Plus500 review: our experience with this broker

Plus500 is a multi-asset platform where you can trade shares (Plus500Invest), futures (Plus500Futures) and CFD’s. In this extensive review, we share our experiences with this broker. In our test, Plus500 emerged as a user-friendly broker where you can respond to the latest market developments at low rates.

Advantage Plus500

• At Plus500 you can speculate on price developments at low rates.
• You can trade in an extensive range of CFD shares, stocks and futures.
• It is possible to try Plus500 for free with an unlimited demo.
• On Plus500 you can use the user-friendly web trader.
• Plus500 offers its services in more than 30 different languages.
• On Plus500 you can start trading from $100.

Disadvantages Plus500

• Plus500 does not provide advanced software for professional traders.
• Plus500 customer service is not available by phone.

Would you like to try the possibilities at Plus500 with a demo completely free of charge and without risk? Use the button below to open a demo account with this broker:

Opening an account with Plus500

Opening a demo account with Plus500 is easy. To do this you must first visit the Plus500 website. Click here to open the Plus500 site. To create a free demo account, you just have to choose an email address and a password. It is also possible to log in with your Facebook or Google account. After you have left this information, you can immediately start trading.

Plus500 accepts customers from most countries. However, there are also nationalities that are not admitted to Plus500. Traders from for example Brazil, Belgium and Syria are not able to open an account at Plus500 at this moment. Opening a demo-account with Plus500 is possible within clicks. In the review, we therefore give Plus500 a positive rating for opening an account.

Deposit & withdraw money

When you have become familiar with the Plus500 platform, you can switch to a real money account at any time. The minimum deposit at Plus500 is $100. You can easily deposit money into your account by using one of these methods:

• Creditcard
• Apple Pay
• Trusty
• Bank transfer
• PayPal
• Skrill
• iDEAL

Before your deposit can be processed, you must confirm your identity. Plus500 must comply with legislation and can only receive verified customers. By verifying new costumers, Plus500 prevents costumers from using the account for money laundering.

We’ve gone through the entire process and uploading the required documents is easy. Our account was approved and released by Plus500 within an hour. After confirming the identity of your account, you don’t have to do it again. The length of this process depends on your personal situation and can be different for each costumer.

Withdraw money

You can withdraw the money into your account at any time. You can do this by transferring the money to your bank account or PayPal account. The transfer is made quickly and the money will be in your account within a few days (normally in one business day).

On Plus500 there are no additional costs for depositing and withdrawing money. This is a big advantage of the broker Plus500: many other brokers charge a small fee for withdrawing money. Do you want to know more about withdrawing and depositing money at Plus500? Then read one of our specialized articles:

• How can I deposit money on Plus500?
• How do I withdraw funds on Plus500?

Review of the costs of Plus500

When you start trading with Plus500, you obviously do not want a large part of your money to be lost to high transaction costs. In this part of the review, we take a detailed look at the fees of trading with Plus500. Below we briefly examine which costs Plus500 passes on to its customers.

Spread

With Plus500 you pay a spread over every transaction. The spread is the difference between the buy and sell price of a CFD. Plus500 works with variable spreads which means that they can vary from moment to moment. We examined the costs of trading with Plus500. Please note that this is a snapshot on April 28, 2020.

Forex costs on Plus500

On Plus500 you can trade in different currency pairs. At the time of writing, you are paying 0.6 pips in transaction fees on the pair of EUR / USD. We compared these costs with those of other providers and concluded that these costs are comparable to those of other brokers. (We have extracted these data on the 2^th of June 14:00.)

Cryptocurrency costs on Plus500

On Plus500 you can also trade in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. In our review it emerged that at Plus500 you can trade against relatively advantageously fees in Bitcoin CFDs. At Plus500 you pay a spread of $36 at the time of writing while at eToro you pay more than $50 per contract. Trading cryptocurrencies is therefore relatively advantageous at Plus500. (We have extracted these data on the 2^th of June 14:00.)

Share costs on Plus500

At Plus500 you can also trade in shares by using CFDs. As an example: For the CFD share Tesla you currently pay a spread of $ 0.95, which equates to 0.12% of the total value. Trading CFD Tesla shares is therefore possible at a low cost. (Please note that this is a snapshot on April 20, 2020 at 13:00.)

Financing costs at Plus500

With Plus500 you have the option to trade on margin. Because you can trade on margin, you do not have to put in the full amount of the trading position yourself.

