General
Features
Pros
- Advanced risk management tools
- 24/7 online support.
- 30+ languages.
- All devices.
- 0 commissions.
- Tight spreads.
- Fast and reliable order execution.
- Trading Academy
- Unlimited demo account
- Easy to use platform
Cons
- No phone support.
- Mediocre research tools
Plus500 Review
Plus500 is an online multi-asset broker that presently offers a wide range of Contracts for Difference or CFDs for its clients on over 2,800 underlying assets such as Forex, Options, Commodities, Cryptocurrencies(Availability subject to regulation). It is operated in Europe by Plus500CY Ltd., which has its base offices situated in Limassol, Cyprus and is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission or CySEC under license number 250/14.
The exact address of the UK branch is Plus500UK Ltd, 8 Angel Court, Copthall Avenue | London EC2R 7HJ. Plus500UK Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 509909)
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission or ASIC regulates its Oceanic subsidiary called Plus500AU Pty Ltd under registration number 417727. Plus500 Ltd is listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. Plus500UK Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 509909). Plus500 does not presently accept clients based in the United States.
In addition to the mentioned jurisdictions, Plus500 is licensed and regulated in New Zealand, South Africa and Singapore as well.
The operator possesses license #486026, issued by New Zealand’s FMA. In South Africa, the authority that has licensed the brokerage is the FSCA. Its South African license number is 47546.
The company representing the Plus500 brand in Singapore is Plus500SG Pte Ltd. It is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to deal in capital markets products. Its license number is CMS100648-1.
Plus500AE have acquired a DFSA license in early 2023 which means they can offer CFDs in United Arab Emirates.
Plus500 has also expanded in the US, with a licence from the CFTC to offer future trading on its Plus500Futures platform.
The official website of Plus500 is located at www.plus500.com and a screenshot of its home page is shown below:
Plus500 Features
Plus500 has a very simple trading account structure. Traders can either open a standard live trading account or a free and unlimited demo account. A live standard trading account requires a $100 minimum initial deposit.
Traders in the EU will be relieved that they cannot lose more money than they have deposited in their Plus500 trading accounts due to ESMA, Plus500 goes a step ahead and offers negative balance protection to all its CFD customers, and the company may also make margin calls when a trader’s account equity falls below the maintenance margin amount. All client money is held in segregated client bank accounts in accordance with the Financial Conduct Authority’s client money rules.
The company offers an especially wide variety of trading instruments, including CFDs on forex currency pairs, commodities on thousands of different underlying assets. Plus500 offers some unique instruments on its platform like the AI Index, ESG and Impact Indices, along with access to indices of some of the largest companies in various markets – Hong Kong 50, USA 500, Germany 40, Australia 200 and more.
Leverage at Plus500 is 1:30.
In terms of its support features, the company offers e-mail, live chat and WhatsApp support around the clock 24/7 to its clients in most regions. The company is able to do business with and support clients in over 50 countries and more than 16 languages.
Deposits and Withdrawals
Making a deposit to a Plus500 account is quite simple. Clients need to enter the company’s trading platform, click on the “Funds Management” button and choose “Deposits”. They then need to select a payment method, fill in the blanks, and click “Submit”.
Plus500 offers the following payment methods: Mastercard and Visa debit/credit cards, wire transfer, PayPal, Skrill, Trustly and some local methods which are available only to specific regions like Google Pay, Apple Pay, POLi, PayNow, Blik, iDeal, BPay, Klarna, and GiroPay. Traders could check in their account for the local methods we provide in your area if there are any.
Each type of deposit method has a minimum and maximum deposit requirement and a typical delivery time frame. Wire transfer deposits can take as many as five days to be reflected in a trading account.
Withdrawals are also performed from the trading platform. Traders just need to click the “Funds Management” button, choose “Withdrawal”, select a method of making the withdrawal, fill in blanks, and click “Submit”. The “Funds Management” screen can be accessed on mobile devices by clicking on the Menu button.
Platform & Tools
| Feature | Plus500 |
|---|---|
| Virtual Trading(Demo) | |
| Desktop Platform (Windows) | |
| Desktop Platform (Mac) | |
| Web Platform | |
| Social Trading / Copy Trading | |
| Proprietary | |
| MetaTrader 4 (MT4) | |
| MetaTrader 5 (MT5) | |
| cTrader | |
| Currenex | |
| ZuluTrade | |
| MirrorTrader | |
| Charting - Drawing Tools(Total) | |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total) | |
| Watchlists | |
| Order Type - Trailing Stop |
The trading platforms offered by Plus500 are very simple to operate and seem especially suitable for those interested in dealing in multiple markets. From a single screen, traders can obtain quotes in real time for any of these asset markets and can execute transactions as well.
