8 Best Ways to Invest £100 a Month in 2025

One of the biggest advantages of micro-investing is that it’s accessible to everyone. You can start investing with £100 or even just a few pounds on many platforms and apps. This makes investing easier and lets people from all backgrounds participate in the financial markets. Regular investing is a proven strategy for building wealth. 

A study in April by Ramsey Solutions showed only 31% of millionaires averaged $100,000 in salary throughout their career, but three of four millionaires attribute their success to regular, consistent investing over a long period.

The number of people in the UK who regularly invest is growing. A survey by Censuswide showed that this year an estimated 27 million Brits (51%) have invested, an increase from the 42% of Brits who had invested in 2023. If you’re considering joining the trend, our guide will give you a good starting point. Read on for a summary of the best options for investing a little money each month and reviews of several brokers to invest with:

A closer look at the ways you can put £100 a month to work to build your wealth 

These financial instruments all have certain advantages for investors who are looking to invest a small amount of money each month. The key to all of them is they can improve the diversification of a portfolio and can also simplify investment decisions.

Index funds

Index funds are a type of mutual fund that tracks a specific market index, such as the S&P 500 or the Nasdaq Composite. Instead of trying to outperform the market by picking individual stocks, index funds aim to match the performance of the index they follow. Some of the benefits of index funds include diversification as they allow the opportunity to invest in a wide range of stocks, lower expense ratios than actively managed funds, and over the long term, index funds have consistently outperformed actively managed funds. In the short term, index funds aim to match the performance of the market, so they may not outperform the market significantly. Its relatively simple and easy to invest 100 a month in an index fund, though more experienced investors like to have a greater degree of control over their investments.

ETFs

These investment vehicles pool money from investors to invest in a broad array of securities, such as stocks, bonds or commodities. They generally have less expensive fees than mutual funds and can be more tax efficient, especially when it comes to capital gains taxes. They are highly liquid and basically trade in the same manner as stocks, as they can be bought and sold throughout the trading day. Like index funds, they provide a way for investors to diversify their portfolios. Some ETFs, though, may not perfectly track their underlying index, leading to tracking error.

Target-date funds

They are a type of mutual fund designed to provide a balanced investment portfolio that gradually becomes more conservative as you approach your retirement age. They’re designed for investors who want a hands-off approach to retirement saving. They automatically adjust their asset allocation over time based on your target retirement date, gradually shifting away from riskier assets such as stocks to safer investments, like bonds. They are usually professionally managed, but that also means that sometimes they have high expense ratios.

Individual stocks

Investing in stocks, if you have the time to do the analysis, can be more lucrative than any other type of investments, with a better opportunity for growth. Even if you’re investing only £100 a month, you can build up quite a nest egg by regularly investing. While not all stocks are under £100, the growth of fractional shares will allow you to regularly invest in more expensive stocks and benefit from their share growth. Investing in stocks, though, carries more risk than some other types of investments and must be more closely monitored.

Bonds

They are essentially loans that you make to a government or corporation. In exchange for lending your money, you receive regular interest payments and the principal back at maturity. Bonds are generally considered a safer investment than stocks, but they also offer lower potential returns. They can help diversify your portfolio, the interest earned on bonds can be tax efficient and they provide stable income, but often lower returns. If inflation rises faster than the interest rate on your bond, the purchasing power of your investment may decline. In some cases, the issuer of a bond can default, so there is some credit risk, depending what type of bond you purchase.

REITs

They are companies that own or operate income-producing real estate properties. They collect rental income from properties such as apartments, office buildings, shopping centers, and industrial facilities. REITs are required to distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to shareholders as dividends. Because of that, they are known for paying above-average dividends and are favored by income-oriented investors. REITs can provide diversification to portfolios, particularly if they hold a variety of real estate.  REITs are vulnerable to market conditions, though, and when interest rates rose over the past few years, many REITs struggled. Many REITS trade on regular exchanges, as if they were stocks. Some trade privately.

Robo-Advisors

They are digital investment platforms that use technology to manage your money. After answering questions about your goals and risk tolerance, a robo-advisor will invest your funds in pre-made portfolios of ETFs. These platforms are great for beginners or those who don’t have time to monitor the market. One of the biggest benefits of robo-advisors is their low fees. Because they use technology instead of human advisors, they can offer lower costs. The biggest concern about robo-advisors is the lack of management. They utilise algorithms and if they are flawed, that will hurt your investment.

