Plus500 Review Australia 2026

Plus500 quick facts

Trading costs and fees

Spreads on AUD/USD and majors

Plus500 uses a markup-based pricing model. There’s no commission on forex CFDs. You pay through the spread, which is dynamic rather than fixed. Our May to June 2026 capture measured its variable spread at an average of 0.6 pips, though Plus500 sits outside the raw and standard league tables because its single spread-only account fits neither category. The markup model behaves predictably day to day, which is why Plus500 appears alongside the true fixed-price brokers in our fixed spread forex brokers comparison.

For active forex scalpers, the lack of a RAW commission account is the main cost issue. If you’re trading 50+ standard lots per month, you’ll likely save money on a Razor or RAW account elsewhere.

Other fees AU traders should check

• Overnight financing applies to positions held past the daily cut. The charge depends on trade direction.
• GSLO premium: Plus500 charges a wider effective spread on instruments where you attach a Guaranteed Stop Loss Order, but only if the order is actually triggered. This is the risk-management feature we’d point beginners to first.
• Inactivity fee: USD 10 per month after three consecutive months of no logins. Unusually aggressive.
• Currency conversion fee if you trade an instrument priced in a currency other than your base.
• Withdrawals: no fee for the first five per month, then a small fee.

Trading platforms

Plus500 WebTrader (proprietary)

Plus500’s whole offer rests on this single platform. There’s no MT4, no MT5, no cTrader and no TradingView. That’s a deliberate product decision: the platform is purpose-built for a beginner audience that doesn’t want to learn an institutional charting tool.

What’s strong:

• Clean instrument search by category (forex, indices, shares, commodities, crypto, ETFs, options)
• One-click trade tickets with built-in risk warnings before you submit
• Native Guaranteed Stop Loss Orders (premium charged only on trigger)
• Trailing stops, take profits and standard stop losses available out of the box
• Real-time alerts on price, volume and percentage moves
• Economic calendar built into the platform
• Sentiment data showing position bias on each instrument

What’s missing:

• No expert advisors or algorithmic trading
• No depth-of-book pricing
• Charting tools are basic compared to TradingView or cTrader
• No API access for custom integrations
• No copy trading

Windows desktop app

Alongside WebTrader, Plus500 offers a downloadable desktop app for Windows with the same layout and trade ticket as the web platform. There is no native Mac app, so Mac users trade through WebTrader in the browser.

Mobile app

The Plus500 mobile app won our 2026 Best Brokers for Beginners review on user experience. It’s available on iOS and Android with biometric login, push price alerts, and the same trade ticket experience as the web platform.

Trust and safety

Trust score: 9/10.

ASIC regulation and global licences

Plus500AU Pty Ltd holds AFSL 417727 with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. The licence has been continuously held since 2012.

Globally, the parent group is regulated by:

• Financial Conduct Authority, UK (Tier 1)
• CySEC, Cyprus (Tier 1)
• Monetary Authority of Singapore (Tier 1)
• Japan Financial Services Agency (Tier 1, via Plus500JP Securities, licence 156)
• Financial Sector Conduct Authority, South Africa (Tier 2)
• DFSA, UAE (Tier 2)
• Israel Securities Authority (Tier 2)
• Financial Markets Authority, New Zealand (Tier 2; held by the same Plus500AU entity, FSP 486026)

Client money and negative balance protection

Plus500 holds retail client money in segregated accounts at an Approved Australian Bank, separate from the company’s own funds. ASIC requires negative balance protection on retail CFD accounts, so a retail account cannot lose more than the money in it. If a dispute with the broker goes wrong, AFCA can hear claims up to $1,263,000 and award compensation up to $631,500. The Compensation Scheme of Last Resort sits behind that with a $150,000 cap, but it excludes CFD trading losses, so it protects you against unpaid awards for misconduct, not against losing trades.

One carve-out matters here. Negative balance protection is a retail protection, and clients who elect the Professional (Elective Pro) status give it up along with the ASIC leverage caps. That is the whole trade in electing Pro, and it is why we steer beginners away from it. For how Plus500 sits against the field, see our list of the safest brokers for retail clients and our explainer on negative balance cover on CFD accounts.

History and ownership

Plus500 was founded in 2008 in Haifa, Israel by a group of computer science graduates. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2013 and has been a FTSE 250 constituent for several years. As of 2026, the parent group’s market capitalisation sits in the low billions of pounds.

For Australian sports fans, Plus500’s brand is hard to miss. The broker sponsors Atlético Madrid in La Liga, the ACT Brumbies in Super Rugby, and has been visible in AFL grand final coverage.

Public reviews

Plus500 holds a Trustpilot rating of 4.2 out of 5 from 19,518 reviews, which Trustpilot labels great, captured July 2026. The profile has been claimed by the broker since May 2021.

Reviewers tend to praise the clean platform, fast onboarding and easy mobile app. Complaints centre on the inactivity fee and chat-only support.

What other review sites say

Plus500's iOS app rates 4.15 out of 5 from 6,571 ratings on the Australian App Store (July 2026), listed as Plus500: AU & Global Trading.

App Store AU

4.15

6,571 ratingsJuly 2026

Account types and minimum deposit

Account options for AU clients

Plus500 runs a single retail CFD account on an AUD 100 minimum, with no tiers and no commission variants; pricing is spread only. That simplicity is deliberate and matches the platform design, and it is a big part of why Plus500 tops our beginner-friendly forex brokers list. The only alternative is the elective Professional account for experienced traders who qualify.

