Is it worth paying the £3 monthly fee for this high interest rate?
The Santander Edge Saver pays 6%, which is higher than any other easy-access account right now.
But there are drawbacks, including the requirement to open a Santander Edge current account (which has a monthly fee), a limited balance that earns interest and a bonus that ends after 12 months.
When you take all that into account, just how much will you earn? Here’s our analysis.
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What is the Santander Edge current account?
The key requirement for the Edge Saver account is you must have a Santander Edge current account. Opening this be subject to a credit score – something you don’t need to think about with most savings accounts.
The account itself can earn you cashback on some spending and bills. Unless you’ve already got the now-defunct Santander 123 current account, this is probably the best way to earn a little on your key bills. Though at 1% don’t get too excited.
Cashback is capped at £10 a month. Even though that means the potential to earn £120 a year, I don’t think you actually will because your spend on bills is likely lower – as my analysis shows.
And another big reason you’ll get less is the £3 monthly fee. That £36 a year will wipe out much of the cashback you earn on your bills. So why bother, well if the £36 is accounted for, it means you will be getting the full 6% on your savings in the linked Edge Saver.
Can you avoid the Santander Edge £3 fee?
If you don’t want to earn cashback on the Santander Edge current account, you might be able to avoid the £3 fee altogether.
As long as you don’t set up any direct debits, you won’t get charged each month, but you’ll still be able to open up the Edge Saver and earn the full 6%.
However, Santander reserves the right to move you off the Edge current account if you don’t meet the criteria, which would lose you access to the Edge Saver too.
What is the Santander Edge Saver?
If you have the Edge current account you’ll be able to open up a Santander Edge Saver account.
The Edge Saver pays a 6% AER interest rate, but that contains a 2.5% bonus for 12 months, so it’ll drop to 3.5% after a year (though as the rate is variable, it could go up or down in this time).
Note the rate has changed a few times. Most recently, if you opened it between 1 August 2024 and 26 March 2025 the 12 month bonus was 1.5%. Between then and mid-September 2025 it was 2%.
The interest is also only on balances of up to £4,000. Anything in the account above this will earn nothing at all. That means if you have the full £4,000 saved you’ll get the gross rate of 5.84%. It make sense to withdraw interest each month in this case and put into another account paying a decent rate.
The joint account hack
Each person is allowed only one Edge Saver per Edge current account, but there is a way you might be able to get more.
Joint Edge account holders can get one saver each even though they’d have just one current account. That helps limit the impact of the fee on savings held by the couple, so you’ll earn even more.
And you could each have a personal account as well. So between the two of you, that could be four Edge savers. However, that could be three lots of the fee – unless you avoid it as detailed above.
The second year hack
Another hack will let you get the top rate again after 12 months. Rather than just keep your existing Edge Saver open at the lower rate, close it down.
Then after a few days you’ll be able to apply for a new Edge Saver, which should include the 12 month bonus.
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How much interest will you earn in the first year?
If you cover or don’t pay the fee
Assuming you’re accounting for the fee against the cashback or are avoiding it being charged, you’ll get the full 6% AER back on your savings.
If you have the full £4,000 saved in the account for a year, the interest won’t compound, so you’ll earn the gross rate of 5.84%, and make £233.60 in interest in the first year. That’s pretty decent right now.
In the tables below we’ve shown the total you’ll make in the second column depending on how much you have saved and how many Edge Savers you have open.
If you need to factor in the fee
But it’s not always possible to cancel out the Edge current account fee. You might have been forced to set up direct debits for a switching deal for instance. In that case then you’ll need to deduct it from your earnings.
The tables below show how much you’d earn on different balances after the fee and the real interest rate when that happens.
I’ve also split the analysis to show how this builds if you are able to open up additional Edge Savers by having a joint Edge current account, or a mix of personal and joint accounts.
One Edge account with one Edge Saver
Without the fee, 6% is one of the highest-paying options out there. But it drops a lot if you do need to account for £3 a month.
Importantly, don’t have less than £600 in there as you’ll be losing money! I’d suggest you also want to look elsewhere if you have £3,000 or less in savings.
| Amount saved | Annual Interest | Interest after £36 fee | Effective interest rate |
| £500.00 | £30.00 | -£6.00 | -0.60% |
| £1,000.00 | £60.00 | £24.00 | 2.40% |
| £1,500.00 | £90.00 | £54.00 | 3.60% |
| £2,000.00 | £120.00 | £86.00 | 4.3% |
| £2,500.00 | £150.00 | £114.00 | 4.56% |
| £3,000.00 | £180.00 | £144.00 | 4.80% |
| £3,500.00 | £210.00 | £174.00 | 5% |
| £4,000.00 | £233.60 | £197.60 | 4.94% |
One joint Edge account with two Edge Savers
Of course if you have the joint account instead you can open two Edge saver accounts and pay just one fee. Then the rate starts to improve, as this table below shows.
