eToro Reviews in 2023: Pros and Cons in Depth

In this article we wanted to bring you the result of our research and in-depth analysis of eToro reviews, so that you can make an objective assessment of whether it’s a good idea to invest with this broker or not.

eToro is more than just an online broker, it is one of the world’s leading social investment networks and aims to revolutionise the way people invest. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Cyprus, eToro offers multi-asset brokerage services with 10 offices around the world, including the US, UK, Israel, Cyprus, Australia and more.

As a preview we can tell you that in Mundo-Forex.com we give a vote of confidence to this financial intermediary, but you may not have the same opinion, hence the importance of reading this post to the end and you can draw your own conclusions.

Main features of the eToro broker

Among its main features we can mention that:

It is a highly regulated broker.
Every eToro user can interact with other members of the social trading network in real time, learn from them, copy them and even be copied if you show good results.
eToro has an excellent rewards program for those traders who have numerous copiers. These traders, (better known as Popular Investors) could earn up to 2% of the assets they manage.
It allows you to invest in stocks with no limits on volume and no commissions.
On the eToro platform you can choose whether you want to trade manually, copy other traders, or both.
It offers the possibility to trade more than 2500 financial instruments, including indices, Forex currencies, commodities, stocks, cryptocurrencies and ETFs.
It has its own innovative trading platform. However, it does not offer other platforms such as MetaTrader.
It has a cryptoasset wallet aimed at facilitating the management of cryptoassets, allowing customers to send and receive, convert and buy cryptoassets, all in the same application.

eToro Broker Reviews

As eToro is such a popular and well known broker it has not been difficult to find dozens of comments and opinions from its users, but at this point we must emphasize that a large part of them come from misinformation and mismanagement of the platform by the users themselves, so it is important to know how to discern which one is totally valid and which one is not.

As we mentioned earlier, the aim of this article is to help you with this search process. In the case of this section we have brought you the most relevant opinions and reviews, both good and bad, about eToro’s services and tools.

Starting with safety, many customers feel that eToro is a safe and reliable broker, which is quite logical and accurate for a broker with so many regulations, years of experience and popularity.

If we focus on customer service, opinions are divided as a lot of users have had excellent experiences with this department which has led to very good reviews, but sometimes some users say they have not been so lucky, as they have received answers that do not give a solution to their problems or take too long to respond (something logical for a broker with so many customers to serve but not something positive for those who have a question or incident to resolve).

Another aspect of eToro’s withdrawals is the speed and agility with which they are processed (once the account is verified), but a frequent negative point among the opinions against eToro is the withdrawal fee charged by this broker for each request ($5 USD).

Following the line of commissions, it is true that eToro is not one of the cheapest brokers, and this is reflected in the opinions and comments of its customers, where many see for example, the spreads of cryptocurrencies too high, not to mention those of currencies, which although they are not the highest, they are not the cheapest either. At this point it is important to know that this more expensive than usual service is compensated for by the security and quality of eToro’s services, especially those involving social trading or copytrading.

On the other hand, the best reviews and ratings about eToro refer to its excellent platform, being one of the most innovative and pioneering in the social trading sector, as well as mentioning that it is very intuitive and easy to use, both its web version and its version for mobile devices. Although it is true that we also find negative opinions from users who miss the possibility of trading with other platforms such as Meta Trader 4/5, among others.

Main Advantages and Disadvantages of eToro

eToro has positioned itself as a leader in its sector (social trading), this among other things, thanks to all the advantages offered to its customers, but not everything is good, there are also points that this well-known broker should improve.

Let’s take a look at the advantages as well as the disadvantages of this online broker:

