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Plus500 | CFD provider

Steve Miley trader
Updated 23 Oct 2023

OPEN DEMO TRADING ACCOUNT
plus500 broker review

Plus500 was founded in 2008 and since 2018 has been listed on the London Stock Exchange (operating as Plus 500 Limited, symbol: PLUS and at the time of publication is a constituent of the FTSE 250 index. Plus500 are headquartered in Israel, and as we will look at below Plus500CY Ltd is regulated by the CySEC #250/14.

So, is Plus500 the right broker for you? Here we will review all you need to know, including; regulation, fees, the trading platforms, education and research, plus more.

Broker Overview

Plus500 is a CFD provider and offers CFD service only. 82% 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.

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Take a look
😁 We really liked…
  • Plus500CY Ltd. is regulated and authorised by the CySEC #250/14
  • User friendly platform
  • International support in multiple languages
😕 Could improve...
Website Plus500 | CFD provider
Founded 2008
Minimum deposit £100
Account types Just one type
You can trade Forex CFDs , CFDs , CFDs as Stocks , CFDs as Crypto (*Availability subject to regulation)

Account options

Forex CFDs

Trader Rating
Min Deposit App Support Max Leverage Trading Fees
£100 Mid 1:30 Mid

plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 offers their client a wide variety of forex pairs to trade, including the majors, minors, and emerging markets. There are 71 currency pairs to choose from, which is at the upper end of offerings among brokers. This high number of currency pairs makes Plus500 a good choice for FX traders.

CFDs

Trader Rating
Min Deposit App Support Trading Fees
£100 Mid Mid

plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 is a top provider of Contracts for Difference (CFDs) including CFDs on currencies (forex), stock indices and individual shares, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), cryptocurrencies (*Availability subject to regulation) plus commodities. They also offer options on some of these CFDs.

The breadth of different asset classes offered (particularly the ETFs, individual stocks and options markets) alongside a deep offering within most asset classes, makes Plus500 a strong candidate if you want to trade CFDs across the spectrum of financial markets.

We look at this in more details in the section below, “Offering of Tradeable Products”.

CFDs as Stocks

Trader Rating
Min Deposit App Support Max Leverage Trading Fees
£100 Good 1:5 Low

plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 offer trading in shares from the most common global markets including the USA, UK, Japan and Germany. There are many hundreds, into the thousands of different shares available to trade across the full range of industries. Leverage of up to 5:1 is available for retail clients trading individual stocks.

CFDs as Crypto (*Availability subject to regulation)

Trader Rating
Min Deposit App Support Max Leverage Trading Fees
£100 Few 1:2 Mid

plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 offers 13 of the popular cryptocurrencies and altcoins as CFDs as well as a Crypto 10 Index (*Availability subject to regulation). This is far from the highest number available in the market. More experienced cryptocurrency traders, looking for niche cryptocurrencies will perhaps look elsewhere for a broker offering a deeper number of cryptocurrency options. With Plus500 the leverage for retail clients trading cryptocurrencies is 2:1.

Plus500 do not offer direct buying of the underlying cryptocurrency assets on an outright basis.

Plus500 review

What do our traders think about Plus500?

Trust and Regulation

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plus500 disclaimer

We would view Plus500 as a very trustworthy broker. For a start it is publicly listed on the UK stock market and is a FTSE 250 company. Plus500 operates through different subsidiaries and each of them is regulated in its country. Plus500CY Ltd is authorized & regulated by CySEC (#250/14).

Trust and regulation Plus500
Year established 2008
Publicly traded Yes

Offering of Tradeable Products

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plus500 disclaimer

As we have touched on above, the extent of different asset classes offered (including ETFs, individual stocks and options markets) alongside a wide offering within each asset class. makes Plus500 a strong candidate if you want to trade CFDs across many different financial markets.

We have already noted the high number of forex pairs on offer at 71, plus thousands of individual stocks that can be traded via CFDs. On the stock index side there are 28 different indices available to trade, which include both country and regional averages, as well as some sector indices (including a Cannabis Stock Index, Lithium & Battery Index and Real Estate Giants Index)

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Plus500 Product offer

On the Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) side, traders and investors looking for maybe longer-term portfolio diversification benefits of ETFs will appreciate the 95 different ETF CFDs available. These are offered with up to 5:1 leverage.

