Sharesies Review

Sharesies Review

Sharesies is the platform that made investing feel normal for a generation of New Zealanders who would never have rung a broker. No minimum. Fractional shares. An app that looks like something you would actually choose to open. Sharesies Limited is regulated by the FMA and authorised by the NZX as a Trading and Advising Participant, a Clearing Participant and a Depository Participant.

What surprised us most when we read the pricing page is the shape of the fee. Sharesies charges 1.9 per cent of the amount invested or sold, which sounds steep next to a flat-fee broker. But the cap is what does the work. On NZ shares the fee tops out at $25 per order, and that ceiling kicks in at $1,316. Above that, the fee never moves again.

So the honest question is not whether Sharesies is cheap. It is whether the way you invest looks like the way Sharesies is priced. Small and regular orders sit comfortably. Large lump sums are a different story, and we will show you where the line falls.

How We Researched This Guide

We worked from Sharesies' own pricing page, updated 26 August 2026, and read the fee caps line by line rather than trusting a summary. Where we compare platforms we used each provider's published rates: Hatch's pricing page and help centre, Stake's support pages, Kernel's fund information, InvestNow's fee tables, ASB Securities' rates page, and Invest Direct's help centre.

Two things stood out. First, Invest Direct was formerly Jarden Direct, and plenty of pages still describe it under the old name. It is Invest Direct now. Second, the tax side of this comparison is messier than most guides admit. The FIF de minimis sits at $50,000 of cost price, and Budget 2026 proposed lifting it to $100,000 from 1 April 2026 — but that change is in a bill introduced on 10 September 2026 and has not been enacted. The rules are set out in full on legislation.govt.nz, and we stuck to what is currently law.

ValueHub's Trusted Providers

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Simplicity

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Simplicity is a nonprofit KiwiSaver and investment fund manager charging 0.25% p.a. across all six KiwiSaver funds. 100% owned by the Simplicity Foundation, a registered charity. Over 190,000 members. Seven rounds of fee cuts since launch in 2016. 15% of management fees are donated to NZ charities. Founded by Sam Stubbs (ex-Tower Investments CEO, Goldman Sachs).

The Quick Summary (60-Second Version)

If you only read one part of this review, read this.

• Sharesies charges 1.9 per cent per buy or sell order, capped at $25 NZD on NZ shares, $15 AUD on Australian shares and $5 USD on US shares.
• The NZ cap only bites on orders of $1,316 or more — below that you pay the straight 1.9 per cent.
• There is no minimum investment and fractional shares are available, so you can start with any amount.
• Managed funds bought through the platform carry no transaction fee at all; you pay only the fund's own management fee.
• Plans from $3 to $15 a month cover a set amount of buy and sell orders, plus a higher amount of auto-invest orders.
• Currency exchange may apply on top, and top-ups and withdrawals are NZD only.

Where Sharesies Actually Sits on Cost

The 1.9 per cent rate is the number people fixate on, but the cap is the number that matters. A $500 NZX order costs $9.50 under the straight rate. Any order of $1,316 or more costs $25, full stop. That makes Sharesies a low-cost option for small and frequent orders, and it means the fee never exceeds $25 on an NZX order however large that order gets.

Compare that with the tiered brokers. ASB Securities charges $15 up to $1,000, $30 between $1,000 and $10,000, then 0.30 per cent above $10,000. Invest Direct charges $29.90 per trade up to $15,000, then 0.20 per cent on the portion above. On a $500 trade, Sharesies at $9.50 beats both. On a $1,500 trade, Sharesies caps at $25 while ASB charges $30 — close enough that convenience decides it.

Flip it around and the picture changes. On a $10,000 NZX buy, ASB charges $30 and Invest Direct charges $29.90. Sharesies charges $25. That is competitive. But on a US trade the FX side starts to matter more than the brokerage, and that is where a platform with a different currency model can pull ahead.

Plans, Auto-Invest and What They Cover

Sharesies runs four plans. The $3 monthly plan covers $500 of buy and sell orders plus $1,000 of auto-invest orders each month, and comes with a Spend account earning Investback worth $12 annually, usually $25. The $7 plan covers $1,000 of buy and sell orders and $3,000 of auto-invest orders, and earns Airpoints Dollars. The $15 plan covers $5,000 and $10,000 respectively. There is also a $1 monthly kids plan, paid monthly only, for Kids Accounts.