Savings accounts

When people think of savings accounts, they traditionally think of banks, but there are plenty of investment platforms that pay interest on uninvested funds. The beauty of savings accounts is they are low risk and as long as inflation isn’t high, are a guaranteed way to increase income. It’s easy to regularly invest in savings accounts and many online banks and stock platforms, competing for business, have raised their interest rates.

Where to invest your £100 a month in the UK?

These seven platforms offer good ways to invest £100 a month:

1. eToro: Good for experienced investors

The platform, known for user-friendly features and copy trading, has more than 650 ETFs and more than 3,000 stocks. For novice investors, ETFs are a good place to regularly invest £100 a month because of their built-in diversity. eToro also offers trades in forex, cryptocurrency and varied CFD trading.

The platform also offers fractional shares, allowing investors to spread around how they invest that £100 a month. A fractional share is a part of one share of stock or of an ETF. If the price of a stock is £100 and you invest £10, you would then own a fraction (1/10th) of that single stock. At eToro, you can buy fractional shares of stocks and ETFs of any size above its £10 investment minimum.

While eToro pays up to 4.8% interest on uninvested cash, this is reserved for traders with an uninvested balance over $10,000. eToro does have decent educational resources, including its eToro Academy. Because it doesn’t have any set robo-investing, the onus is on investors to do their own research if they use the platform to invest £100 a month.

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2. XTB: Good educational assistance, high interest paid

The platform, based in Poland, has a beginner-friendly way to invest £100 a month, called its Intuitive Interface, which offers more than 400 ETFs to trade in. The service allows investors to build their own plan, using specified amounts that will be automatically allocated between their portfolio’s funds, which can be tailored to match their risk tolerance and sector preferences. 

The lowest amount you can use to begin investing is only £15. There’s no commission on Intuitive Interface, up to £100,000 in monthly turnover, though if you invest in foreign ETFs, a 0.5% currency conversion may apply. Once the Intuitive Interface is established, it will automatically allocate funds based on specified percentages you select. The platform also has more than 3,600 stocks available to trade.

XTB’s also has a new auto-invest feature that allows you to choose funds from your XTB account or set up recurring bank transfers to fund your investments, using the XTB app. It allows up to 10 personalized portfolios, each holding a maximum of nine ETFs.

XTB has strong educational assistance, beginning with a news feed that lists upcoming dividend announcements, a calendar of economic news and a market sentiment indicator, as well as more than 1,000 articles and videos. XTB will pay up to 5.2% interest on uninvested funds held in the account. If you don’t make any trades for a year, you will begin paying an inactivity fee of €10 a month.

75% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.

3. Admiral Markets: Plenty of low-cost trading options

The London-based company makes it easy for individuals to invest £100 a month. It offers fractional trading, allowing investors a piece of stock or an ETF for as little as €1 and Admirals also an auto-investing option. It doesn’t charge a commission on direct share buying (though it benefits from the spread) and it offers more than 4,300 stocks for direct share buying. You can create an Auto-Invest plan using any stock or Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) offered by Admirals.

You can set up recurring investments weekly or monthly through Admiral markets’ Auto-Invest plan and you can have as many as five auto-invest plans on one account. It has a monthly inactivity fee of €10 after two years of inactivity and it charges a minimum of 100 to open an account.

If you’re looking for information on what to invest in, Admirals has a good number of webinars, articles, tutorials, guides, e-books, online courses, and even a glossary of terms.

It does charge a minimum deposit and an inactivity fee, and it is still tailored more toward experienced investors because of its focus on CFD trading.

4. FP Markets: Good for Experienced and Novice Investors

Launched in 2005, FP Markets is a multi-asset CFD (Contract for Differences) brokerage, offering a comprehensive range of trading options across forex, futures, commodities, indices, and shares. With more than 10,000 CFD instruments, it caters to traders seeking both variety and cost efficiency.

For those looking to start with a small budget, a minimum deposit of £100 is required to open a standard account. The Raw account, however, requires a higher minimum deposit, around £200.

One of FP Markets’ standout features is its Raw ECN account, which offers spreads as low as 0.0 pips, with a commission of $3 USD per lot per side. For those preferring a spread-based model without commission, the Standard account starts with spreads from 1.0 pips. Traders can choose between popular platforms like MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, and IRESS, making it ideal for both beginners and advanced traders.