The crypto offering is relatively light (*availability subject to regulation), with 13 cryptocurrencies and one crypto index, whilst on the commodity side the offering is again fairly strong, with 22 to select from (with leverage of up to 20:1). There are no bond markets available to trade.

Product offering Plus500
How many Forex Pairs offered 71
How many Stock Indices offered 28
How many Individual stocks offered Thousands
How many Bonds offered 0
How many Commodities offered 22
How many Crypto pairs offered (*Availability subject to regulation) 14

Finally, Plus500 also offer options trading. Options are a derivative product that will likely appeal to the more experienced trader, and Plus500 offer a range of options across stock indices, individual shares and commodities.

Generally, we are very impressed by the overall width and depth of the offering and the large number of tradeable products from Plus500.

Fees/Commissions

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plus500 disclaimer

As with most brokers, Plus500 does not charge any deposit or commission fees. The bid/ask spread (the difference between the buy and sell price of an asset) is the “fee” paid by the user.

The spreads offered by Plus500 are aligned with the average for the industry but given the fact that we would place Plus500 as a higher tier broker, spreads are wider than the best spreads offered by some of the other upper tier brokers.  For EUR/USD, the spread is variable. In addition, Plus500 does not offer discounted spreads to more active traders or Professional traders (*Traders with professional accounts lose their ICF rights).

Plus500 Fees

In addition, there are some other trading and non-trading fees that you should be aware of including:

Inactivity Fee

A fee of up to $10 USD (or equivalent) per month will be charged if you don’t log in to your trading account for a period of at least three months. From then onwards, this fee will then be charged monthly if no login is made into your account.

Guaranteed Stop Order Fee

Certain instruments allow for a ‘Guaranteed Stop’, which guarantees that a position will be closed out at exactly the price specified with zero risk of slippage. However, there is a price for this peace-of-mind which is charged via a wider spread than normal.

Fees/ Commissions Plus500
EUR/USD average spread Variable
EUR/USD minimum spread Variable
Minimum account opening deposit £100
Withdrawal Fee 0 (Plus500 may charge the trader fees after the 5th withdrawal of the month.)
Inactivity Fee £10

There are three account types with Plus500; the Demo Account, Retail Account (Standard Account) and Professional Account (*Traders with professional accounts lose their ICF rights).

We like the fact that the Demo Account doesn’t have any time restrictions, for example, a 30-day time limit, which we’ve seen with other brokers.

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Trading Platform

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plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 does not support the popular MetaTrader trading platforms, which are offered by most, but not all of its competitors. Some traders might see this as a significant disadvantage, but the in-house platform, Plus500 WebTrader is a very solid offering.

Plus500 Trading Platform

The trading platform is functional and particularly user-friendly. There are the usual technical analysis indicators and drawing tools, an economic calendar, plus real-time sentiment analysis. There are 110 technical analysis indicators alongside 22 chart/ drawing tools available, plus the important functionality to be able to save chart layouts.

Pluss500 Platform review

There are also the usual trading tools available for traders to help minimise losses and lock in profits such as Stop Loss, Stop Limit and Trailing Stop, but also a Guaranteed Stop Loss. The Guaranteed Stop limits your risk by putting an absolute limit on your potential loss and protects you against losses even if the price of the instrument suddenly moves against you (known as slippage). This tool is only available on some markets and comes at a cost of a wider initial trading spread.

plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 Platform Tools

There is also a very impressive alerts feature. This allows you not only to set an alert for any individual market when it moves above or below a certain price level, but also to set an alert on a percentage change in the price for the day or for the hour. Furthermore, it is possible to set an alert when the trader sentiment tool moves above or below a certain level. Alerts can be received on the platform, via email and SMS text.

Plus500 Bitcoin Trading

Platform feature Plus500
Own platform Yes
Demo account offered Yes
MT4 No
MT5 No
cTrader No
Chart Indicators 110
Chart drawing tools 22

Related

Mobile Offering

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plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 offers a mobile app for both Apple and Android phones and the experience efficiently replicates the experience from the WebTrader platform. As with the WebTrader platform, the app has the same user-friendly functionality and mirrors the 22 chart/ drawing tools and 110 technical analysis indicators, alongside the alerts access we discuss above. The only drawback is that any settings on the charts saved on the mobile and/ or WebTrader platform are not mirrored.

