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For more advanced traders, we think Plus500 is the better option – it’s well established, there’s lots of advanced trading features, along with a great user experience for traders on the platform itself. eToro is great for those new to trading – it’s a bit simpler to use and to build experience trading.
Keen to find a great new trading platform? Or narrowed it down to eToro and Plus500? Good decision – they’re two of the best trading platforms out there, but ultimately which is the best for you? Let’s find out.
eToro is a pretty awesome investment and trading platform – it’s perfect for beginners all the way to advanced traders, and used by over 30 million people worldwide (that’s a lot!) – it’s well established, and has been around since 2007.
What makes it different from other investment platforms is that it offers social trading (copy trading), so you can follow, interact and copy successful traders – it’s a big worldwide community investing together.
Nuts About Money tip: if you’re only looking for a copy-trading or social trading platform. eToro is the best copy trading platform.
You don’t have to interact with anyone if you don’t want to though, the platform itself is great, and it’s low cost, with a huge range of investment options – including stocks, ETFs, crypto, currencies and commodities (real things such as gold and silver).
Learn more: here’s our eToro review. eToro also offers a demo account.
Already keen to get started with eToro? Head over to the eToro website¹.
Plus500 is one of the most established trading platforms in the world. It’s been around since 2008 and now has over 24 million customers.
It’s pretty unique as a trading platform, you can see a range of insights from all the other investors on the platform. For instance, you can see the top trending stocks, most profitable trades, and stocks everyone is buying or selling. It’s all pretty cool.
That’s alongside it being a great all-round trading platform, with a huge range of investment options and low cost.
By the way, all the investments are CFDs (Contract For Differences), which means you are trading the price of an asset, rather than buying the asset (like a stock) directly (typical for most trading platforms).
Learn more: here’s our Plus500 review. Plus500 also offers a demo account.
When we say investment platform, we mean the software you actually use to make the trades and investments – so the website and mobile apps on your phone. With both eToro and Plus500, they’re great.
eToro is great for beginners all the way to advanced traders – the platform is easy to use and you don’t need previous experience.
You can research all the investments on the platform and find new trades yourself, or join in with the community and view and copy successful traders.
Plus500 is similar overall, but more suited and designed for those more experienced – with lots more advanced features for traders.
When viewing an asset you'll see a chart of the current and historic price, alongside the trading volume (how many people are buying and selling), and other more advanced features.
If you’ve never traded before, it might be a bit complicated, but Plus500 does offer everything you need to learn.
In terms of the mobile apps themselves, they’re both great for mobile trading – with both, you can do everything you can on their website (via a desktop computer), and they offer a great way to trade on the go.
Overall, we’re going to give this one to Plus500.
eToro might be easier to get to grips with, but Plus500 has great experience, suited to more advanced traders.
Note: when it comes to getting started, the minimum deposit for eToro is $50 and Plus500 is $100.
Winner: eToro
There’s more advanced features and the trading experience overall is great.
This one is going to be quick, with both eToro and Plus500, you can only open a standard trading account – typically called a General Investment Account (GIA). This is typical with all trading platforms that offer CFDs, as you can’t trade CFDs within other account types.
The other popular account type for investing in the UK is a Stocks and Shares ISA (where you can save tax-free up to £20,000 per tax year).
You could also invest within a self-invested personal pension (where your money grows tax-free, and you also get a 25% bonus on your contributions to repay some tax you've paid on your earnings).
Nuts About Money tip: if you are looking for an ISA, here’s the best Stocks and Shares ISAs. For pensions, check out the best SIPP providers, and the best personal pensions.
So, overall, this one is a draw.
Winner: it’s a draw!
There is a difference between the two investment platforms – Plus500 is purely a CFD trading platform, so you can only trade CFDs (trade the price of an asset), whereas with eToro, you can trade CFDs, but also buy the assets directly (e.g. buy and own stocks).
This is an important difference, as you may want to buy the asset directly for some investment strategies, such as longer term investing (rather than day trading). And, if you want to trade crypto in the UK, by law you have to buy the asset directly, rather than using a CFD broker.
Nuts About Money tip: if you’re keen on crypto trading, check out the best crypto exchanges.
Although CFDs offer huge benefits, such as trading both price directions (so predicting a price will go up or down in future).
They also offer the ability to trade with leverage, which is where you can trade with more money than you have – it’s high risk, so please be careful. This is also called margin trading.
In terms of the actual range of investments, eToro offers: stocks, commodities (real things like gold), ETFs (groups of shares), currencies (forex trading), crypto (e.g. Bitcoin) – and there’s a huge range options within each investment type. You can find the whole range on the eToro website¹.
