Trading 212 vs Plus500: Which one is better?

Here we have a complete comparison between 2 regulated trading platforms: Trading 212 vs Plus500.

Both companies are safe and offer great conditions for traders. On this comparison we have analysed their licences, minimum deposit, withdrawals, fees and commissions.

The main thing we look at is the brokers’ regulations and their fees. Trading on a platform with low fees and costs is what all investors are looking for.

Finally, being sure to open an account on a regulated company ensures that you won’t have any problems when you want to withdraw your money.

 

Trading 212 vs Plus500: Regulations and Backgrounds

Trading 212 is a London based company, founded in 2004. The company offers either CFDs trading and Stocks trading.

The broker is registered in England and Wales with the Registration number 8590005.

The company has 2 main licences which permit it  to operate in Great Britain and Europe:

• Trading 212 UK LTD is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) with the licence number 609146
• Trading 212 LTD is regulated by the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC)

The broker Trading 212 offers also an account protection up to £85.000. This means that in case the company goes bankrupt, every trader will get their money refunded up to £85.000.

The broker is well known thanks to its ISA account. This is a tax free account for stocks trading.

We will talk more about it on the trading platform section.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

Plus500 is a leader in the CFD market. The company was founded in Israel in 2008. It was one of the first companies which offered CFDs trading.

The main goal of Plus500 is to offer a user-friendly platform to all its users.

Also Plus500 is a regulated broker to trade with. The broker has in fact the following licences:

• Plus500 UK Ltd authorised & regulated by the FCA (#509909)
• Plus500 CY Ltd authorised & regulated by CySEC (#250/14)
• Plus500 SG Pte Ltd, licensed by the MAS (#CMS100648-1)and IE Singapore (#PLUS/CBL/2018)
• Plus500 AU Pty Ltd(ACN 153301681), licensed by ASIC Australia, AFSL #417727
• In South Africa, Plus500 is regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA)under licence FSP #47546.

This shows how the broker can be trusted. What made Plus500 one of the leaders in the forex market, was its low minimum deposit and the vast offer of assets.

Also the fast deposit and withdrawal processes have helped to build its fame.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Trading 212 vs Plus500: Minimum Deposit

Trading 212 has the lowest minimum deposit in the market, with only $1 required. This deposit applies to all 3 types of account offered:

• Trading 212 Invest Account
• Trading 212 CFDs Account
• Trading 212 ISA Account

To make the first deposit on Trading 212 you need first to open an account with one of the buttons on this page.

Then on the “deposit funds” section you can decide on which Trading 212 account you want to make a deposit, the amount and the deposit method.

Through the platform, it is possible to deposit in several different ways:

• Credit or debit card
• Bank wire transfer
• Skrill or Neteller
• Bitcoin
• Local Payment Methods
• Giropay
• Gpay
• Paypal

If you decide to open an investing portfolio, you can also schedule you future deposits, the time and amount of money you want.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

The minimum deposit required by Plus500 is $100. If you are a UK resident you can deposit in Pounds, and if you are a European resident you can use the Euro.

To make the minimum deposit, you need to create a trading account, then by clicking on “deposit funds”, you can proceed with the first deposit.

Also by Plus500 there are many different deposit methods available:

• Credit card Visa or Mastercard
• Bank Wire Transfer
• Skrill
• Neteller
• Bitcoin
• Local Deposit methods

Plus500 also provides the opportunity for you to save your favourite deposit methods for future deposits into the account, or for withdrawals onto a specific credit card or bank account.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Plus500 vs Trading 212: Demo Account

Trading 212 offers a free demo account to everybody who wants to test the platform. A unique feature of this broker is that it is possible to use a demo account also without registration.

Trading 212 offers the opportunity to use a demo account with a guest profile, without any requirement for an email address, name or phone number.

The demo account comes with $50.000. All assets available on the real account are also available on the demo account.

The only difference is that in the Trading 212 demo it is possible to open a trade with only a set amount of virtual money offered by the system. On the real account it is possible to invest whatever sum a trader desires, starting from $1.

The usability and layout of the demo account is the same as the real one.

Finally, it is also possible to use a Trading 212 demo account  on the mobile version and on the App with all the same conditions as mentioned above.

A demo account is available only for CFDs trading. There is no  version of demo for ISA and Invest Accounts.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

Plus500 offers an unlimited demo account with $40.000. Every new trader automatically has a demo account once the registration process is complete.

