Plus500 Review
Usability first
Pros
- Free demo account
- User-friendly trading platform
- Good mobile app
- Many trading instruments
- Competitive spreads
Cons
- No MetaTrader platform
- Fewer analysis tools
Contents
8.
Introduction
Those who search the internet for experiences with the CFD broker Plus500 often come across negative reviews of people who feel robbed. This is caused by the fact that Plus500 also attracts users who have little knowledge of CFD trading because of their simple platform. Beginners are adviced to first use the demo account. These people do not know how to deal with CFDs and as a result they lose their investment, after which they blame Plus500 for this. However, if you know how to trade with CFDs, it is a great way to trade in large amounts of stocks with a small capital because of leverage.
You should keep in mind that 76.4% 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.
Plus500 is one of the better of hundreds of active CFD brokers worldwide. It is best known for their clear and easy-to-use trading platform. This broker was established in 2008 and offers a lot of trading instruments. It is one of the largest brokers in the world and has an intuitive and nicely designed website and mobile app.
Is Plus500 reliable?
Plus500 is registered in Cyprus with the name Plus500CY Ltd. and is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. According to European regulations, Plus500 must also meet the conditions for offering financial services in the United Kingdom. Plus500UK Ltd. is authorized and regulated by the FCA (reference number 509909). This is one of the strictest financial regulators in the world. This ensures you a secure trading environment. So you can say that it is a reliable broker where you can trade with confidence.
Trading instruments
You can trade CFDs in forex, cryptocurrency, indices, commodities, stocks and ETFs with a maximum leverage of 1:30. Check here how a leverage works. The minimum deposit for trading CFDs with this broker is £100. The big UK companies can also be found here. The range of CFDs is big as you can see below.
Forex
Stocks
Cryptos
Commodities
Indices
ETFs
Plus500 is well known because of their nice trading platform. A lot of internal technical expertise is hidden behind this simple trading platform. This makes it possible to respond very quickly to changing market conditions. It allows users for example to respond quickly to important events such as IPOs, cryptocurrencies and emerging companies such as producers of medical products based on cannabis. The trading platform of Plus500 is very clear and therefore very user-friendly. The superfluous functions that you have with competitors have been omitted for efficient trading. Some functions of this platform are:
- Stop limit / Stop loss / Trailing stop
- Guaranteed stop
- E-mail & push notifications on market events
- Warnings on price movements
- Free real-time quotes
- Percentage change & sentiment of traders
- 24/7 support
Plus500 has good customer service and can be reached via live chat, social media and contact form. Experienced investors may miss some analysis options in the trading platform. The user interface of the webtrader looks like this:
Prices in the image are illustrative. The menu is in the blue bar on the left. The available assets and your profit/loss can be seen in the top bar. The trade graph can be seen at the bottom of the screen. This chart is available as a candle chart or as a line chart. By laying technical indicators over the price chart you can make an analysis of the price fluctuations. You can also change the time unit from 1 minute to 1 week.
Plus500 has recently made educational material available under the so-called Trader’s Guide in the form of videos and accompanying text. Here you can learn all about the trading platform and trading CFDs.
Fees and commissions
Plus500 offers tight fixed and variable spreads. The spread is the difference between the purchase price and the selling price. For example, if the purchase price of Shell is 21.44 and the sale price is 21.40, then the spread is 0.04. The lower the spread, the better. It is also useful to know that an inactivity fee of £10 is deducted from your account every month if you do not log in for more than 3 months. So make sure you log in regularly.
Below you can see the costs of a number of common transactions with different CFD brokers. These are long 20:1 CFD and 30:1 forex positions held for 1 week (source: brokerchooser.com). For a complete cost comparison you can check out the CFD comparison page. The spreads on CFDs are low in general as you can see in the table below. The fee for CFD overnight positions is a bit higher than with other brokers.