The Plus500 platform is available in a desktop version called Windows Trader and a web-based version called Web-Trader. In addition, a popular mobile version of the Plus500 platform is available that works on Apple devices like the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Apple Watch. Plus500 apps also exist for mobile devices using the Android and Windows Phone operating systems.
The screenshot shown below displays the functionality of the Plus500 CFD trading platform, which includes trade execution, market pricing overview, a basic chart, position and account balance reports. The platform also has fund management capabilities, which give traders the ability to make deposits and withdrawals from their trading account.
In addition to being able to watch various markets and execute trades, Plus500’s platform lets traders easily review past transactions and keep track of current positions. The software also includes a rather basic charting facility with multiple time periods available. Unfortunately, only one chart can be displayed at a time since the system does not support the simultaneous display of multiple charts.
In addition to the functionality provided by different versions of the Plus500 trading platform, the broker has made a few extra tools available to its clients.
Plus500 has launched an amazing feature for desktop and mobile, allowing users to learn more about market trends based on the company’s unique internal data.
– Actionable insights based on Big Data
– Provides a real glimpse into the wisdom of the masses
– Trend exploration driven tool – allows users to explore data such as “most bought”, “most sold”, “most profit making positions”, etc
– Instrument drill down – how popular is this instrument?
– Discover your trading preferences, risk management usage and how they compare to other Plus500 traders
Another tool is the Economic Calendar. The broker also offers a Trade Alerts service, as well as a Trader’s Guide and Free rollover adjustment – Allows users to continue holding the same position on Commodities and Indices CFDs after the future contract reaches its expiry date. Watchlists – Users are able to manage multiple favorite lists. All features are available throughout Plus500’s native platforms (desktop/iOS/Android).
Plus500 has launched a Trading Academy, which offers a variety of educational products including eBook, video traders guide, and FAQs to ease trading for both beginner and experienced traders.
The Trading Academy can be accessed directly from the platform.
Users are able to:
– Read eBook
– Watch educational videos
– Explore FAQs
Several tools are available for risk management. Plus500 supports Guaranteed Stops and Trailing Stops, as well as Close at Profit and Close at Loss rates. These tools and their peculiarities are thoroughly explained at the broker’s website.
Asset Classes
Plus500 supports a staggering array of tradable assets. From CFDs on Indices and Cryptocurrencies(Availability subject to regulation) to Options, ETFs, Shares, Commodities and Forex, its selection is quite possibly the best in the industry.
Every one of the above categories contains scores of tradable assets. The crypto section for instance does not settle for various crypto/fiat pairs. It also features at least one crypto/crypto pair (ETH/BTC), and a crypto index: the Crypto 10 Index. This index tracks the performance of the top 10 cryptocurrencies, giving traders the ability to speculate on the performance of the sector as a whole. Availability subject to regulations.
Index-wise, the site defines a couple of different taxonomies: by country and by sector. In total, close to 50 indices can be traded.
The Forex category consists of around 100 major, minor and exotic currency pairs.
Commodities are plentiful as well. Besides the usual ones, such as oil, gas and precious metals, the broker supports various agricultural commodities, such as feeder cattle. In addition to just listing the mentioned assets, the broker offers detailed information on each one, together with trader sentiment updated in real time.
Literally hundreds of shares are supported, with some exotics among them, such as cannabis shares. The same goes for options and ETFs.
Needless to say, most of the mentioned assets are traded via CFDs. Traders will not be able to buy and hold commodities and cryptocurrencies through the broker, however, they could trade with real shares on Plus500Invest (availability subject to region) and futures on the Plus500Futures platform (available in the US only)
Commission & Fees
Plus500 runs a transparent fees/commissions model. It does not charge anything for withdrawals and deposits, charts and graphs, real time FX quotes, actual trading, CFD pricing, position rolling, etc.
The expenses traders incur are due to:
- Spreads. These can be dynamic or variable. They are displayed separately for every tradable instrument.
- Overnight funding.
- Guaranteed stop orders. These orders are usually subject to wider spreads, due to the guarantees they present.
- Inactivity fees. Traders who fail to log into their trading accounts for three months, will pay an inactivity fee of $10 per month.
