Workplace Pension Charges Compared

By Sam Parkinson · Last updated: August 2026 · 6 min read

Every provider publishes its own charges. None of them publish anyone else's. So here they are side by side. Every figure below came from the provider's own pages on 30 August 2026, and each source is listed at the bottom. Where a provider does not publish a number, the table says so instead of guessing.

The charges, side by side

Provider	Percentage charge	Other charges
Nest	0.3% a year on your pot	1.8% on every new contribution. Nothing to transfer in or out.
The People's Pension	0.5% a year, less a savings reward of 0.05% to 0.3% on pots over £3,000	£6.50 a year
NOW: Pensions	0.3% a year on your pot	£1.75 a month, so £21 a year. Not taken if it would drop your pot below £100.
Smart Pension	Not published. Varies by fund.	"A small monthly fee". None if your savings are £100 or less.
Legal & General and the other insurers	Not published centrally	Agreed scheme by scheme with each employer

Two of those five will not tell you what you pay without logging in. That is worth knowing before you try to compare an old pension with a new one.

Why the headline percentage misleads

Nest and NOW: Pensions both charge 0.3%. On the percentage alone they look identical. They are not, because a flat fee lands much harder on a small pot than a large one.

Here is what each one takes in a year at three pot sizes, counting only the percentage charge and the flat fee.

Pot size	Nest	The People's Pension	NOW: Pensions
£2,000	£6.00 (0.30%)	£16.50 (0.83%)	£27.00 (1.35%)
£10,000	£30.00 (0.30%)	£56.50 (0.57%)	£51.00 (0.51%)
£50,000	£150.00 (0.30%)	£256.50 (0.51%)	£171.00 (0.34%)

My arithmetic, not the providers'. The People's Pension figures are shown before its savings reward, because the provider publishes the reward tiers but not whether the rebate applies to your whole pot or only the slice above each threshold. On a pot over £50,000 the reward is 0.3%, so the real figure will be meaningfully lower than the one shown. Nest's contribution charge is excluded here and dealt with next.

Free to reuse this table, in an article or a forum answer. Please credit Pension Sprout with a link back to this page, so readers can see the sources and the date each figure was checked.

A £2,000 pot at NOW: Pensions pays more than four times the percentage that the same pot pays at Nest, and the whole difference is one flat fee. By £50,000 the ranking has almost closed up. Anyone telling you a provider is cheap or expensive without asking how much you have in it is guessing.

Nest's contribution charge changes the answer again

Nest is the only one of the three that charges on money going in: 1.8% of every new contribution. On a pot that is still small and still being paid into, that dominates everything else.

Take someone with £2,000 saved who pays in £2,000 over the year, employer contributions included. In that year:

• Nest takes £6 from the pot and £36 from the contributions, so £42.
• The People's Pension takes £16.50.
• NOW: Pensions takes £27.

So the provider with the lowest published percentage is the most expensive of the three for a new saver, and it stays that way for years. Nest is upfront about the trade, saying the two charges together work out at "just under 0.5% of the total value of their retirement pot" across a saving lifetime. That is fair, and it is also the point: the 0.3% figure on its own tells you very little.

What the rules actually cap

The Pensions Regulator caps charges on the default fund of an auto-enrolment scheme. If the charge is a simple percentage of your pot, the limit is 0.75% a year. Schemes can use a combination instead, a percentage plus either a flat fee or a contribution charge, each with its own limit, which is exactly what Nest, The People's Pension and NOW: Pensions all do.

Since 6 April 2022 a flat fee cannot reduce a default-arrangement pot below £100, which is why NOW: Pensions and Smart Pension both mention that threshold. Two things the cap does not cover: transaction costs, which sit outside it, and older personal pensions, which are not in scope at all. If you have a pension from a job you left in the 2000s, it is the one to check first.

If your paperwork says B&CE

B&CE changed its name to People's Partnership in November 2022 and is the provider of The People's Pension. So "B&CE charges" and "People's Pension charges" are the same charges. The B&CE name still appears on some construction-sector products and on older paperwork, which is why people search for both.

What half a percent costs you

Charges compound in the same direction as growth, just against you. Put your own numbers in.

What to do with this

• Find your actual charge before you compare anything. It is on your annual statement or in your provider app, usually as "annual management charge" or "total costs and charges". If it is not clear, ask the provider for the total in pounds. They have to tell you.
• Check the pot size, not just the percentage. A flat fee on a small deferred pot from an old job is the most expensive arrangement in this whole article.
• Look hardest at pensions from previous employers. They are outside the charge cap if they are personal pensions, they are usually small, and nobody is paying into them. See finding and combining old pensions.
• Do not switch on charges alone. A workplace scheme comes with employer contributions attached, and leaving it can cost far more than any fee saves. See employer pension contributions.

Common questions

This article is for general information only and does not constitute financial advice. Provider charges were taken from each provider's own published pages on 30 August 2026 and can change at any time, so check with your own provider before acting. Growth figures are illustrations only, not guarantees; investment values can go down as well as up. If you're unsure about any pension decision, use the free government-backed guidance at MoneyHelper or speak to a financial adviser regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).