The Professional (Elective Pro) account lifts the ASIC retail leverage caps: up to 300:1 on forex, 200:1 on indices, 150:1 to 200:1 on gold, 100:1 on other commodities, 20:1 to 50:1 on crypto and 20:1 on share CFDs. To qualify, you need to meet two of three criteria: at least 10 trades per quarter over the past four quarters, a portfolio worth over EUR 500,000 equivalent, or at least one year of relevant experience in the financial sector. Electing Pro status means giving up retail protections, including negative balance protection.

The unlimited demo needs only an email to start and sits fourth in our demo account comparison.

Minimum deposit

Plus500’s minimum deposit is AUD 100. The same number applies to the retail account and the elective Professional account, so there is no higher balance gate anywhere in the offer. For a beginner that is a low entry barrier, though several raw-spread brokers, Pepperstone among them, open at $0.

Funding and withdrawals

Deposit methods (AU clients)

Withdrawals

Withdrawals are free for the first five per month, after which a small fee applies. Funds must return to the original deposit source where possible.

Account opening

Account opening is fully online and AUSTRAC-compliant. Most AU applications are approved within 30 minutes during business hours. Plus500’s onboarding flow scored 14/15 in our test, the lightest-touch process of any broker we cover.

Product range

Plus500 carries 2,800+ CFD instruments, and the shape of the range fits the audience: deep on shares, solid on indices and commodities, thinner on forex than the currency specialists. Everything here is a CFD, so there is no ownership route on any of it. Our markets hub sets out what you can trade as CFDs across the AU field; at Plus500 the list runs to seven classes.

Around 70 forex pairs covers the majors and the AUD crosses, which is enough for most beginners but short of Pepperstone, IC Markets and OANDA. The ETF CFDs run across the main regional and sector themes. Plus500 also lists options on selected indices and forex pairs, which is unusual on a platform built for new traders.

Share CFDs

Around 2,000 of Plus500’s 2,800 plus instruments are share CFDs across ASX, NYSE, NASDAQ, LSE and the major European exchanges. For its beginner audience the range is the strength: broad coverage of the names most retail traders actually search for, all CFDs, with no ASX ownership route. If you want to hold real ASX shares, this is the wrong broker; CMC Markets and Interactive Brokers do that and Plus500 does not. Our guide to share CFDs for beginners covers how the class works and who leads it.

Crypto CFDs

Crypto covers the major pairs only, at ASIC’s 2:1 retail cap. These are CFDs, not coins you own or can move to a wallet, so the platform is a price exposure tool rather than an exchange. For how the class compares across the field, see our guide to crypto CFDs at AU brokers.

Indices and commodities

The index list runs 30 plus benchmarks including the ASX 200 and S&P/ASX SPI 200, and commodities cover gold, silver, copper, the crude contracts, natural gas and softs. Both sit under the standard ASIC retail caps, 20:1 on gold and the major indices and 10:1 on the other commodities. Compare the index CFD selection and the commodity CFD range at other AU brokers before you settle.

Leverage for AU traders

Plus500’s single retail account carries the ASIC caps in full, and no pricing tier or platform choice here changes them. The only route past the retail ceiling is the elective Professional classification, and taking it costs you negative balance protection.

ASIC caps retail CFD leverage at 30:1 on major forex pairs, 20:1 on minor pairs, gold and major indices, 10:1 on commodities other than gold, 5:1 on share CFDs and 2:1 on crypto assets. The caps come from a product intervention order that ASIC has extended to 23 May 2027, so they apply at every ASIC broker, not just Plus500. Plus500 offers higher leverage to wholesale clients who pass the eligibility tests: up to 300:1 on forex, 200:1 on indices, 150:1 to 200:1 on gold, 100:1 on other commodities, 20:1 to 50:1 on crypto and 20:1 on share CFDs, for clients who meet two of the three Elective Pro criteria set out above.

ASIC requires every CFD issuer to close out a retail client’s positions once account equity falls below 50 percent of the total initial margin on all open positions. The rule is set by the product intervention order and applies to Plus500 the same way it applies to every ASIC-licensed CFD issuer. Positions cannot be netted off against each other to reduce that figure, and a gapping market can close a position below the 50 percent level.

Before you go near those numbers, read what leverage does to position sizing, then the high leverage brokers reviewed on this site.

Customer service

24/7 live chat and email support. No phone support for retail clients. That’s the big difference from CMC, IG or Pepperstone.

In our testing, average live chat response was under 90 seconds during business hours and around three minutes overnight.

Research and education

Plus500’s education layer is intentionally thin. The Trader’s Guide section covers the basics (what’s a CFD, what’s leverage, how does a stop loss work) and the in-platform sentiment data and economic calendar do most of the heavy lifting.

What’s there:

• Trader’s Guide (beginner concepts)
• Economic calendar built into WebTrader
• Sentiment data per instrument
• News feed inside the platform
• Insights blog with market commentary

How Plus500 compares to alternatives

No single broker wins on every axis. The table below points to the brokers we would pick for specific priorities; for the full field, see our best forex brokers in Australia guide.

Should you open an account with Plus500?

Open a Plus500 account if simplicity is the point: one clean proprietary platform, 2,800 plus instruments and a listed parent, well suited to a beginner audience. Skip it if you ever want MT4, EAs, an API or copy trading, none of which exist here, or if the inactivity fee worries you, because USD 10 a month starts after just three months dormant. Pepperstone covers the platform power case and eToro the copy trading one. The unlimited demo is the right first step.

Open a Plus500 demo → (affiliate link, see our advertiser disclosure)