With Plus500, it’s again similar, with a huge range of investment options within stocks, commodities, ETFs, currencies (forex), and crypto (not in the UK though). There’s also ‘options’ (via CFDs), which are contracts to buy an asset in future at a set price (they are typically used by advanced traders).
Overall then, we’re going to give this one to eToro – as you can buy assets directly, alongside trading CFDs – so are able to invest using multiple investment strategies (such as long term investing), all for a very low cost (more on fees below). And, you can trade crypto alongside stocks and shares and other assets (if you want to).
Winner: eToro
Did we mention they are both quite similar? Well, when it comes to the fees, they’re similar again. The main fees are spread fees and currency conversion fees.
Both platforms use spread fees – that’s a small fee included in the price of an asset (when you buy and sell). It's kind of like a hidden fee within the asset (although you’ll be told the amount when you buy or sell). So, if you bought and sold it immediately, you would get slightly less back.
It’s a bit confusing, but it’s used by pretty much every trading platform out there.
The spread fees are low on both eToro and Plus500, and what you’ll end up paying all depends on the assets you trade – with the more popular assets having lower fees.
You’ll also pay a currency conversion fee if you trade assets that aren't in your local currency (e.g. using Pounds to trade US stocks in Dollars).
With eToro, the whole platform is run in Dollars, which makes things a bit easier, but this means if you deposit Pounds (GBP) into your account, it will be converted into Dollars (USD) straight away. The fee is 0.50%, which is reasonable compared to most trading platforms.
With Plus500, you’ll only convert your money when you want to trade in another currency, e.g. when you buy US stocks – however, the currency conversion fee is higher at 0.70% (so it's good news, bad news).
On both platforms there are some additional fees, such as overnight fees if you hold a CFD position overnight (very low fees), and fees for inactivity (3 months with Plus500, and 12 months with eToro (both $10 per month)). There’s also a $5 withdrawal fee with eToro.
Note: by the way, eToro actually pays Stamp Duty for you if you buy UK stocks directly. Pretty nice of them – saving 0.50% per purchase.
Overall, as the spread fees are similar, and ultimately it comes down to what assets you’d like to trade, and what features you are using – so we’re calling this one a draw.
Winner: it’s a draw!
We like to look at customer reviews to get a good idea of the customer service, and the customer satisfaction overall.
On the popular reviews website, Trustpilot, eToro has an excellent rating of 4.2 out of 5, from over 23,000 reviews. Lots of the reviews mention how good the customer service is, and how great the platform is overall.
Plus500 also has a great score, although just a bit lower, with 4.1 out of 5, and from over 13,000 reviews. Lots of reviews mention how great the trading software is, and the customer service.
Winner: eToro wins (just)
Both eToro and Plus500 are great trading platforms, so whichever one you ultimately pick, you’ll be using one of the best out there.
We’re going to split this up for advanced traders and those new to trading.
For everyday traders and professionals, we’re calling Plus500¹ the winner. It’s really great, and the platform overall has pretty much every feature you’d want, and the experience is purpose built for advanced traders.
For those new to trading, we’re calling eToro¹ the winner. It’s easier to use, with a simpler interface and experience – which means there’s not as many advanced trading features. It’s also great for copy trading (social trading), being able to learn from and interact with other investors, and simply copy their trades.
With eToro, you can also buy and hold investments directly, so more suited to long term investors, rather than day traders.
Overall, Plus500¹ is great, and if you’re an advanced trader, it’s one of the best day trading platforms. It’s suited for CFD trading, there’s a huge range of investment options, and the platform itself is great, with advanced features, and unique insights based on data from other traders on the platform.
All the best trading!
Winner: Plus500
Plus500UK Ltd is authorised & regulated by the FCA (#509909).
80% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFDs.
Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 51% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
This communication is intended for information and educational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or investment recommendation. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
Copy Trading does not amount to investment advice. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.
Don’t invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more
eToro USA LLC does not offer CFDs and makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared by our partner utilizing publicly available non-entity specific information about eToro
There’s more advanced features and the trading experience overall is great.
There’s more advanced features and the trading experience overall is great.
There’s more advanced features and the trading experience overall is great.
Edward Savage is a leading expert on money, with a background of 8 years working in financial services in London, has a business, accounting and finance degree, runs an investing community, and teaches people about money. He writes about all aspects of personal finance, including pensions, investing, mortgages and insurance.
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There’s more advanced features and the trading experience overall is great.