BEST TRADING APP

App Rating

Google Play: 4.5 out of 5 (57,209 reviews)

App Store: 4.7 out of 5 (67,214 reviews)

Google Play: 3.9 out of 5 (37,094 reviews)

App Store: 3.5 out of 5 (1,000+ reviews)

Google Play: 4 out of 5 (89,036 reviews)

App Store: 3.8 out of 5 (2,158 reviews)

Introduction to the company, Country of regulation

Trading 212 was founded in 2004 by Bulgarian trader Borislav Nedialkov.

Trading 212 a fintech company based in London. Its goal is to “democratise the financial markets with free, smart and easy to use apps”.

The company is the first to offer zero commission stock trading in the UK and Europe. It is arguably the largest UK trading app, and one of the largest in the world with over 14 million app downloads.

Trading 212 is Authorised and regulated by the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) in the UK, as well as being registered in Bulgaria, being regulated under the Financial Supervision Commission.

eToro is a social trading company that was founded in 2006.

The App that we’re reviewing was launched in 2012. At this time, it was predominantly an FX trading platform, but in 2013 stock trading was introduced. In 2017, cryptocurrencies were introduced, thus rounding off a versatile brokerage with interesting social integrations.

eToro has registered offices in Israel, USA, UK, Cyprus and Australia.

Despite being founded in Israel, eToro is only fully licensed in Cyprus (CySEC), EU (FCA’s cross-border license), USA (FinCEN) and Australia (ASIC and CAR). However, eToro is open globally to most countries, but minimum deposits will be higher.

Plus500 was founded in 2008. The company was created by 6 alumni from the Israel Institute of Technology, which grew off the back of an initial Gonen investment of $400,000.

Plus500 from the outset was concerned with being an easy-to-use brokerage that had CFDs and a lot of securities. Initially, the platform was for Windows, but in 2020 launched a web-based platform. By 2012, Android users were met with their wishes of having a sleek trading app.

Plus500 is a global platform, operating in 32 languages.

Unlike its rivals, Plus 500 does not generally hedge the best it takes. This means it loses money when its customers win and vice versa.

Currently, Plus500 is authorised and regulated by 5 bodies: FCA (UK), ASIC (Australia), CySEC (Cyprus), ISA (Israel), and finally MAS (Singapore).

How does it work?

Trading 212 is predominantly a zero-commission stock trading app. There are stocks and ETFs to choose from, as well as CFDs, Forex and crypto. You can even invest tax-free in the Trading 212 ISA.

The company is more than just an ordinary broker, though. The real selling point here is an incredibly easy-to-use app that novices can navigate, as well as being super cheap in their fees (or lack thereof).

With opening an account only taking a day, a super low $1 minimum deposit, and even a demo account available, Trading 212 is extremely accessible.

Our experience is that it’s unusual for a broker to have such low minimum requirements.

eToro is an easy-to-use trading platform. It’s intuitive and quick to place orders. Users can create a clean-looking watchlist and monitor their portfolio easily.

Copy Trader feature is what makes the platform truly unique. The social aspect allows you to view other traders, their strategies and success, and feel as though you’re part of a trading community. You can go as far as having others’ trades copied automatically to your account.

This is about more than just following tips, though. If you’re followed by others, then you can benefit from a second revenue stream.

You receive both additional commission for even just one copied trader’s trades, and if you become a Popular Investor, you earn a 2% management fee.

Much like its direct competitors, Plus500 offers accessibility to traders. Sign ups are fast, in which you can then either trade for real or on a demo account.

The platform is a place where you can only trade CFDs and currency pairs. 

You can either use your mobile, tablet or computer to use the platform, which offers a wide range of markets and tools to complete trades with.

In 2019, Plus500 facilitated over 35 million positions, over $1310 billion in trade value, and has over 200,000 active users.

Investment requirements, involvement/participation level

Opening an account will require proof of identity as well as proof of residency, like with other brokers. This process is done digitally. For margin trading, the requirements are as follows: 3.33% — major currency pairs 5% — non-major currency pairs 5% — gold 10% — other commodities 20% — stocks 5% — Base indices 10% — Non-major indices

The Popular Investor program has 4 levels, starting with Cadet, then being promoted to Rising Star, Champion, and eventually Elite.