Research & Education
| Feature | Plus500 |
|---|---|
| Daily Market Commentary | |
| Forex News | |
| AutoChartist | |
| Trading Central (Recognia) | |
| Delkos Research | |
| Acuity Trading | |
| Social Sentiment - Currency Pairs | |
| Client Webinars | |
| Client Webinars (Archived) | |
| Videos - Beginner Trading Videos | |
| Economic Calendar | |
| Calendar Includes Forexcasts | |
| Economic News Sentiment | |
| Trade Ideas - Backtesting |
The education offered by Plus500 is as follows:
The Trading Academy
News and Market Insights
And the webinars offered, courtesy of the Corellian Trading Academy. Made for our Premium clients each week, they videos are available for the rest of the Plus500 traders with a week delay on the Youtube channel.
Customer Service
Plus500 makes its customer support service available 24 hours per day and 7 days a week. Unfortunately, traders can only use e-mail and live chat to contact Plus500’s support staff and not telephone. This situation can be very problematic if a client’s Internet goes down and they need to close a position quickly over the phone.
A potential benefit of dealing with Plus500 is that their customer support, website and platforms are available in numerous languages. This can be a great feature for those who are not native English speakers.
The company does not seem to provide any educational materials or market commentary for traders, although it does have an online support section on its website devoted to answering frequently asked questions about its services.
Mobile Trading
| Feature | Plus500 |
|---|---|
| Android App | |
| Apple App | |
| Charting - Draw Trend Lines | |
| Charting - Can Turn Horizontally | |
| Charting - Technical Studies/Indicators | |
| Watchlist - Syncing | |
| Trading - Forex CFDs | |
| Trading - CFDs | |
| Alerts - Basic Fields |
The Android and iOS apps offered by the broker are available for download directly through Google Play and the App Store. There is a Windows Phone application available as well.
The iOS and Android apps have earned ratings of 4-4.2 out of 5 on the two platforms. They all offer excellent charting, time frames and access to most of the asset classes supported by the broker.
Conclusion
Plus500 offers a very extensive broking service that allows clients to trade CFDs on currencies, commodities, equities, options,real shares(Plus500Invest), futures(Plus500Futures) and ETFs. Their easy to use trading platform makes it possible to trade multiple assets from, and it has desktop, web and mobile versions.
Those who want to deal in a variety of asset classes using a trading platform might find Plus500 suitable for their needs. Nevertheless, this broker’s lack of phone support might be negative, especially for novice traders.
Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 81% 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.
Disclaimer for day traders: At Plus500, scalping is defined as “A trading strategy where a significant portion of the customer’s positions are opened and closed by him/her within 2 minutes.” If Plus500 believes you were following this strategy, your account might be blocked and closed. Therefore, if you plan to execute trades within 2 minutes, Plus500 is not your broker.
FAQ
Yes, Plus500 is a legitimate online trading operation. Some of the broker’s past/current customers may not agree with this statement. That does not alter the fact, however, that Plus500 delivers what it promises to deliver. It gives traders access to a range of tradable assets, it settles trades and it puts trading platforms at its clients’ disposal.
What’s more, the operation is reputable among its peers. According to its official site, it is a UK FTSE 250 company. Also, it is regulated.
Plus500 uses segregated bank accounts for client funds and it currently has more than 200,000 active customers. It has thus far turned around more than 1,310 billion dollars in traded value.
This is where casting a definitive verdict is difficult. Some of its clients appreciate its services as well. Others dislike it. Some will go as far as to call the broker a scammer.
Here is what users like about Plus500.
• There is a unlimited demo account.
• Quick withdrawals.
Complainers have pointed out issues such as:
• System errors that result in the arbitrary closing of positions.
• Losses incurred through the fault of the broker.
• Unwillingness to assist with problems.
• Less than ideal support.
• Denied withdrawals.
Though relevant, user feedback is notoriously unreliable and often emotion-driven. Please bear that in mind when considering the above.
Plus500’s minimum deposit depends on the deposit method one uses. The official site of the broker is reluctant to offer clear information in this regard.
Through some deposit methods, the minimum requirement is $100. Through certain methods, it can be as high as $500, however.
Yes. Plus500UK Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 509909)
The licensing authority behind the operation is FCA. The license number of the broker is 509909.
Theoretically, this type of regulation means that Plus500 is MiFID-compliant. As such, it can legally peddle its CFDs all over the European Economic Area, except for countries that have forbidden this activity by law.
As mentioned, Plus500 is based in Israel. The exact address of the brokerage is Plus500UK Ltd, 8 Angel Court, Copthall Avenue | London EC2R 7HJ.