Also, the Plus500 demo has the same assets and usability of the real account. Spreads and swaps are the same as on the actual one.

At the bottom of the screen, there is switch, that if clicked allows you  to alternate from the real account to the demo.

Trading with a Plus500 demo account is very important because helps to test strategies and trading techniques with virtual money.

Finally, all demo accounts use virtual money, this means it is not real money and for this reason can not be withdrawn to a bank account.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Plus500 vs Trading 212: Trading Platform

What makes Trading 212 unique, is its choice of accounts. The company offers 3 main trading accounts:

• Trading 212 CFDs account
• Trading 212 ISA account
• Trading 212 Invest Account

The Trading 212 CFDs accounts is perfect for traders who wants to invest in CFDs. This is the traditional trading offer and among its assets we can find currencies, stocks, commodities and indexes.

To start CFDs trading it is only required to deposit a minimum of $1.

The Trading 212 ISA account is a tax-free account where it is possible to invest in stocks or create an investing portfolio.

Investing portfolios, also known as Investing Pies, are a mix of diversified stocks from different companies. The trader can decide which companies to invest in, the fraction to add in the pie and the amount of money to invest.

It is possible to create as many pies as desired, decide the risk-return ratio and schedule future redeposits and withdrawals.

This type of account is tax free up to $20.000.

Finally, the Trading 212 invest account is the account that allows you to invest in stocks. The difference between this and the CFDs one is that in this case the investment in on equities, on the CFDs one it is a speculation on the actual stock trend.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

Plus500 is a CFDs broker, this means that all assets are traded as CFDs. The company does not offer any other type of account.

Plus500 has its own self-developed platform. The broker doesn’t have any Metatrader 4 or Metatrader 5.

The interface is very clean and nice and the whole platform is very user-friendly. The same interface can be found on the Plus500 App version too.

If a position has been opened on the web version it can be closed on the App and vice versa.

Finally, Plus500 offers many different indicators which can be used by all its traders. These help to analyse the markets, their trends and try to predict their future movements.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Trading 212 vs Plus500: Assets Available

On Trading 212 there are more than 1000 available assets to trade. On the CFDs account there are:

• Currencies pair (i.e. EURUSD)
• Commodities (i.e. Gold, Oil, Silver, etc.)
• Index (FTSE, DAX, etc.)
• Stocks (Apple, Tesla, etc.)

All the assets can be found on the main trading dashboard, sorted by category.

On the Trading 212 ISA and Trading 212 INVEST accounts there are only stocks available. Both accounts offer more than 200 different stocks to invest in.

As mentioned before in our comparison, all stocks are traded as equities and they can be used to create a diversified investing portfolio with different fractions in it.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

Plus500 offers only CFDs to trade with. Among those, there are more than 250 different assets available. The 4 types of assets available are:

• Currency pairs
• Indexes
• Commodities
• Stocks

Plus500 has recently removed cryptocurrencies from its assets.

All markets can be found on the main trading dashboard. There is a search option which allows you to the enter the name of a market and look for it.

The same functions and markets are also available on the mobile version and the Plus500 App.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Plus500 vs Trading 212: Commissions and Fees

Trading 212 has different commissions depending on the selected account.

For Stocks trading, all equities are commission free. This is a unique condition that the broker offers to all its traders.

For CFDs trading the spreads charged are slightly higher for the major currency pairs but very low for indexes and stocks.

• EURUSD has a spread of 2.2 pips
• GBPUSD 1.1 pips
• EURGBP 2.1 pips
• S&P 500 Index has $2 fees
• EU50 Index has $4,6 fee
• Apple CFDS has $5,6 fee
• Vodafone CFDs has $7,6 fee

Finally, the broker Trading 212 does not charge any commission for each opened trade, neither for each deposit. For trades left open overnight there is a small swap fee.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

On the other hand, Plus500 charges only a small spread for all its assets.

Spreads by Plus500 are slightly lower than by Trading 212.

For the major currencies there are the following spreads:

• EURUSD has a spread of 0.8 pips
• USDJPY 1 pip
• GBPUSD has 1.3 pips
• EURGBP has 1.5 pips
• GOLD has 0.55 points
• USDOIL 0.04 point
• US500 has 0.7 points

The broker Plus500 also offers the option to select different types of accounts with different types of spreads.