In order to participate however you must verify your account with a Government-issued ID, add a real picture of yourself and write about your trading strategy in the Bio.

You can become a Cadet member if you’re within the Responsible Trading requirements, have a risk score below 6 and not copying another user.

There is only the basic information necessary when signing up with Plus500. Whilst there is a fee for inactivity after 3 months, Plus500 is open to both professional and retail traders.

However, to open a professional account, there are additional requirements: sufficient trading activity in last 12 months, a financial instrument portfolio of over 500,000€ and relevant experience in the financial sector.

Fees, Markets

Fees: There are no commission charges, or account charges, in any form for the Invest account.

How does Trading 212 make money: Trading 212 benefit from the spreads between the buy and sell prices on their assets. There is also a 0.5% currency conversion charge and stamp duty for share and ETF purchases.

The markets available for trading in are: Currency pairs (160), Stock Index CFDs (23), Stock CFDs (1,700), ETF CFDs (28), Commodity CFDs (26), and finally Cryptos (16).

Relative to other brokers, this is a limited amount of ETF CFDs available, but an impressive amount of currency pairs. Given that much of investing is about keeping costs down, this is a great way to avoid charges eating into your margins.

Fees: Opening an account is completely free, meaning there are no management fees.

There is 0% commission on stocks and ETFs too i.e. no markup, stamp duty or ticketing fees.

Depositing is free but there is an inactivity fee of $10/month, as well as a $5 withdrawal fee.

How does eToro make money: Of course eToro makes their money somewhere though.

CDFs have some fees, such as 0.09% on Stocks & ETFs, as well as 0.75% or more on Cryptocurrencies.

Forex fees are quite high. To give some perspective, they’re higher than Plus500 but lower than MarketsX.

Bitcoin has a spread of 0.75%, whilst Ethereum’s is 1.90%, BCH is 1.90%, and the other cryptocurrencies are higher. 

The markets available for trading are: Currency pairs, Stock Index CDFs, Stock CDFs, ETF CDFs, Commodity CDFs, and finally Cryptocurrencies.

eToro has 47 currency pairs, over 2,000 Stock CDFs and 16 Cryptocurrencies.

Compared to its competitors, eToro has a good amount of Cryptos and ETF CDFs to choose from, and an average amount of currencies and Stock CDFs.

Fees: When using Plus500, there are very few fees. Deposits, real-time quotes, opening/closing trades and rolling your position are all free.

You can also find yourself being charged a fee for overnight funding, currency conversion, guaranteed stop order and inactivity.

Inactivity for 3 months will result in a $10 fee.

Compared to competitors, trading fees are quite low. For example, CFDs are cheaper than eToro. They don’t charge commission or outright fees.

Whilst Forex is generally cheaper than eToro too, they’re at best averagely priced.

We believe that Plus500 lacks the transparency of some of its competitors, with no fixed outlined fees.

How does Plus 500 make money: Plus 500 benefit from bid/ask spread. On the EUR/USD, the spread in the platform was listed as fixed at 0.00006, which is 0.6 pips. Over 2019 it executed an average of 3.0 million customer trades per month and generated revenues of $354 million.

The markets available for trading: Currency pairs (70), Stock Index CFDs (33), Stock CFDs (1,800), ETF CFDs (92), Commodity CFDs (22) and finally, Crypto (14).

Accounts supported, Opening an account

In order to sign up for an account, a very basic level of information is required. You can be up and running within a day. There are three types of accounts: Invest, CFD, and ISA. 

Invest accounts are purely for free of commissions investing in stocks and ETFs. However, it does not support the buying of crypto, currencies(forex), and commodities that are available through CFDs.

CFD accounts are for leveraging and margin trading. Here, you can find stocks, forex, indices, and other products.  When you trade CFD's you do not own the underlying asset. You are speculating on if the price of an instrument will go up or down. CFD's are a leveraged product which means that you borrow money on "margin" from T212 in order to be able to have a bigger position than you would as an individual.

ISA accounts are for tax-free investing in the UK (S&S ISA).  Available to UK residents only, there is a limit of £20,000 per year (April-April) that may be deposited into an ISA account and holdings within an ISA account are not subject to capital gains tax or dividend tax. There are a few rules for ISAs - see here.