Plus500 Mobile Trading

The economic calendar can be accessed via the app, but the limited education and research offerings are not accessible in the app.

Mobile feature Plus500
Own Apple app Yes
Own Android app Yes
Third party app (MT4/MT5/other) No

Plus500 App iPhone Android

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Education

Trader Rating

plus500 disclaimer

The educational offering from Plus 500 is very light, given the calibre of the broker in other areas. There are a handful (7) of very brief videos in the Trader’s Guide series, which is far from a well-bounded, in-depth educational offering from a broker of the standing of Plus500. There just isn’t enough content to engage and educate their clients, Plus500 could do better.

Plus500 Education

Education feature Plus500
Webinars No
Videos Yes
Community Forums No
Education Organized by Experience Level No
Education Organized by Topic No
Education Organized by Type No
Has Education – Forex Yes
Has Education – Stock Indices No
Has Education – Individual Stocks No
Has Education – Bonds No
Has Education – Commodities Yes
Has Education – Crypto (*Availability subject to regulation) Yes
Investor Dictionary/ Glossary No

Research

Trader Rating

plus500 disclaimer

The offering of research from Plus500 is similar to the educational content, in that it is sparse and could certainly do with being improved, given Plus500 is placed in the higher tier amongst brokers.

There is a quick look “snapshot’ of each market, where traders can easily see information at a glance such as traders’ sentiment, current spread, overnight funding costs, leverage, a basic chart and related instruments.

Plus500 Research

There is also a News and Markets Insights section on the website that has research articles posted sporadically. However, these are fairly infrequent (2-3 a week) and have little depth.

There is also an economic calendar available and the sentiment alert indicators we highlighted in the platform section above, which is a useful research add on.

Plus500 Market calendar

Research feature Plus500
Research Organized by Experience Level No
Research Organized by Topic No
Research Organized by Type No
Has Research – Forex Yes
Has Research – Stock Indices Yes
Has Research – Individual Stocks Yes
Has Research – Bonds No
Has Research – Commodities Yes
Has Research – Crypto (*Availability subject to regulation) Yes

Customer Support

Trader Rating

plus500 disclaimer

Plus500 stands out from many of its competitors as it offers customer service that is contactable 24/7 to answer any questions or queries you may have. This is a significant plus in the market, as most brokers only offer support 24/5, Monday to Friday. These additional operating hours will undoubtedly add value for Plus500 clients who trade on the weekend.

Plus500 Customer Support

The customer service team can be contacted 24/7 via live chat, WhatsApp and email, but they do not offer phone support at all. The inability to contact the support team by telephone may deter some clients, who prefer to speak with agents on the phone.

Plus500 WhatsApp

Plus500 operate in 50 countries, with the website is available in 32 languages, with support available in many of these languages.

Customer support Plus500
Customer call support Mon-Fri over 8 hours No
Customer call support Mon-Fri 24 hours No
Customer call support Saturday all day No
Customer call support Saturday part day No
Customer call support Sunday all day No
Customer call support Sunday part day No
Web Chat Yes

Overview

Trader Rating

plus500 disclaimer

Overall it is a mixed offering from Plus500. The breadth and depth of different tradable markets is very impressive, as is the 24/7 customer support, via email, live chat and WhatsApp. Although the web based and mobile platform options are relatively basic, they are extremely user-friendly, with a large number of technical analysis tools, plus customisable alerts.

However, the educational content is far from adequate given the standing of Plus500 and would be disappointing for a novice trader. Also, more advanced technical traders would probably want more from the trading platform, whilst the research area is lacking any depth.

As an whole package, we believe that the User-friendliness, 24/7 customer support and high level of regulation (and trust) makes Plus500 a strong contender for traders.

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Plus500 FAQs

You can withdraw your funds from Plus500 through any of the following methods

  • Card Payments
  • Bank wire transfer
  • eWallets

The broker does not charge a fee for withdrawals but routes the payouts to the same payment gateway from where your deposits originated. So, if you have deposited funds from your card, the withdrawal would also be processed to your card.

Steve has 29 years of financial market experience including 3 years at Credit Suisse and 15 years at Merril Lynch. Steve is the Academic Dean for The London School of Wealth Management and has won many awards from Technical Analyst Magazine.