There are:

1. Variable Spread Accounts
2. Fixed Spread Accounts

As the name suggests, the variable spread accounts have spreads changing, depending on the market’s volatility. In situations of high volatility, spreads increase and on low volatile markets the spreads will reduce.

For the fixed spreads Plus500 accounts, the spread won’t change depending on the volatility but will remain the same.

Finally, Plus500 is totally commission free and charges only a small swap fee for overnight trades and for withdrawals.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Trading 212 vs Plus500: Withdrawals

To withdraw money from Trading 212 you only need to go on the “withdraw funds” section.

There it is possible to proceed with the withdrawal by selecting the desired amount of money, the payment method and the account you want to withdraw from.

The minimum withdraw by Trading 212 is $1.

The broker doesn’t charge any withdrawal fee.

The withdrawal time depends on the selected payment method:

• Bank account from 3 – 5 working days
• Credit Cards from 2 – 3 working days
• Skrill/Neteller maximum 24 hours
• Gpay immediate

For Trading 212 ISA accounts, it is also possible to withdraw your money anytime. This action will not change the asset of your investment pie. Once you proceed with a withdrawal the system will automatically adjust the deposit available onto the pie, dividing equally for the fractions of stocks in it.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

Plus500 also does not apply any withdrawal fee. To withdraw money from the broker you only need to log into your account and to go to the “withdraw” section on funds.

There it is possible to select the amount of money to withdraw and the payment method.

From Plus500, it is possible to withdraw on:

• Bank account
• Credit Card
• Skrill

Depending on the method, the withdrawal time varies from 1 to maximum 3 working days.

It is very important to mention that for both platforms, before proceeding with a withdrawal, it is important to send the necessary documents of identity and proof of residence to the broker.

This is required by law in order to avoid  money laundering or any troubles troubles with the account.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Plus500 vs Trading 212: Education

Putting in comparison Plus500 and Trading 212 for their educational material, we can see a big difference between the 2 brokers.

Trading 212 offers a list of 100 tutorial videos. They can be found on the main page under the section “learn”.

Each video is available to everybody including users who are not registered to the platform. Every video is approximately 3 and 10 minutes long and teaches the basics of trading, how to use the main indicators and suggests a few common trading strategies.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

Plus500 does not have a great educational material selection. Some tutorial videos and guides can be found under the Trader’s guide section.

These explain the basics of trading and the difference between different platforms. This material is available only to Plus500 clients.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Trading 212 vs Plus500: Client Support

The Trading 212 customer support is available 24/7. This means you can contact them by live chat or email every day of the week at any time.

The support can be contacted by:

• Live chat
• Email

For live chat, the waiting time goes from 2 to 10 minutes depending on how many other users are in the queue.

Emails are usually replied to within 24 hours. A ticket number is assigned to each email in order to assist in accurate future communication.

Open an Account

*Your capital might be at risk

Plus500 is also available 24 hours a day for 7 days.

The support can be contacted by:

• Email
• Live chat
• WhatsApp

The response time is also very quick using these formats, especially if contacted by live chat or WhatsApp.

Both supports are available in many different languages. For example:

• English
• French
• German
• Italian
• Spanish
• Portuguese
• Polish

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Plus500 vs Trading 212: what is better?

At the end of our comparison between Trading 212 and Plus500 we can say that the two brokers have very valid offers.

Trading 212 is suggested for traders who wants to invest in different products. Thanks to its choice of Trading 212 CFDs, Trading 212 ISA and Trading 212 Invest account, on this platform it is possible to trade CFDs, stocks or create investment portfolios.

Plus, having a tax-free ISA account can be an advantage in term of taxes.

Finally, it is a modern and well-designed Trading 212 App, which allows every trader to invest with a simple click from a smartphone and to control and modify all the investments at anytime.

Plus500 is a recommended choice for those trades who are interested in investing in CFDs with a trusted and user-friendly platform.

The broker Plus500 is one of the top leaders in the CFDs industry. Its platform is very intuitive for all types of traders and also the App is very well designed.

The low minimum deposit is also an advantage for Plus500. Finally, thanks to the free Plus500 demo account and a dedicated account manager to all traders, everyone can test their own strategies with virtual money.

Open a Plus500 Account

*84% of retail CFD accounts lose money

 

Here you can read more about the best forex brokers.

• Follow
• Follow