If you are going to “peddle” a directive about , you could at least show some bloody knowledge of it. Just so you know the latest directive was supposed to strengthen protections for consumers . One of the requirements was that a firm must take all appropriate steps to identify and to prevent or manage conflicts of interests. With Plus500 , there whole operation is set up to ensure there is a conflict of interest where they can gain financially or avoid a financial loss. The preventative steps Plus500 adopted was to lie about it. Thankfully, it seems a National Authority quite rightly concluded that Plus500 have mislead in terms of how revenue is generated. Not from spreads as plus500 claim did they conclude, the made and stated a finding the plus500 actually profit from client losses.
So your review is recommending a broker that is not exactly operating within the current rules, misleading people to obscure the fact they profit from client losses and not to mention you are trading on a platform against them on a platform they have complete control off. What is is actually like to be so cognitive dissonant from any sort of morals?
Lastly, must mention that the National Authority also concluded that the user agreement was in breach of consumer law on so many unfair issues that it would take me too long to mention them all. So not alone are you recommending a broker that is in blatant breach of the regulatory rules but recommending a broker that operate and uses as a defense an agreement is in breach of consumer law. What idiot would recommend that, oh yes maybe one that gets paid on a referral basis for promotion would.
Directive about? Seems to be a word missing in your comment there.
Where is it stated that Plus500 mislead in terms? Can you please provide a link?
If a broker was not following the regulators rules how would they be allowed to keep operating?
Isn’t your issue with the regulator?
What is National Authority? Link to this please.
Thank you
Any queries regarding Plus500 or your trading account and dealings with Plus500 must be made to Plus500 Customer Support via their Contact Us page at https://www.plus500.com/en/Help/ContactUs.
hi Julie
your review saved my money thank you so much for your help
You are welcome.
I noticed in your review that you say that Plus500 is a no dealing desk broker. Really a broker who trades off exchange, acting as counterpart to clients trades, obtains prices from their parent company Plus500 Ltd and uses an automatic internal hedging system not with a third party is not a dealing desk broker. It is such a shame you were too busy focused on the emotional characteristics of the complainants that you seemed to have have overlooked your “independent review”, which looks like false advertising.
I see above the social media team of Plus500 have also stopped by. You would think they would have corrected the error since surely they know that misleading advertising is prohibited under both Cysec and FCA rules.
They have corrected it.
Any queries regarding Plus500 or your trading account and dealings with Plus500 must be made to Plus500 Customer Support via their Contact Us page at https://www.plus500.com/en/Help/ContactUs.
Are you joking? Plus500 is terrible. That score is way off the mark. Plus500 close button is greyed out so traders cannot close their trades and they lose their money. Plus500 restrict fully verified traders and ask for more verification and traders cannot manage their trades so results in loss and Plus500 make withdrawal a nightmare. This is so truth. Go read all the real reviews on trustpilot in all then threads. In fact just google Plus500 and do your proper research.
Hello Julie,
In regards to your comment where we ask for additional documentation, we are obligated to verify the authenticity of our client’s identity and other relevant details (such as, but not limited to, registered postal address, payment means ownership) against the requested documents. This is part of our standard due diligence process and is designed for the protection of their privacy and to prevent fraud.
We are aware that there are some negative reviews in Trustpilot however, please consider that such reviews reflect a small percentage of customers and there are also positive comments from satisfied Plus500 customers.
Therefore, in many cases, where a user posts a negative review, we will attempt to rectify or clarify the situation. However, in accordance with our privacy policy and local privacy regulations, we are unable to make further public correspondence with the client. As such, even where the user’s complaint is settled, we are unable to confirm the outcome in a public reply. Furthermore, unfortunately in many cases, where the issue is resolved, users do not post a follow up review to confirm this.
Please take these factors into consideration and, should you wish us to clarify any specific matter, feel free to contact us so that we can make sure to answer any queries you have.
Thank you for your understanding.
Regards,
Plus500 Social Media Team
I can assure you that what I say is from first hand experience with Plus500. After my bad experience with Plus500 I set up a group to help people who had lost money through Plus500 and through no fault of their own. Everyday I’m getting more and more people coming forward. You say trustpilot is a small amount, do you know how many bad reviews are taken down? Plus500 can NOT be sugarcoated anymore. Plus500’s profit is a traders loss and I know from experience how Plus500 work. I hope people read this review and stay away. I’ve stopped many from joining and I’ll continue to review and speak out and hopefully stop many more people falling victim to Plus500. Affiliates sugarcoat and don’t tell the truth, just as bad as Plus500.
How has it been going Julie?