FP Markets also offers the benefit of FSCS protection, ensuring a level of security for UK-based traders. While fractional shares are not offered, the platform allows for flexible trading strategies with access to a variety of global markets.

With a strong Trustpilot rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars from 3,845 reviews, FP Markets provides a solid foundation for both new and seasoned traders seeking competitive pricing and advanced tools.

5. Trading 212: Share lending, high interest, great for passive investors

The UK-based online trading platform was originally founded in 2004 in Bulgaria as Avus Capital. It offers a wide range of assets, including over 13,000 stocks and ETFs. Other financial vehicles available include exchange-traded commodities, REITs, investment trusts, forex, index futures, commodity futures and treasury futures. It has more than £3.5 billion in AUM.

The platform starts with paying 5.1% interest on uninvested funds in your account, so even if you don’t do anything, there are benefits to Trading 212. One of the best ways to utilize £100 every month with Trading 212 is to take advantage of its ready-made investment pies, diversified portfolios that automatically invest for you. You can set your account to automatically send a monthly deposit of £100 into a specific pie, or as little as £1 a month. You are, however, responsible for any rebalancing of the account.

Trading 212 investors can also earn money through its unique share lending program. You retain your shares, but they are lent out to other investors and Trading 212 receives interest on those shares and passes 50% of it to you. The interest rate is variable and based on supply and demand. Two big pluses for the platform are it has a low minimum deposit requirement of £1, and no inactivity fee.

6. IG: Plenty of choices, great for ETF research

The London-based online trading platform began in 1974. While it is known for CFD trading it also provides access to a diverse range of investments, including stocks, shares, ISAs, ETFs, and bonds. Investors can choose from the stocks in more than 13,000 companies, with a significant portion being UK-listed.

If you’re looking to benefit from regular monthly investments of £100, IG offers the opportunity to invest in more than 5,400 ETFs and includes an ETF screener to look for high-performing ETFs that you can break down by asset class. It also has what it calls Smart Portfolios, which are managed by BlackRock. They are broadly diversified portfolios with exposure to many global markets, such as fixed income and equity, along with alternative investments like gold and property. The company estimates that on an account of £40,000, the annual management costs and other fees would be £288, less than what other platforms charge for managed portfolios. 

It also has plenty of tax-efficient ISA wrappers and self-invested personal pension (SIPP) investments. You can open an ISA by adding an ISA wrapper to a share dealing account or Smart Portfolio on IG’s platform.

Some of the negatives for IG include the minimum deposit requirement of £250 and higher-than average CFD stock trading fees. While it has good educational content, much of it is designed for CFD trading.

7. Saxo Bank: Above-average offerings of stocks, ETFs

The London-based global investment bank, founded in Denmark in 1992, offers plenty of ways to invest £100 a month without breaking the bank. It doesn’t charge a minimum deposit and there’s no inactivity fee. Saxo includes more than 23,500 stocks to trade from, has more than 71,000 financial products and has more than US $70 billion in AUM.  It also has a stock lending option that is another way to make money off the interest on your stocks that Saxo lends out to other investors.

Its ISAs include more than 11,000 global stocks, ETFs, and bonds. In addition to its extensive product range, the bank provides stock news and educational videos. It has a customer base of more than 1.2 million. Saxo’s fees for ETFs begin at $1 for US-based ETFs and in the UK, it charges a commission of 0.08% (with a minimum of £3) on trade ups to £6,000 in value. The company’s interface is easy to use for beginners. Its other fees include a 0.12% custody fee on assets in Classic and Platinum accounts. That fee is reduced to 0.08% in VIP accounts, for investors with a balance of £1,000,000 or more.

8. Freetrade: Intuitive interface, transparent fees

The UK-based investment platform has three tiers: Basic, Standard, and Plus. The Basic plan doesn’t charge an account fee and is commission-free for trading more than 6,200 global stocks and ETFs but lacks ISA support. In addition, it allows fractional shares of US stocks and offers a 1% interest rate on up to £1,000 in uninvested cash. The Standard and Plus plans, priced at £4.99 and £9.99 monthly, include ISA trading, advanced technical analysis, and lower currency conversion fees.