With each security you will see the overnight funding buy and the overnight funding sell costs. In some cases, you actually receive a premium for short positions. We compared Plus500 with other parties for this review and the financing costs were relatively low. Still, it is important to remember that Plus500 is not very suitable for long-term trading because of the financing fees you have to pay on a daily basis.

Other costs on Plus500

We have extensively investigated the costs for this review, and we have not found any annoying hidden costs. However, you must ensure that you log in to the platform at least once every three months. If you don’t do this, costs for inactivity will be charged. This is the case with most brokers.

Do you have an account with Plus500 and are you not planning to trade for a while? Then it is wise to withdraw the money from your account.

Conclusion Plus500 fees

The costs Plus500 charges are reasonable and in proportion to the amount you trade with. This makes it possible to trade with a small amount of money. In our article about the costs on Plus500, we take a closer look at the various costs you pay when you trade with Plus500.

Software & possibilities

When you start trading, we understand that you of course also want to use a good software package. With Plus500 trading is mainly done via the online WebTrader. A great advantage of the WebTrader is the accessibility: you can log in to the platform at any time and from any location to open or close a position.

What stood out in our review was the user-friendliness of Plus500. The platform looks clear and thanks to the search function you can quickly find the CFD in which you want to trade. New customers will therefore not have to search long for buy & sell buttons on Plus500.

Opening a trade

Opening a trade with Plus500 is rather straightforward. It is important to remember that with Plus500 you always trade in CFDs. With Plus500 you never directly trade in a share. The only thing that determines your result is the difference between the price at which you open and close the position.

When you open a position, you have two options. You can buy the CFD or you can go short on the CFD. When you buy the CFD you get a positive result with a rising price and when you sell the CFD you get a positive result with a falling price. Since you use leverage there is a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.

Illustrative prices

The option to speculate on a declining price is a major advantage within the Plus500 platform. The option to short sell increases your flexibility and makes it possible to react to different market situations.

Type of orders

With Plus500 you can immediately open an order. When you press buy or sell you will see the screen below:

Illustrative prices.

In the order screen you can enter the amount you want to trade with. You also have the option to automatically open or close the position after a certain price has been reached. This makes it possible to protect you trades when you have to go out.

It is also possible to place an order with Plus500. You do this by entering a price at which you automatically open the CFD position.

Illustrative information.

Leverage

With Plus500 you have the option to apply a leverage. With a lever you can take a larger position with the same amount of money. Both your potential profit and your potential loss increase when you apply leverage. With each security you can immediately see what the maximum leverage is that you can apply.

The presence of a leverage is an advantage in the review of Plus500. You can always decide to invest with smaller amounts if you want to lower your risk. In this article we explain in detail how you can apply leverage to your trades.

Mobile application

On Plus500 you can also trade with the mobile application they offer. The mobile application is less extensive than the WebTrader. You can perform less extensive analyses with it. Nevertheless, it is useful to also install the mobile application. With the app you can receive warnings when the price of a security reaches a certain value.

The mobile application is very user-friendly and makes it possible to adjust your orders when market conditions change significantly. The mobile application is therefore a strong point in our review of the Plus500 platform.

Trading options at Plus500

In this part of the review we will discuss the different types of securities you can trade in with Plus500.

Forex

With Plus500 you can trade in CFDs on Forex. When you trade in Forex, you speculate on price changes in currency pairs. You can for example place a trade on the development of the euro against the dollar. In the article Forex trading you can read how this way of trading works.

Shares

On Plus500 you can also trade in an extensive range of CFD shares. The shares are neatly sorted by country, so you can quickly find a share to trade. In the article trading shares we discuss how you can trade in shares at plus500.

It is also possible to invest in real shares using Plus500 Invest.

Commodities

It’s also possible to trade in commodities by using CFDs. The most popular commodity for trading is oil. You can often apply a maximum leverage of up to 1:20 to investments in raw materials. When you trade in gold you can apply a leverage of 1:20.

Options

On Plus500 you can also trade in CFDs on options. Options often move strongly: an option can sometimes rise or fall in value by tens of percent. With CFDs you can apply a leverage of up to 1:5 to options, which further increases your potential gains or losses.

Indices or ETFs

On Plus500 you can also trade in CFDs on well-known indexes or ETFs. You can for example trade in the Dow Jones or NASDAQ index trackers.

Cryptocurrencies

At Plus500 you can also trade with CFDs in the most famous cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are very volatile and it can therefore be interesting to actively speculate on their price developments. One of the most popular cryptocurrencies to trade in is the Bitcoin. (“Instrument availability subject to regulations”).