Fortunately, each account doesn’t need to be signed up for separately. They’re somewhat integrated, and switching between them within the app is extremely easy.

eToro only has two types of accounts: Retail clients and Professional clients.

Retail clients are normal clients trading for themselves. This is the free account that includes both real trading and virtual trading. It also includes other features talked about in this review.

A Professional client's account isn’t much different, but it allows you to leverage up to 1:400 for certain instruments.

Of course, these accounts are for those who pass the criteria of being a Professional client, which can be found out here.

To open an account, the customer must submit basic information about themselves as well as Confirmation of Residence (i.e. a Valid utility bill) and a Proof of Identity (i.e. Valid passport). You will also be asked to fill out a questionnaire.

Opening an account at Plus500 is exceedingly easy. It’s very fast, entirely digital and has a reasonable minimum deposit.

To open an account, the customer must submit proof of identification and address documents such as passport or photo driving license and utility bills or bank statements. An account can be opened in a matter of seconds but verification process might take up to an hour.

Services are open to most of the world, though of course there are exceptions such as Taiwan, Pakistan and South Korea.

In the UK and Europe, retail clients can access margins up to 30:1 in line with FCA and ESMA guidelines. Whilst professional clients can access leverage of 300:1 providing they meet certain strict criteria around finance, trading experience and activity.

Promotions/Demo Account

Upon signing up within the app, you’re presented with the demo account first, before further signing up for real money.

The demo account starts off with an account value of 50,000 EUR, in which you can begin trading straight off the bat to test out your strategies.

Joining eToro is free, and registered users will receive $100,000 to trade with in a demo account.

Because eToro is free to sign up with, there aren’t many promotional deals.

US citizens can enjoy a $50 promotion bonus for referring a friend.

Plus500 has a demo account in which users can practice their trades without worrying about risking real money. This also allows users to get to grips with the platform. You start with £40,000 equity.

Minimum deposit

There is no minimum deposit for Trading 212. There is only a £/$1 minimum deposit for the Invest accounts and ISA, whilst it’s £/$10 for the CFD account. There are only 9 base currencies that you can deal with in Trading 212. This means you may need to convert your currency when depositing and withdrawing.

The base currencies are CHF, CZK, GBP, EUR, NOK, PLN, RON, SEK, USD. The currency conversion charge is 0.5% for the CFD account, but 0% for the Invest account. As a retail client, you can never lose more funds than you have initially deposited to your Trading 212 account. Once your positions are no longer able to be maintained, Trading 212 automatically closes them and protects you from going into a negative balance. 

The minimum deposit at eToro is $200.

However, US citizens can get started with a first-time deposit of only $50, whilst those from Algeria, Lebanon, Maldives and Venezuela will have to deposit $5,000.

All other deposits after the first-time deposits are $50.

eToro only deals in USD, so your funding will be converted to USD by eToro. EUR deposits will be charged 50 pip (which equates to around a 0.46% fee).

Plus500 has a minimum deposit of $100, though this rises to $300 when using bank transfers. There is no deposit fee, and the three methods you can use are: bank transfer, credit/debit card and Electronic wallets. 

If you’re depositing in a currency that isn’t a supported base currency, you’ll be charged up to a 0.5% fee. There are a highly impressive 10 base currencies.

We believe Plus500 to have reasonable requirements here, but are impressive when it comes to base currencies.

Withdrawal of funds

Withdrawals are free, which isn’t always the case with brokers. They’re easy too, with credit/debit card deposit/withdrawal being accepted.

eToro does not charge a withdrawal fee but the minimum withdrawal is $30 and funds deposited via online banking cannot be withdrawn until 7 days after the deposit was made.

There are zero fees when withdrawing money from the account. This is up to the limit of 5 per month and then you will be charged.

Redemptions, Tax-loss harvesting

Trading 212 doesn’t have in-built tax-loss harvesting functionality, unlike many robo investors. It does, however, have an ISA account for UK users. This means you can invest in the tax-free ISA basket. Usually, this is up to an allowance of £20,000 in the UK, which will protect you from capital gains.