Freetrade’s strengths lie in its simple account setup, intuitive mobile app, and user-friendly interface. It is limited in features compared to other platforms, offering primarily stocks, ETFs, investment trusts, and UK Treasury bills. Investments are restricted to the UK, US, and Europe. It also offers a stocks and shares ISA.

In summary, Freetrade’s low-cost structure, transparency, and ease of use make it a popular choice for investors seeking straightforward trading. With over 1.5 million users, it’s a go-to option for those who prioritize simplicity over complex features.

Comparing the top UK brokers to invest regular lump sums with 

Breaking down how some of the top UK brokers compare on fees and offerings:

Platform	Fees for stocks, ETFs	Account minimum	ETFs, stocks available to trade
eToro	£0 per trade, plus spreads	$100	650+ ETFs3,000+ stocks
XTB	£0 for monthly turnover up to €100,000 (after that 0.2% min. €10)	None	More than 400+ ETFs, 3,000+ stocks
Admiral Markets	£0 per trade, plus spreads	£100	350+ ETFs, 4,300+ stocks
FP Markets	Commission varies, typically £3 per side for CFDs	£100	10,000+ CFDs including shares, indices, commodities, crypto, and metals
Trading 212	No commission, but spreads apply	£1	6,000+ ETFs, 7,000 stocks
IG	No commission on direct share tradingSmart Portfolios begin at 0.50%(capped at £250 a year)	None(but £500 for Smart Portfolios)	5,400+ ETFs, 13,000+ stocks
Saxo Bank	ETF trades are a minimum of £3 on trade(up to  £6,000 in value)	None	7,000+ ETFs, 23,500+ stocks
Freetrade	Basic account allows commission-free tradingNon-UK stocks are only available on Standard plan, which costs £4.99 a month	None	6,200+ stocks and ETFs combined

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Why commit to investing a set amount regularly? 

By regularly investing in the stock market, you can reap significant long-term rewards. Committing to a regular investment amount, like $100 per month, can be a great strategy. This approach, often referred to as dollar-cost averaging, makes investing more accessible and simpler.

Dollar-cost averaging is a strategy that involves investing a fixed amount at regular intervals, regardless of market conditions. It eliminates the need to time the market and ensures you’re buying more shares when prices are low and fewer when they’re high. Over time, dollar-cost averaging helps you average out your purchase price and potentially build a substantial portfolio.

There are several other reasons for investing small amounts regularly, including:

• Reduced risk: By investing consistently, you’re less likely to be heavily impacted by market fluctuations. If the market is down, you’ll be buying more shares at a lower price.
• Improved discipline: Regular investing helps you develop a disciplined approach to saving and investing.
• Take advantage of compounding: Over time, your investments can grow through compound interest. If you invest £100 every month in a UK-based ETF that has historically averaged a 7% annual return, here’s what would happen.

Year 1:

• You invest £1,200 in total (£100/month).
• Assuming a 7% return, your investment grows to £1,284.

Year 10:

• You’ve invested £12,000 in total.
• Due to compounding, your investment has grown to approximately £16,382.

Year 20:

• You’ve invested £24,000 in total.
• Your investment has grown to approximately £37,407.

The benefits of investing small lump sums

By consistently contributing a set amount, say £100 each month to a diversified portfolio, you can:

• Smooth out market fluctuations: Buying more shares when prices are low and fewer when prices are high can help you average down your cost basis.
• Reduce stress: Investing regularly removes the pressure of trying to time the market and can also help you stay focused on your long-term goals.
• Benefit from dollar-cost averaging: This strategy automatically takes advantage of market volatility, potentially leading to higher returns over time.
• Get started saving earlier. Instead of waiting until you feel financially comfortable enough to invest larger sums, micro-investing allows you to start sooner.

The drawbacks of investing regular small amounts

• Investing a lump sum can be risky. If the market drops shortly after your investment, you may be buying at a high price and missing out on potential gains.
• Timing the market is nearly impossible. Even experienced investors struggle to predict when prices will rise or fall.
• Investing small amounts are just a start. To provide enough funds to support you in retirement, it will likely take more than 100 a month.

In summary, regular investing can help you avoid the pitfalls of trying to time the market and stay disciplined in your approach. If nothing else, it helps investors be consistent and that’s a big part of building wealth.

FAQs on investing small amounts in the UK