Which NZ platform is cheapest for you?

Sharesies charges percentage-based brokerage (1.9%, capped) which is competitive for small orders but adds up at scale. Hatch charges a flat US$3 per trade, which becomes proportionally cheaper as trade sizes grow. InvestNow and Kernel charge nothing on transactions for managed fund investing, but do charge annual fund management fees. As your portfolio grows, the annual fund fee becomes the dominant cost. The right platform depends on your trade size, frequency, and whether you want direct shares or managed funds.

For most funds on InvestNow, yes - no platform fee and no transaction fee. The exception is InvestNow's own Foundation Series funds, which have a 0.50% buy fee and 0.50% sell fee on top of the annual fund charge. For Smartshares ETFs, Milford, Generate, and most other third-party funds on InvestNow, there are no transaction fees at all. You pay only the fund's management fee, deducted from the fund's assets annually.

No transaction fees and no platform fee. You pay only the fund management fee, which is 0.25% per year on Kernel's core index funds (Global 100, S&P 500, NZ 20) and up to 0.65% on some specialist funds. On a $10,000 portfolio in Kernel's Global 100 fund, that's $25 per year in fees - deducted from the fund's returns rather than charged to your account separately.

The $7/month plan gives you $1,000 of NZ/AU/US orders per month and $3,000 of auto-invest orders covered. If you're investing more than roughly $370 NZD per month in NZ or AU shares on a pay-as-you-go basis (where 1.9% brokerage applies), the $7 plan becomes cheaper. For US shares, the pay-as-you-go US$5 cap means the $7 plan mainly helps if you're making multiple smaller US trades per month.

Yes, and many NZ investors do. A common combination is InvestNow or Kernel for the core managed fund / PIE fund portfolio (no transaction fees, FIF handled internally), alongside Hatch for direct US ETF exposure. The key thing to track if you hold direct overseas investments on Hatch or Sharesies is your total combined cost basis across all platforms - the $50,000 FIF threshold applies across all your overseas holdings, not per platform.