The ISA is impressive too, with £0 administration charges and of course, £0 commission per trade. There’s also an AutoInvest feature that goes hand-in-hand with the ISA.

We believe this is a great feature because most people haven’t used up their ISA allowance in the UK.

eToro doesn’t have a tax-loss harvesting tool unlike many robo-advisors.

Plus500 doesn’t have features centred around tax efficiency.

Ease of use

Trading 212 is certainly geared towards beginners in its simplicity.

Searching for stocks is extremely fast and easy. You’re instantly presented with the basic ratios and fundamentals of the stock (the three key Financial Statements). You really don’t need anything other than this app for basic fundamental investing, though there may be some missing information in there at times.

The news feed for Trading 212 is adequate, though it’s not as comprehensive as some of its competitors. The economic calendar, however, is a great tool with helpful filters.

eToro is very user friendly. Depositing is easy (and free), with many options available.

Orders are easy to place and somewhat mistake-proof, and the dashboards available make it easy to scan prices.

The social feed is in chronological order with the ability to search for topics. This may consume time to get through, but the fact you can copy other successful traders makes the platform easy to develop a complex trading strategy.

Plus500 is extremely user friendly. It’s designed to be simple, and a lot of effort has gone into making it responsive for app use.

Searching for apps is quick and easy, as is maintaining a favourites/watchlist.

Plus500 fails to provide a sufficient feed of news, however. There is a great economic calendar with good filters, but that’s about it. There’s not even a newsletter…

Furthermore, there is no fundamental data on companies profiles. This means you’re highly dependent on using another app or website, unless you’re a technical trader.

We believe that Plus500 lacks informational value. There’s no social feed, news feed or fundamental data. This makes the app very limited.

App reviews aren’t as high as Trading 212s, and we think this is because the Plus500 sometimes experiences bugs, as well as their aggressive email marketing to some users.

User interface

The two types of accounts (which you can flick between) are very useful. This almost divides the app into 2 apps. Visually, this makes it extremely easy to flick between both accounts and the demo account of each account.

It comes as no surprise that Trading 212 is one of the highest-rated trading apps, with a score of 4.5 and 4.7 out of 5. This is because there are few bugs, a clean and intuitive interface, and a design that had beginners in mind.

Our experiences with the app are that it’s impossible to get lost or confused using it. It’s arguably the simplest and easiest app to use on the market.

eToro offers a seamless user experience with a clear and UI. Without needing to alter the settings, you receive push notifications on your phone for market news.

The menu is intuitive, with a clear separation between trading and the social aspect. Almost everything you need can be found on the menu other than education, which can be found under ‘help’.

Writing posts is easy, and the feed is in chronological order. It’s slightly odd that the “news feed” means the social feed because anything can be written here. It would have been more useful to have an actual news feed too because currently, you cannot read market updates in a quick and reliable manner.

The fee report is super clear, so you’re not going to get caught with hidden fees.

Placing orders is very clear and easy, with the market, limit, stop-loss, and trailing stop-loss orders to choose from.

The user design isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing of all the trading apps, but it is well laid out.

The menu essentially has a list of everything you need (other than educational resources or news feed).

Managing positions is easy, as is placing orders. You can also easily view historical transactions, fee reports and other information regarding your trading account.

We believe that, although Plus500 lacks important features, it’s very easy to navigate everything they have to offer.

Tools, Customization

There are price alerts which are very easy to set up and will notify you in a clear and reliable way. The portfolio view is a little too limited in how you can visualize it, but the fee reports are easy to produce.

The app does lack customization capacity compared to professional-standard trading platforms. However, it actually does a very good job of technical analysis and charting.

There are over 60 technical indicators to use. The technical functionality for an app is impressive. Our experience is that these 60 indicators are enough to make informed technical trades for most traders.

Not to mention the ProQuant tool — another impressive feature. This allows users to create automated trading strategies without needing to code. You do, however, need to download this as a separate application (ProQuant is not owned by Trading 212, but it’s a very close integration).

The largest drawback of the user interface is its lack of tools and customizability. Whilst you can create a watchlist and view your portfolio, there isn’t much more than the bare minimum.

You’re unable to customize your charts much, and panels are fixed. This doesn’t take away from how clear and functional the UI is; it’s just that it’s relatively fixed.