£2.000 Apple CFD
£2.000 Europe 50 Index CFD
£20.000 EUR/USD
£20.000 GBP/USD
£8.90
£1.30
£17.90
£14
£0.90
£1.60
£17.30
£18.20
£6.30
£2.70
£19.60
£16.20
£6.40
£2.50
£24.50
£25
£3.40
£2.40
£17.10
£13.80
In short
Plus500 is a well-arranged, easy-to-use broker with high reliability. This broker has good customer support services. However, the advanced investor will miss some analysis functions. Thanks to its competitive spreads and attractive trading platform, Plus500 is the ideal broker for beginning to average skilled CFD investors.
- Very user-friendly
- Competitive spreads
- No MetaTrader platform
- Fewer analysis tools
# Active investors
200,000
Reliability
Trading platform
- MetaTrader 4
- MetaTrader 5
- Social platform
- Type of investor
Beginner
- Functions
Average
- Mobile app
Spreads
Low
Spread EUR/USD*
0.6
Tradable assets
2,000
CFDs in shares
1,900
CFDs in forex
50 pairs
CFDs in cryptos
14
CFDs in commodities
22
CFDs in indices
30
CFDs in ETFs
95
Loss-making investors
76.4%
Customer service
Education
Usability
Inactivity fee
£10 PM after 3 months
Bankoverschrijving
Creditcard
PayPal
- Excellent platform
- Low spreads
- Also share dealing
- High trading fees
# Active investors
Unknown
Reliability
Trading platform
- MetaTrader 4
- MetaTrader 5
- Social platform
- Type of investor
Active
- Functions
Professional
- Mobile app
Spreads
Low
Spread EUR/USD*
0.5
Tradable assets
2,200
CFDs in shares
2,000
CFDs in forex
67 pairs
CFDs in cryptos
6
CFDs in commodities
26
CFDs in indices
43
CFDs in ETFs
57
Loss-making investors
75%
Customer service
Education
Usability
Inactivity fee
£10 PM after 3 months
Bank transfer
Credit card
PayPal
- Very user-friendly
- Competitive spreads
- No MetaTrader platform
- Fewer analysis tools
# Active investors
200,000
Reliability
Trading platform
- MetaTrader 4
- MetaTrader 5
- Social platform
- Type of investor
Beginner
- Functions
Average
- Mobile app
Spreads
Low
Spread EUR/USD*
0.6
Tradable assets
2,000
CFDs in shares
1,900
CFDs in forex
50 pairs
CFDs in cryptos
14
CFDs in commodities
22
CFDs in indices
30
CFDs in ETFs
95
Loss-making investors
76.4%
Customer service
Education
Usability
Inactivity fee
£10 PM after 3 months
Bankoverschrijving
Creditcard
PayPal
- Social trading platform
- Copy professionals
- No MetaTrader platform
- High spreads on crypto
# Active investors
400,000
Reliability
Trading platform
- MetaTrader 4
- MetaTrader 5
- Social platform
- Type of investor
Allround
- Functions
Average
- Mobile app
Spreads
Average
Spread EUR/USD*
3
Tradable assets
1,200
CFDs in shares
1,000
CFDs in forex
57 pairs
CFDs in cryptos
92
CFDs in commodities
13
CFDs in indices
13
CFDs in ETFs
21
Loss-making investors
75%
Customer service
Education
Usability
Inactivity fee
£10 PM after 1 year
Bankoverschrijving
Creditcard
PayPal
- Low spreads
- Good education
- Trading instruments
- No price alerts
# Active investors
200,000
Reliability
Trading platform
- MetaTrader 4
- MetaTrader 5
- Social platform
- Type of investor
Allround
- Functions
Average
- Mobile app
Spreads
Low
Spread EUR/USD*
1.7
Tradable assets
1,300
CFDs in shares
1,200
CFDs in forex
57 pairs
CFDs in cryptos
5
CFDs in commodities
15
CFDs in indices
18
CFDs in ETFs
Loss-making investors
74%
Customer service
Education
Usability
Inactivity fee
£5 PM after 3 months
Bank transfer
Credit card
PayPal
*This was the spread on 1/1/2020
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Between 74-89% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.