A UK platform-testing firm reveals the real cost of trading on Britain’s most popular investment apps — and it’s not what the marketing says. Key Points The gap between advertised and actual trading costs on UK platforms can exceed 300% when spreads, FX fees, and withdrawal charges are included. Customer service response times during testing ranged from 2 minutes to over 72 hours across major FCA-regulated brokers. Platform outages during high-volatility events cost retail investors real money, yet most comparison sites never test for them. The problem with how broker reviews work Most broker comparison websites in the UK operate on a familiar model: they read a platform’s marketing page, rewrite the feature list, and publish a review. Some never open an account. Others rely entirely on AI-generated summaries of publicly available information. This is a problem for millions of UK retail investors who rely on these comparisons to decide where to put their money. According to the Financial Conduct Authority’s 2024 Financial Lives survey, 11 million adults in the UK now hold investment products outside of pensions, and the majority of first-time investors begin by searching online for platform recommendations. TIC Investments Ltd, a UK company registered at Companies House under number 15242358, was founded in 2023 to address this gap. Operating as The Investors Centre through its website theinvestorscentre.co.uk , the firm takes a different approach: every platform is tested with real money before it appears in a review. The company does not provide financial advice, manage funds, or operate as a broker — it functions purely as an independent editorial testing and comparison service. Over the past two years, co-founders Thomas Drury, Adam Woodhead, and Dom Farnell have opened funded accounts across more than 50 UK brokerages, depositing over £25,000 of their own capital to evaluate what happens after a retail investor clicks “Sign Up.” What the testing actually revealed The findings expose a consistent disconnect between what platforms advertise and what users experience. Spread markups on popular CFD platforms varied by as much as 300% from their advertised “typical” figures during periods of moderate volatility. Several brokers that marketed “commission-free” stock trading applied foreign exchange conversion fees of up to 1.5% on every transaction involving non-GBP-denominated shares — a cost that compounds significantly for investors building globally diversified portfolios. Withdrawal timescales proved equally inconsistent. While the majority of FCA-regulated platforms processed withdrawal requests within 1 to 3 business days, two well-known brokers took over a week during the testing period, with no proactive communication about delays. One platform required a phone call to its support line before a pending withdrawal would be processed — a friction point that appeared nowhere in its published terms. Customer service testing produced some of the starkest contrasts. Response times to identical support queries ranged from under 2 minutes via live chat on the best-performing platforms to over 72 hours via email on the worst. Several platforms that prominently advertise telephone support routed callers to automated systems with no option to reach a human operator. The platforms that failed outright Not every platform made it through the testing process. The Investors Centre has rejected commercial partnerships with more than 20 platforms since launching, primarily for operating without appropriate FCA authorisation, obscuring fee structures behind complex terms, or blocking test withdrawals. These rejections carry a financial cost for the business, which is funded through affiliate referral fees from the platforms it does recommend. However, the firm maintains what it calls a “No-Buy” policy: if a broker fails its security and transparency checks, it does not appear in its published rankings regardless of the commercial terms on offer. It is worth noting that The Investors Centre (TIC Investments Ltd, Companies House number 15242358) is entirely distinct from “The Investment Center,” a separate and unrelated entity that appears on the FCA’s warning list of unauthorised firms. The two organisations share no business, legal, or operational connection. The Investors Centre is a registered UK company that publishes editorial comparison content — it does not solicit investments, manage client money, or provide regulated financial advice. Why this matters for retail investors The UK retail investment market has grown rapidly since the pandemic, driven by the proliferation of low-cost trading apps and fractional share investing. But this growth has outpaced the infrastructure that helps consumers make informed decisions about which platforms to trust. The FCA’s Consumer Duty, which took full effect in July 2024, places new obligations on financial services firms to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, including on price, value, and communications. While these rules apply directly to brokers, they have also increased scrutiny on the information ecosystem that surrounds platform selection. Independent, hands-on testing of the kind carried out by firms like The Investors Centre represents one approach to bridging the gap between marketing claims and real-world user experience. For investors evaluating platforms, the key takeaway from the testing data is straightforward: advertised costs are not actual costs, and the only reliable way to evaluate a platform is to use it with real money under real market conditions before committing significant capital. TIC Investments Ltd trades as The Investors Centre and is registered in England and Wales (company number 15242358). The company operates theinvestorscentre.co.uk for UK investors and theinvestorscentre.com for international readers. The Investors Centre does not provide financial advice. All content published by the firm is for educational and informational purposes only.