Futures

Users in the United States are able to invest in futures.

Conclusion on the trading options at Plus500

Plus500 has a wide range of tradable CFD securities. Even relatively unknown local stocks can often be found on the Plus500 platform. This makes Plus500 an attractive broker for investors from all countries. My experience with Plus50 has therefore been very positive.

Support & research

In this part of the review, we investigate how Plus500 supports traders.

Technical analyses

At Plus500 you can perform technical analyses on the graphs. Within the software you can use different drawing options. You can draw horizontal levels to indicate price levels where the market often moves in the opposing direction.

Illustrative prices.

You can also add technical indicators on the graph. The range of technical indicators at Plus500 is enormous. You can choose from more than 100 different options. It is wise to use technical indicators. By using technical indicators, you can execute better analyses.

The technical analysis options within the Plus500 software are extensive. However, it is inconvenient that you cannot save multiple graphs. This means that you have to repeat the analyzes regularly. Professional investors would have to download other programs to perform more complex analyses.

Research and education

In this review we can be quick about the possibilities of research and education: at Plus500 these options are limited.

You can join the Trading Academy for free which offers a variety of educational products like an eBook, video trading guide and FAQs.

Notifications

It is useful that you receive a notification within the Plus500 software when interesting developments take place. When the price of, for example, oil falls sharply, you will receive a notification of this event. You can then decide for yourself whether you want to take a position on the market development.

Insight

Within the Plus500 software you can also see how other users trade in a security. By looking at the positions other traders take, you can see whether there are more buyers or sellers. Other fundamental data is missing with Plus500 platform. Plus500 does not score well in the field of research and education in our opinion.

Customer service

Plus500 has a comprehensive and fast customer service that is available in more than 30 languages. Your problems can be solved quickly in your language.

It is recommended to contact customer service via live chat. You can use the live chat button within the Plus500 WebTrader. By using the live chat, your problems can be solved almost immediately.

It is also possible to email Plus500. Mails are often answered within a day. It is a pity that no telephone number is available. This makes it impossible to speak directly to someone. Due to the fast processing time, Plus500 still scores sufficiently in terms of customer service.

Security & reliability

Before you deposit money with a company, you naturally want to know that it is completely secureto do so. In this part of the review, we look at how reliable Plus500 is.

Regulation

Supervisors ensure that brokers adhere to the rules. Plus500 is supervised by:

• Plus500UK Ltd authorized & regulated by the FCA (#509909).
• Plus500CY Ltd authorized & regulated by the CySEC (#250/14).
• Plus500SG Pte Ltd, licensed by MAS (#CMS100648-1) and IE Singapore (#PLUS/CBL/2018).
• Plus500AU Pty Ltd (ACN 153301681), licensed by: ASIC in Australia, AFSL #417927, FMA in New Zealand, FSP #486026; authorized financial provider in South Africa, FSP #47546

Securety of your deposits

Depending on your nationality, you enjoy extra protection if Plus500 goes bankrupt. This is done through a so-called investor protection fund. All client funds are held in a segregated client bank account in accordance with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission’s (CySEC)

Plus500 will never speculate with customers’ money. All funds are stored in a separate bank account, which means that this money is secure when unexpected things happen with Plus500. And last but not least, on Plus500 you are protected against a negative balance. When you trade with Plus500, you can never be left with a residual debt

Conclusion reliability

Plus500 is 100% no scam. Plus500 securely holds customer funds. The company is also supervised. Plus500 has been around since 2008 and is even listed on the London stock exchange. These are all good indications that Plus500 is reliable and we have come to that conclusion ourselves.

About the company

Plus500 was founded in 2008 and has grown strongly since then. Plus500 is active in more than 30 countries and served more than 200,000 active customers in 2019. Plus500 executed over 35 million transactions with a value of over $1,000 billion in one year. The headquarters of the company can be found in Israel, but they have opened several additional offices in other countries. Do you want to know more about the Plus500 company? In this article you will find everything you need to know!

Conclusion review Plus500

Plus500 is one of the best CFD brokers. With Plus500 you can actively trade CFDs on all known shares and cryptocurrencies by using the user-friendly software. On Plus500 you can trade at low rates. You also have the opportunity to respond to changing market conditions by placing orders on both rising and falling prices.

Do you want to discover how Plus500 works? Then immediately open a free demo-account by pressing the button below:

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