Price alerts and notification are easy to set up, and the mobile notifications work reliably.

There is also the option for viewing your portfolio, either as a part chart or a list of assets.

Lastly, the mobile app is available in 21 different languages, which is hugely impressive. These languages are predominantly European and Asian.

Plus500 has four trading orders available: market order, limit order, stop order and trailing-stop order. Plus500 also offers guaranteed stop loss which protects trader's capital in the vent of a large market cap or a massive slippage. However, guaranteed stop loss can be used only for certain assets.

Plus500 does not guarantee the order will be executed at the exact price, because of slippage. The later can be added to either open or pending trades.

There is a great sentiment tool on the app, which shows how all of the Plus500 traders are behaving towards a certain product that day.

Charting is of high quality on the app, where there are 109 indicators available. It’s super easy to select multiple indicators and view them on the charts. Again, it comes as no surprise some super complex tools and indicators are missing, but that’s expected from an accessible trading app on a mobile.

You can also set up price alerts with either email, SMS or push notifications as their delivery methods. A unique tool here is that you can set the alert to a change in traders sentiments.

We believe that, even though there are some good indicators, charting isn’t exactly customizable. You get what you’re given, like many beginner trading apps.

Safety

Trading 212 keeps all clients funds in a segregated bank account (learn more), which is covered by the FSCS (UK) and the Investors Compensation Fund (Bulgaria). In the event of a default, FSCS compensates up to £85,000 whilst the ICF Bulgaria compensates up to 90%, though this is capped at €20,000.

Being regulated by the FCA puts a lot of worries to bed. However, Trading 212 could be more reassuring if they held a banking license or were listed on the Stock Exchange.

Once signed up and logged in, the app keeps you logged in. Whilst this is not secure, you do have the option inside the settings to set a passcode, which can be a fingerprint.

There is an optional two-step login for mobile, if you want to make your login more secure.

However, there are no biometric security mechanisms in place (i.e. no touch or face ID).

eToro is regulated and considered safe, but your safety improves in the following countries: UK citizens have deposits insured by FCA up to £85,000 in the event eToro goes insolvent. Other clients using eToro Europe are also protected up to €20,000. Australian’s however are not protected for any given amount.

On a more general note, eToro survived the subprime mortgage crash in 2008, which certainly boosts its credibility.

Whilst Plus500 doesn’t hold a banking license, we believe it is a very safe service.

In our opinion, Plus500 is very safe due to being listed on the stock exchange, it’s regulated by top-tier financial authorities and it discloses its financials.

You’re covered in terms of deposits in the event of a default in both the UK and EU countries. 

Learning resources

Within the menu screen of the app, you will find a “video” button. Right away, you’re presented with different courses: investing 101, stock investing, and lastly, technical analysis for beginners.

These three courses have many embedded tutorials within them to guide you along with the basics of trading.

We found the videos to be informative and useful at rounding up the fundamentals of investing. You can access videos on the Trading 212 Youtube channel.

Trading 212 also has a blog and community forum. However, the blog has not been updated since 2019.

eToro has an impressive dedication to education, with it being 4th on their websites menu. They provide news, analysis, podcasts, video tutorials and trading school.

However, this is on the website — the app is slightly more restrictive.

On the app, you can find a comprehensive guide to fintech, news and analysis, and the economic calendar.

Other than the well-functioning demo account, Plus500 really lacks educational content.

There are no tutorials on how to use the platform itself (and very little online), and there’s only a handful of basic educational investing videos.

There is an informative FAQ however, though this is not on the app.

We believe the lack of learning resources to be a huge complacency issue by Plus500, and something that many other trading apps outperform them on.

Customer Support, Human Financial Advisor

Unlike eToro, Trading 212 has phone support where you can resolve your queries verbally. There is 24/7 availability.

The Help Center on the app is useful in finding your problem, but there is no live chat feature.

eToro has no phone support, but they do have a Live Chat. This means you’ll have to contact them in writing, as opposed to verbally.

This can cause issues, particularly as the Live Chat is sometimes offline. However, when it works — it works well, with fast responses and helpful answers.

There are a number of ways to contact Plus500 in the event of an issue you need help with.