Plan coverage renews monthly, can be paid monthly or annually, and can be cancelled any time. Annual pricing is $32.40, $75.60 and $162. Orders above your coverage fall back to the capped transaction fees. Auto-invest places orders for you on a regular schedule, and for US investments you can set a trigger price to send a buy or sell order to market during regular trading hours.

This is where Sharesies earns its keep for a steady investor. If you drip money in monthly rather than making lump-sum trades, the plan covers the transaction fees and your remaining cost is mostly currency exchange on overseas buys. The plan structure rewards exactly the behaviour that tends to work over long periods.

Tax, Funds and the Part Most Reviews Skip

The PIE layer

Most New Zealand managed funds are portfolio investment entities. An unlisted managed fund is usually a multi-rate PIE, where tax is calculated at your own prescribed investor rate and the manager handles the calculation and payment to Inland Revenue. An NZX-listed ETF is usually a listed PIE, where the fund pays tax at a flat 28 per cent inside the fund instead.

Resident individual PIRs are 10.5, 17.5 and 28 per cent, depending on your taxable income and PIE income in the two previous income years. If your marginal rate is 33 or 39 per cent, a PIE caps your tax on investment income at 28 per cent. That is a real advantage, and it is worth checking your rate whenever your income changes.

Offshore holdings and the FIF line

Offshore-domiciled ETFs and foreign shares bought through a platform sit outside the PIE regime. Your personal tax position applies, and hold enough of them and you may enter the foreign investment fund rules personally. For natural persons, the FIF rules do not apply while the total cost of your offshore attributing interests is $50,000 or less, measured on what you paid regardless of current value.

Above that, tax is generally calculated on a deemed return. Under the fair dividend rate method an individual is generally taxed on 5 per cent of the opening market value, and dividends and capital gains are not usually taxed separately. That administration is yours, which for many investors is reason enough to prefer a New Zealand-domiciled vehicle that handles it inside the fund.

What Sharesies does well here

The platform handles the mechanics. Managed funds bought through Sharesies carry no transaction fee, so you pay only the underlying fund's management fee. A W-8BEN for US withholding is completed at signup. For someone who has never filed an IR3, that removes a genuine barrier.

Questions You Might Have

Is Sharesies cheaper than a flat-fee broker?

It depends entirely on order size. On a $500 NZX order, Sharesies costs $9.50 against roughly $30 at ASB Securities or Invest Direct. On a $10,000 order, Sharesies caps at $25 and the flat-fee brokers charge around $30. The 1.9 per cent rate hurts on mid-sized orders between roughly $1,000 and $1,316, where you pay close to the cap without reaching it.

Can I buy US shares without triggering FIF rules?

Possibly. The de minimis threshold is $50,000 of cost price, measured on what you paid regardless of current value. Stay under that and the FIF rules do not apply to you personally. Note that Budget 2026 proposed lifting it to $100,000 from 1 April 2026, but that bill had not been enacted, so $50,000 remains the live threshold.

What does the 1.9 per cent fee actually cover?

It covers the buy or sell order itself, and it is capped per order: $25 on NZ shares, $15 AUD on Australian shares and $5 USD on US shares. It does not cover currency exchange, which may apply on top. Managed fund orders carry no transaction fee at all.

Do the monthly plans save me money?

If you invest regularly, usually yes. The $3 plan covers $500 of buy and sell orders and $1,000 of auto-invest orders monthly. Once your monthly activity exceeds the coverage, you drop back to the capped transaction fees, so the plan is worth it only up to the point where your order volume matches it.

Is Sharesies suitable for a large portfolio?

The cap protects you on large NZX orders, so a $50,000 NZX buy still costs $25. The bigger question is currency exchange on overseas holdings and whether a fund platform with no platform fee suits you better. For a diversified portfolio built from managed funds, the fund fee matters more than the platform fee.

What Matters Most

Sharesies is priced for a particular behaviour: small orders, made often, with money going in regularly rather than in one lump. If that is how you invest, the cap and the plans work in your favour, and the app makes the whole thing easy enough that you will actually keep doing it.

If you are placing large trades or holding a big overseas position, the currency exchange and the 1.9 per cent rate on mid-sized orders will cost you more than a flat-fee broker would. That is not a flaw in Sharesies so much as a mismatch between the platform and the order pattern.

What matters most is not the platform at all. It is how much you put in, how long you leave it, and what you pay in fees along the way. Get those three right and the choice of app is a detail.