The amount saved is the cumulative amount across two savers, even though you’d only be allowed up to £4,000 in each one.
| Amount saved | Annual Interest | Interest after £36 fee | Effective interest rate |
| £4,500.00 | £270.00 | £234.00 | 5.20% |
| £5,000.00 | £300.00 | £264.00 | 5.28% |
| £5,500.00 | £330.00 | £294.00 | 5.35% |
| £6,000.00 | £360.00 | £324.00 | 5.40% |
| £6,500.00 | £390.00 | £354.00 | 5.45% |
| £7,000.00 | £420.00 | £384.00 | 5.49% |
| £7,500.00 | £450.00 | £414.00 | 5.52% |
| £8,000.00 | £467.20 | £431.20 | 5.39% |
One personal Edge and one joint Edge account with three Edge Savers
You can build on this again if you have another £4,000 to save by adding a personal account alongside the joint account to open another Edge Saver – though you’ll be doubling the fee to £72 a year.
| Amount saved | Annual Interest | Interest after £72 fee | Effective interest rate |
| £8,500.00 | £510.00 | £474.00 | 5.58% |
| £9,000.00 | £540.00 | £504.00 | 5.6% |
| £9,500.00 | £570.00 | £534.00 | 5.62% |
| £10,000.00 | £600.00 | £564.00 | 5.64% |
| £10,500.00 | £630.00 | £594.00 | 5.65% |
| £11,000.00 | £660.00 | £624.00 | 5.67% |
| £11,500.00 | £690.00 | £654.00 | 5.68% |
| £12,000.00 | £700.80 | £628.80 | 5.24% |
Two personal and one joint account with four Edge Savers
Or if you really go to town – and pay the fee three times with a joint account and a personal account each you can open up a total of four Edge Savers. Obviously one of these account fees might be covered by cashback.
| Amount saved | Annual Interest | Interest after £108 fee | Effective interest rate |
| £12,500.00 | £750.00 | £714.00 | 5.71% |
| £13,000.00 | £780.00 | £744.00 | 5.72% |
| £13,500.00 | £810.00 | £474.00 | 5.73% |
| £14,000.00 | £840.00 | £804.00 | 5.74% |
| £14,500.00 | £870.00 | £834.00 | 5.75% |
| £15,000.00 | £900.00 | £864.00 | 5.76% |
| £15,500.00 | £930.00 | £894.00 | 5.77% |
| £16,000.00 | £934.40 | £826.40 | 5.17% |
Watch out for tax on multiple Edge Savers
If you have multiple separate Edge Savers, there’s a risk the rate will reduce again thanks to tax. Don’t forget the tax-free Personal Savings Allowance is only £1,000 or £500, depending on your tax bracket.
That means any earnings over these amounts will be taxed at 20% and 40% respectively. Plus the PSA is only on earnings before the fee.
However, since the joint account interest will be shared 50/50 it means only higher rate tax paying couples with four Edge Savers and the full £16,000 saved will need to worry too much – unless you have savings elsewhere which also contribute to your tax-free allowance.
How does it compare to other savings accounts?
You can’t get close to 6% on a lump sum anywhere else right now, though regular savers do pay more, with accounts up to 7%.
If you are paying the fee you may be better with an account with a lower AER, but will pay you more overall.
The best savings accounts
Check out our list of the highest paying regular, easy-access, fixed and ethical savings accounts
Is Santander Edge Saver any good?
Andy’s Analysis
Despite the drop from 7% to 6% last year, when you compare the headline interest rates it’s a really decent rate, that’s currently well above the rest.
However, when you factor in the £36 fee it does mean it’s not as strong as others – though rates will fall elsewhere too.
And if you add in extra current accounts to give you access to more Edge Savers you’ll still be looking at close to 5.8% on balances up to £16,000.
Plus, remember that 6% rate is only for 12 months.
Summary
Santander Edge Saver
Santander Edge Saver
Customer rating
3.9/5
-
AER (variable)6%
-
Interest earnedIn separate account
-
Minimum£0
-
Maximum£4,000
- Bonus Includes 2.5% bonus for 12 months
- FSCS Protected? Yes
- Requirements Requires Santander Edge current account (£3 monthly fee). You can open one Edge Saver with a personal account and two Edge Savers with a joint account.
How to get a Santander Edge Saver account
You’ll need to open up the Santander Edge account – here’s my full review. Note this isn’t available to customers with the Edge Up current account.
There’s also the chance to get an extra £10 to £20 cashback when you first apply for the current account (details below).
Quidco & TopCashback: Up to £20 when you open an Edge account
If you apply for the Santander Edge account via cashback sites Quidco or TopCashback there’s often an extra you can earn on top, normally between £10 and £20 (the amount varies).
If you’re not already a customer of either site then make sure you sign up for a welcome offer first, worth up to £17 – though this can’t be used in conjunction with the Santander offer so you’ll need to make a purchase elsewhere first.
