Broker comparison between Plus500 vs Saxo

　　General Information & Regulation

　　Plus500 is a trademark of Plus500 Ltd. Plus500 Ltd operates through the following subsidiaries: Plus500UK Ltd authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 509909), Cryptocurrency CFDs not available to Retail Clients. Office Address: Plus500UK Ltd, 8 Angel Court, Copthall Avenue | London EC2R 7HJ; Plus500CY Ltd authorised and regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (Licence No. 250/14), Cryptocurrency CFDs not available to UK Retail Clients; Plus500AU Pty Ltd holding AFSL #417727 issued by ASIC, FSP No. 486026 issued by the FMA in New Zealand and Authorised Financial Services Provider #47546 issued by the FSCA in South Africa; Plus500SEY Ltd authorised and regulated by the Seychelles Financial Services Authority (Licence No. SD039); Plus500SG Pte Ltd (UEN 201422211Z) holds a capital markets services license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore for dealing in capital markets products (License No. CMS100648-1).Plus500 was founded in 2008, its trading platform enables investors to trade on movement in the price of shares, commodities, indices, and some other poplur financial instruments.

　　Market Instruments

　　Plus500 offers investors access to popular products in the global financial markets, including forex, indices, commodities, cryptocurrencies, ETFs, and more.

　　Plus500 Minimum Deposit

　　The minimum deposit required by Plus500 is $100, as there seems only one account available on the Plus 500 platform. The minimum deposit via bank transfer is $500.

　　Plus500 Leverage

　　Plus500 offers two account types, retail accounts and professional accounts. Both accounts – Retail and Pro accounts – are the same in most aspects. The main difference between them is that the retail account features lower leverage ratios compared to the Pro account. Professional clients do not have ICF rights. Professional traders can apply for the trading leverage of up to 1:300.

　　Spreads & Commissions

　　Plus500 does not require any hidden fees, and profits are built into spreads. The minimum spreads for Forex products start from 0.8 pips for EUR/USD, 0.15 pips for EUR/GBP, and 0.13 pips for GBP/USD.

　　 Inactivity Fees

　　Plus500 does charge an inactivity fee. Traders who have not logged into the account for more than 3 months are subject to inactivity fee. The fee is $10 per quarter after this 3-month period has passed.

　　Trading Platform

　　Plus500 offers their proprietary in-house trading platform called WebTraders, available on all devices (Windows PCs, tablets, smartphones, web browsers). Plus500 does not offer the popular MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform that would have added functionality and customization options.

　　Deposit & Withdrawal

　　Plus500 allows trader to fund their accounts through several payments methods, Visa, Mastercard credit & debit cards, bank transfer, and some e-wallet including Skrill and Neteller on the list of its payment options. In rare cases, users may incur commissions for transferring funds to or from the company's account. The fees are determined and charged by the user's payment issuer or bank (not by the Plus500).

　　Customer Support

　　Plus 500 platform has live online chat customer service and e-mail customer support and representatives are available 24/7. Besides, users reported that e-mail responses take up to an hour, though response times vary depending on the complexity of the issue.

　　General Information & Regulation of Saxo

　　Founded in 1992, the company launched its first online trading platform in 1998, providing traders with professional-grade tools and access to multi-asset markets. Saxo Group serves clients in over 120 countries, manages $16 billion in assets, and processes over 125,000 trades per day to date. The headquarter of Saxo Bank is located in Copenhagen while an organization operating in financial centers around the world including London, Paris, Zurich, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and Saxo Bank is licensed by several regulators globally.

　　Saxo Market Instruments

　　The company offers a wide range and a number of financial products, mainly divided into leveraged instruments and investment products. Leveraged products include CFD products, Futures, Commodities, and listed options, while investment products include stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, and managed portfolios.

　　 Minimum Deposit

　　Saxo Markets has three main account levels, namely Personal, Institutional and Professional. Individual accounts are divided into Classic, Platinum, and VIP accounts. Classic accounts have a minimum deposit of $2,000. The minimum deposit for a Platinum account is $200,000, which allows investors to get smaller spreads and lower commissions, while the minimum deposit for a VIP account is now $1, 000,000. Saxo Markets' corporate account contains the same three accout types too, with the minimum deposit for the classic account up to $10,000, $200,000 for the platinum account , and the minimum deposit for VIP account is $1000,000. Investors will be reclassified as Professional clients if they meet any two of the three conditions: having a financial portfolio of more than 500,00 EUR; having made at least 10 relevant transactions of significant size in the last four quarters; working in the financial sector, or having worked for at least one year.

　　 Saxo Leverage

　　With regard to trading leverage, professional clients are entitled to leverage of 1:40 for the primary index, 1:33 for the secondary index, 1:33 for gold, 1:10 for equities, and 1:25 for commodities. Retail clients are entitled to leverage of 1:20 for the primary index, 1:10 for the secondary index, 1:20 for gold, 1:5 for equities and 1:10 for commodities.

　　Spreads & Commissions

　　Spreads on CFD products are as low as 0.4. Go long or short more than 9,000 products, and enjoy low spreads and credits. Commissions start at $3 per share for equities, as low as $0.85 per lot for commodities, and $3 per share for ETFs. Futures commissions start as low as $0.85 per lot, bonds commissions start at 0.05%, listed options commissions start as low as $1.25 per lot, and mutual funds commissions are $0 for custody and platform fees.

　　Trading Platform

　　Saxo uses the best-in-class trading platform SaxoTraderGO, a powerful trading tool with enhanced trading instruments, innovative risk management features including account shields (which act as stop-loss levels for the entire account value and close out the entire position in case of a penalty), stop-loss orders, cancel all orders, margin usage details, margin alerts, and fast position closing features. In addition, Saxo Group also offers SaxoLite (mobile trading platform for Hong Kong and US stocks) for investors.

　　Deposit & Withdrawal

　　Saxo Bank supports several deposit and withdrawal methods, including Visa, MasterCard, Visa Debit, Visa Electron, MasterCard Debit, Maestro (for UK residents), Visa Dankort (for Denmark residents), Carte Bleue (for France residents). The company does not charge any fees for withdrawals, but if an investor makes a withdrawal request via manual withdrawal, a processing fee of 40 EUR will be charged.