Plus500 Review: A Good First Forex App With No MetaTrader
Plus500 skips MetaTrader entirely and builds everything around one app, so we opened a $100 account, traded EUR/USD on the platform, and checked whether a beginner loses anything by starting here.
Best for: First-time traders who want a simple app-only account without configuring a separate platform
Plus500 strips forex trading down to one number, the spread, and one app, its own, which makes it genuinely easy for a first-time trader to open a position without getting lost in platform settings. An EUR/USD spread around 0.8 pips is not competitive against a raw-spread broker, and the absence of MetaTrader or cTrader means any strategy built there cannot move across. For someone opening their first forex account and wanting simplicity over the tightest possible cost, Plus500 does the job cleanly. A trader who already runs expert advisors or wants the lowest spread on the market should open an account elsewhere instead.
Price $100 minimum depositMaker Plus500 Ltdplus500.com
Most brokers build their pitch around a platform choice: MT4 for the algo crowd, cTrader for the scalpers, a proprietary app for everyone else. Plus500 skips the choice entirely. There is one app, no MetaTrader option at all, and every cost folds into a single spread number. We put $100 into an account and traded EUR/USD for two weeks using nothing but that app to see whether the simplicity costs a beginner anything real.
One app, and it is genuinely easy to use
Opening a position took three taps: search the pair, set a size, confirm. There is no separate download, no license key, no configuration screen asking about hedging mode or expert advisor permissions. For a trader who has never placed a forex trade before, that reduction in friction is worth something real, and we did not miss having a second platform to learn during testing.
The tradeoff shows up immediately for anyone who already trades elsewhere. There is no MetaTrader 4, no MetaTrader 5 and no cTrader, so any indicator set, expert advisor or saved chart template built on those platforms simply does not transfer here. A beginner starting fresh will not notice. A trader migrating from another broker will.
What the spread actually costs
Plus500's EUR/USD spread averaged around 0.8 pips during our testing window, with no separate commission line to track. That is roughly eight times wider than the tightest raw-spread accounts on the market, though those accounts also charge a commission that this one does not. Run the numbers on a single standard lot and the total cost difference is real but not dramatic for someone trading occasionally rather than dozens of times a day.
Currency conversion adds a second cost worth knowing about: up to 0.7% applies when a trade's currency does not match the account's base currency. It is disclosed, but easy to miss if a trader opens the account in one currency and then trades pairs denominated in another.
