Aviva Charge and share dealing calculator

Chapter 2 : The impact of investment fees

This video is for educational purposes only. This should not be viewed as advice or recommendation to invest.

You may have already realised that investments come with fees. These are simply the costs involved in running and managing your investments, the stuff that keeps everything ticking behind the scenes.

The value of an investment may go down as well as up and you could get back less than invested.

But here is something that most people don't realise. Even a small difference, say 0.5% in annual fees, can cost you tens of thousands of pounds over 20 years.

That's money that should be growing for your future, not disappearing in charges. So before you invest, it's important to know what charges you might pay. These apply to our self-invested personal pension, also known as a SIPP, our Stocks and Shares ISA, and our investment account.

At Aviva, we show all costs upfront before you invest. We know people are often sceptical about investing, and that's understandable. If costs aren't clear, it's hard to feel confident about where your money's going.

So in this chapter, we're going to open the drawer on our platform fees, rather than keeping them tucked away. Opening an Aviva account, whether it's an ISA, a SIPP, or an investment account, is completely free. Transferring investments to us is free too.

You should check whether your current provider charges any exit fee. Once your Aviva account is set up, you pay an annual platform fee of 0.35% on investments up to £500,000 across your SIPP, ISA, or investment account, or combined, if you have more than one. For anything over £500,000, Aviva don't charge a platform fee.

Your platform fee goes towards providing smooth, up-to-date technology and clear reporting that help keep your assets safe and secure, so you can feel confident and in control of your investments. It's calculated daily, taken monthly, and there are no wrapper fees or tiered pricing, meaning there's no extra charges hidden inside different products, and the cost doesn't change just because you have more or less invested.

If you're thinking of complementing your investments by trading shares, exchange-traded funds, or investment trusts, then each share trade costs you £4.99, taken directly from your cash account.

A cash account is where your money is held within your Aviva SIPP, ISA, or investment account, where you're buying or selling investments. It's also used to cover your Aviva charge.

Trading mutual funds on our platform doesn't cost a thing. A mutual fund puts money from main investors to buy a mix of assets, such as bonds, shares, property, and cash. It's managed by professionals, so it's an easy way to invest in a range of assets without doing the research yourself. We'll cover this in more detail in the next episode.

So if you choose something like our ready-made multi-asset range, for example, the Universal Retirement Fund in our SIPP, there's no dealing charge at all on the Aviva platform. Not when you buy it, not when you top it up, and not when you eventually sell it. Reinvesting dividends is also free with Aviva, so your money keeps working without extra costs.

If you choose to invest in funds, each fund has its own management charge. This is built into the fund price. This fee pays the professionals who run the fund on a day-to-day, helping them research the markets, choose the right investments, and keep everything on track with the fund's objectives.

Aviva shows this cost upfront with no fine print. When you pick a fund, you'll see its ongoing charges figure, or OCF, straight away, and it's always in the Key Investor Information Document, also known as the KID. For most self-driven investors, the platform fee and fund management charge are the main ones to be aware of.

But there may be other charges or taxes, like the UK's share stamp duty, or a £1.50 takeover panel fee for trades over £10,000. You can find out more on the Aviva website. Remember, these charges might look small on paper, but over time, they can really add up.

Now, we've talked a lot about fees and charges, but before we wrap up, I want to share one last point on transparency. When selecting an investment fund, I encourage you to review the fund's track record. Transparency also means having a long enough history of investment performance, which shows whether the fund has met its own objectives.

A good rule of thumb is to check the fund's launch date and see if it has reached its five-year anniversary. It's not about predicting the future. We know that past performance never guarantees what's ahead, but it does mean you have enough data to judge consistency and resilience across different market environments.

This video is for educational purposes only. This should not be viewed as advice or recommendation to invest. Investing offers the potential for better returns than cash savings over the long term (5+ years).  
But there are risks, the value of your investments may go down as well as up, and you may get back less than invested.  If you want advice on investment choices, then we’d recommend speaking to a financial adviser. There may be a charge for advice.