You can WhatsApp them, use the Live Chat feature or send a contact form off. The customer support is, in our opinion, extremely helpful with quick and helpful responses. Evidence of this is in the customer reviews, too. 

Summary

Trading 212 is a fiercely competitive, zero-commission trading app. Its simplicity makes it extremely easy to use, and it couldn’t get any more affordable.

Whilst professional traders may want slightly more comprehensive customization, the in-built fundamental analysis tools are adequate, yet the technical charting is impressive.

At Quant Savvy, we strongly believe this is the number one app for accessible and cheap trading.

Can you make money with Trading 212: Trading 212 is highly trusted among its community which claims to be earning consistent profits while using this app. However, the regulatory disclosure on their website warns that 76% of retail clients lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. 

eToro is a credible and well-regulated zero-commission stock trading app. Stocks and ETFs are free to trade, whilst currencies and cryptocurrencies are quite slightly expensive.

eToro is truly unique in its social approach, with strategies you can copy (and automate) as well as share ideas. This also brings a second revenue-stream for popular investors.

The platform is USD-only, meaning there will be conversion and withdrawal fees.

However, its great (and free) demo account option, along with limited technical customization, means the platform is more geared towards beginner traders. However, a successful and advanced trader may leverage the social aspect by gaining copiers, and thus extra commission.

Can you make money trading eToro: Although some users claim to earn money with eToro by copying the best traders, in reality, 62% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. However, it is the lowest percentage of all its competitors. We believe that it is a great tool to familiarise yourself with trading but we do not recommend taking extensive risks and invest high capital.

In our opinion, Plus500 is a limited mobile trading app. Whilst it’s accessible, easy to use, and has good charting features, it’s far from a one-stop-shop unlike some competitors.

The app lacks educational content, fundamental data, and a news feed. The choice of products is sufficient but nothing impressive, whilst the fees are varied within the spreads.
Whilst the app is safe and functional, it’s a little too basic to be something we recommend using.

Can you make money trading Plus 500: In our opinion, it's impossible to make money trading at Plus 500. That said, only slightly less 20% of retail traders make money trading CFDs and Rolling Spot Forex with Plus500, according to their regulatory disclosures. The rest 80.5% of retail investors lose money when trading CFDs with this provider due to the complexity of this instrument and leverage. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take risk of losing your money.

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Negatives

Trading 212 made a profit of £1.8m in 2018 so how do they make money with commission-free trading? Really it is a bait and switch strategy which lures in users and then moves them to products which make money. The CFD revenue is used to offset the commission-free trading side. 

CFDs are notorious for gamblers and recent regulatory crackdown means CFD providers display risk warning about how investors are most likely to lose money trading CFDs. More than 76% of retail traders lost money on CFD Trading 212.

Ivan from Trading 212 on his blog post wrote that currently, revenue comes from CFD spread and interest swaps. However, as the service grows they will begin to monetise some of the advanced features. This might come sooner than later because 2019 annual accounts showing Trading 212 made a loss of £314k. Reading some other comments it looks like they are already presenting the idea of moving to a subscription model (i.e, no longer free ISA's). It is a little concerning because looking at their account statements the revenues decreased by 50% compared to 2018 year, that means they are struggling to make money.

Iqbal Gandham - managing director informs users they want to become the "Amazon of finance" and that it is not about cross-selling.

eToro has a seamless transition between trading commission-free CFDs and actual stock trading, there were many times we were not aware which product we were on - this seems to be designed to look exactly the same to fool the user (same colours, screen and everything). However, trading real stocks the "Commission-free" has now changed and shows and "Overnight fee".

eToro selling point is the copy trading which means users follow trades of the main trader. If the main trader decides to increase leverage then automatically leverage is increased for the copying trader, this is an unhinged level of risk as often the users know little about what is happening.

Plus 500 does not have the best reputation amongst the investment community. Plus 500 makes money on spreads which are artificially made on their side, this means that you cannot see the real market action and they can adjust spreads for their own liking to profit. Potentially they could take the other side of your trade. Ideally, you should only trade with brokers that match orders with other buyers and sellers directly so you are exposed to only the true spread of the market.

Plus 500 is owned by a gaming company which sets of some alarm bells.

They do not have the best Trust Pilot score: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.plus500.com