Plus500 Broker Detailed Review

Is Plus500 Safe?

Yes, Plus500 is a safe CFD provider.

Founded in 2008, Plus500AU Pty Ltd (ACN 153301681), licensed by ASIC in Australia, AFSL #417727, FMA in New Zealand, FSP #486026; Authorised Financial Services Provider in South Africa, FSP #47546. You do not own or have any rights to the underlying assets, because this is CFD trading. Please refer to the Disclosure documents available on the Plus500 website to understand more.

Plus500 does not highlight any industry recognition it has received, but the company did win the Best Trading App Award from Daytrader.com in 2019.

Plus500 for Beginners

The educational section of Plus500 is poor, especially when compared to its competitors, as is the analytical material available.  Customer service is excellent though.

Educational Material

Plus500 lacks a dedicated educational section and groups all of its educational material for new traders in its FAQ section.

Most of the FAQs are dedicated to queries directly related to trading with Plus500 – subjects include Account Verification, Deposit and Withdrawal, Fees and Charges, Opening an Account and Submitting Identification Documents.

The truly educational part of the FAQ section is called Trading and contains 32 FAQs. Though many of these 32 FAQs relate to Plus500’s trading conditions and platform there are also explanations of common concepts in CFD trading such as Leverage, Margin Calls, Pips and Stop Loss Orders.

Though this is all very useful information for new traders, it is recommended that you seek further education before trading on a live account.

Analysis Material

Plus500 offers little real analytical material for traders. Though they offer a basic Economic Calendar there is no daily news feed, no analyst recommendations and no fundamental data.

Customer Support

Plus500 offers 24/7 customer support via email, online chat and WhatsApp message in 31 different languages. This is a much higher level of service than is commonly available.

The only way the customer support could be improved is by offering phone support for more complex queries and troubleshooting.

Trading Conditions

Plus500 is a market maker with an automated dealing desk. Though the spreads are tight for a market maker, trading conditions are generally poor in comparison to its competitors.

Account Types

Plus500 offers a single account with a minimum deposit of 100 AUD.

There is no account choice at Plus500, which is concerning as most of its serious competitors have a number of account types with tighter spreads linked to higher deposit requirements.

Spreads and Commission

The spreads at Plus500 are variable with EURUSD spreads often below 1 pip.  As spreads are dynamic, expect them to be higher in times of low liquidity and for non-major currencies.

Leverage up to 1:300 is available and no commission is charged on any trades.

Deposits and Withdrawals

Deposits and withdrawals are generally commission-free, though a 10 USD withdrawal fee is charged after more than five withdrawals have been made in a single month. Withdrawals via bank transfer may also incur a 6 USD charge.

Plus500 also requires a minimum withdrawal amount of 50 USD for Skrillex and Paypal and 100 USD for bank transfers and credit card. Withdrawals below this amount incur a 10 USD fee.

Withdrawal takes 3-7 days depending on the payment method.  This is slower than expected, as most brokers process all withdrawals within one working day.

Deposit and withdrawals methods include Credit Card, PayPal, Skrill, and bank transfer.

Inactivity Fee

Plus500 charge an inactivity fee of 10 USD per month after 3 consecutive months of inactivity.

Trading Platform

Unlike most Forex brokers, Plus500 only offer their proprietary trading platform. This could be a concern as most similar providers also offer MetaTrader 4 or 5 in conjunction with any first-party software.

The Plus500 platform is web-based and obviously made to appeal to new traders who want to avoid the complexity of more common platforms.  The platform looks fantastic, is very easy to use and has a solid reputation in the trading community. Exceptionally, it is available in over 30 languages.

Unfortunately, the platform is not customisable so traders used setting up their own charts over a bespoke workspace will be disappointed.

Trading Tools

Plus500 offers a few basic trading tools within the platform.

You can set automated price and percentage alerts which will inform you when a certain price has been reached or when a price has increased or decreased by a chosen percentage.

You can also view trader sentiment and set alerts to inform you when a predefined percentage of traders are buying or selling an instrument.

All of these alerts can also be sent via email and SMS.

Mobile App

Available on iOS and Android, Plus500’s mobile application offers all the same functions as the web-based platform and is similarly user-friendly and uncomplicated.

Cryptocurrency CFD Trading

Cryptocurrency trading at Plus500 is an area where they have excelled. It is common for providers to offer USD Cryptocurrency pairs, but Plus500 has gone one step further to offer fully crypto pairs like Ethereum-Bitcoin (ETCHBTC).  I look forward to seeing more of these from Plus500.

USD crypto pairs offered are Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, Neo, Ripple, IOTA, Monero, and EOS.

A note on cryptocurrency spreads.  The spreads are much wider than traditional currency pairs due to the high risk of extreme market volatility.

Evaluation Method

We value transparency and openness in the way we review the partners. To bring transparency to the forefront, we have published our review process that includes a detailed breakdown of the Plus500 offer. Central to that process is the evaluation of reliability, the platform offering and the trading conditions offered to clients, which are summarised in this review. Each one of these is graded, and an overall score is calculated and assigned.

Plus500 Risk Statement

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 76.4% 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.

Conclusion

If you are new to Forex trading, and you want to keep it simple and on your browser, Plus500 is a decent choice – though you will need to get your educational support from another source.  If you expect phone support from your provider and more traditional software like MetaTrader, then you would be better off elsewhere. On the plus side, Plus500’s spreads are very tight for a market-maker and the mobile app is excellent.

Most retail CFD accounts lose money. Your capital is at risk.