a digital-only app, you can contact us through email or in-app chat, but we aren’t able to offer support by phone. With our Plus plan, you can access priority customer support which offers a faster response time.
We also offer proxy voting services for US-listed equities. This enables you to participate in their shareholder votes, which gets you a seat at the table to help drive change. We don’t generally offer other voluntary corporate actions, apart from certain rights to do with holding an ISA.
Freetrade is an independent, privately-owned startup company.
When we started, we decided that raising money through equity crowdfunding was the right fit for our mission to get everyone investing. We are proud to have over 19,000 shareholders through crowdfunding, regular people like yourself.
Every full-time employee receives stock options, so we are also owned by our team.
In March 2021, we raised a $69m Series B investment round led by New York-based growth equity firm, Left Lane Capital.
L Catterton, one of the world’s largest investors in consumer brands, and our existing investor, Molten, also participated in the oversubscribed round, which contained a secondary opportunity for existing shareholders.
Our people are creating a strong culture.
Freetrade brings together people with diverse skills and backgrounds, ranging from leading financial services companies to Big Tech to more. Together we are focused on building an open and transparent stockbroker you can trust.
Openness and transparency are in our DNA and apply to all aspects of our company. We encourage an open and inclusive environment and pride ourselves on being candid, curious, focused, humble and gritty.
Our headquarters are based in London and we’re hiring.
Browse jobs
The Freetrade community
Much of Freetrade’s initial company funding came from the crowd, through equity crowdfunding - not billion-pound funds.
Since then we’ve maintained a strong community of our customers for whom and with whom we build Freetrade. You can interact with us and other Freetraders on our community forum or via any of our social media channels.
Join the discussion
Is Freetrade available in Europe?
We have started our expansion into our first new market, Sweden, and our plan is to be available everywhere in the EEA soon.
Important information
ISA & SIPP eligibility and tax rules apply.
A SIPP is a pension designed for you to save until your retirement and is for people who want to make their own investment decisions. You can normally only draw your pension from age 55 (57 from 2028), except in special circumstances. To do so, you will have to transfer your SIPP to another provider.
Other charges may apply.
