AJ Bell Dodl gives fee-free Isa investing for a 12 months: Is it price signing up for the deal?

Products featured in this article are independently selected by This is Money’s specialist journalists. If you open an account using links which have an asterisk, This is Money will earn an affiliate commission. We do not allow this to affect our editorial independence.

AJ Bell’s Dodl investment platform is removing account fees for both new and existing Isa customers for 12 months.

This makes the platform very low cost for Isa investors – for at least a year – because Dodl doesn’t charge dealing fees or fees for regular automatic investing.

The deal covers both regular stocks and shares Isas and Lifetime Isas, but pension investors are left in the cold with the 0.15 per cent annual fee still applying to them.

To have your account fees slashed for a year, you must fund a Dodl Isa with a minimum of £1,000 by 30 April – both cash deposits and Isa transfers are included.

The deal comes amid a flurry of investment platforms shaking up their fee structure completely, including Freetrade, IG, Hargreaves Lansdown and Interactive Investor.

Unlike these platforms, Dodl isn’t making a permanent change – and only offers a limited range of investments – but the regular account charge is already low at 0.15 per cent with a £1 minimum monthly cost.

AJ Bell managing director, Charlie Musson, says: ‘Investing doesn’t require masses of experience or huge sums of money and it certainly doesn’t need to cost you a fortune. People often believe investing is an expensive activity restricted to wealthy people and finance geeks. That couldn’t be further from the truth.’

> Find out more about how to open an AJ Bell Dodl Isa*

AJ Bell is one of the UK’s best-known platforms – Dodl is its app for beginners

How does AJ Bell Dodl compare to rival platforms?

If you’ve thought about investing but haven’t taken the leap yet, a fee-free Isa for 12 months could be the incentive you need to get going.

We like Dodl as a low-cost platform for beginner investors. While the choice of investments available doesn’t come close to the range that other platforms offer, it has a good amount to get started.

These include around 80 shares, plus eight ready-made investment portfolios built by AJ Bell. They’re suited to beginners, because you can choose the portfolio that fits your needs and the level of risk that you want to take when investing.

Dodl offers ‘themed investments’ too which are essentially a curated selection of exchange-traded funds.

The platform also pays a high 3.8 per cent interest on uninvested cash, matching the amount paid by rival Trading 212’s stocks and shares Isa.

Even though you’ll enjoy no account fees for a year, there are still charges for managing the underlying investments within a fund. Be sure to check these before going ahead – they range from 0.31 to 0.45 per cent on AJ Bell’s own funds.

If you’d prefer a platform that doesn’t charge account fees as a matter of course, you can consider Freetrade*, Prosper* or Trading 212*.

Freetrade removed its account fees for accessing an Isa in September 2025, while Prosper and Trading 212 have been built around giving investors a low-cost experience.

Interestingly, Prosper even refunds the fees on 30 funds, so it’s possible to reduce the cost of investing to zero. Read more about Prosper and find out how to open an Isa*.

It pays no interest on uninvested cash but Prosper does offer a savings platform with boosted rates.

We have a full guide to investing for beginners, which gives our view on the top platforms for beginners to try.