Advantages

CopyTrader function: This function allows you to copy other traders and is undoubtedly one of the most prominent features of this platform, and therefore an advantage for customers with little time or experience in the world of trading.
CopyPortfolios function: Another star feature of eToro is the CopyPortfolios function, which works like a mutual fund, but without the complexity, as it is essentially nothing more than a CFD portfolio. While with CopyTrader you have subscribed to a single trader, with CopyPortfolios you can trade across the industry or across the portfolios of eToro’s top traders.
No commissions for investing in stocks: With eToro, you won’t pay any commissions on the stocks you buy, so the commissions stay in your pocket instead of ending up in your broker’s pocket.
Cryptocurrency Staking: With eToro you can do cryptocurrency staking, a process that allows users who own and hold supported cryptoassets to earn rewards, just for holding them. eToro executes the staking process on behalf of its users.
Popular InvestorProgram: The Popular Investor program allows investors who are likely to generate good income on an annual basis to be copied by other customers on the eToro platform and earn money for it.
Unlimited Demo Account: eToro allows us to open a free demo account and practice with a large margin of $100,000 and no time or expiry limit.
Trading Academy: With over 100 educational resources, eToro’s trading academy is one of the most comprehensive in the market, and access to it is completely free.

Disadvantages

High wire deposits: Deposits made from bank accounts will need to be a minimum of $500 or equivalent, an amount that not everyone starting out can afford.
Relatively high spreads: Spreads can be high even for the most popular currency pairs when compared to other similar platforms.
Withdrawal fee: eToro charges a $5.00 withdrawal fee for each withdrawal made on their platform. This fee does not cover any other fees that may be charged during the withdrawal process, such as currency conversion fees or fees charged by our bank for the transaction.
Minimum withdrawal amount: The broker only allows a minimum withdrawal of $30. This can be annoying if your available balance is less than this amount and you have to pay the $5 commission fee on top of this.
Does not offer Meta Trader 4 and 5: eToro only offers its own platform, and even though it has the features and tools that allow you to trade efficiently, many of its clients miss other popular platforms with MT4 and MT5.

eToro features and customer reviews

Below we take a closer look at eToro’s main features including their commissions, platforms, available markets and more.

Markets that can be accessed with eToro

Stocks: In this market, with eToro you can trade over 2700 stocks from all over the world, from technology stocks to healthcare, and best of all, you can buy fractions of them at no extra cost, i.e. no commissions. At this point it is important to note that the zero commission policy only applies in the spot market, i.e. where you trade without leverage.

Cryptocurrencies: There are already more than 40 cryptocurrencies available for trading on eToro, and counting. For this market this broker offers the ultimate solution, as in addition to its trading platform, it also has an all-in-one eWallet.

Commodities: Resources or commodities are another market available at eToro where you can trade with flexible leverage and high liquidity in over 30 types of commodities, including gold, silver, oil and natural gas.

Foreign exchange: For the world’s most liquid market (FOREX), eToro provides its users with over 45 currency pairs, including all major currencies, as well as exotic pairs.

Indices: Indices are an excellent way to invest in the general movement of the stock market, with the flexibility to manage your exposure as you see fit. In this case eToro offers 13 of the most important indices from around the world.

ETFs: eToro offers to invest in over 260 ETFs with the underlying asset and in CFD format. Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are a flexible yet comprehensive way to invest in the financial markets, with low cost entry points and no management fees, making them ideal for portfolio diversification.

As you will have seen, eToro offers a wide range and variety of assets, especially in the stock market, something which is well appreciated by their customers who have reflected their gratitude about this in feedback comments.

Types of accounts available at eToro

eToro currently offers only one account type, the Standard account, but if you meet certain requirements, you can take this account to a higher level, i.e. a professional account for more advanced clients. Let’s take a look at the details of this standard account and what you need to do to become a professional client at eToro.

Retail Account (Standard)

The Standard account will be the account that we can open when we first start using eToro’s services. By using this account, traders get access to all tradable financial instruments and tools available, including the option to trade manually or make use of copy trading and social trading.

For the retail account they classify a certain range of clients, from beginners to more advanced traders who do not yet qualify to become professionals.

It is important to note that leverage is restricted for European retail clients, but they will still be eligible for Investor Compensation Fund protection. The maximum leverage for this type of account in Europe is 1:30.

The minimum deposit for retail accounts varies depending on the place of residence. For example, it will be $10 for countries such as the US and UK, between $50 and $200 for most of the accepted countries, and even $1000 up to and including $10,000 for countries such as Israel.

Account for professional clients

If a client wants to qualify as a professional client, they must go through an elective process that eToro has, which involves a test that will determine the trader’s sustainability and whether or not they qualify as a professional, which will make them eligible for this type of account.

To qualify as a professional trader, traders must meet two of the three qualification criteria set out in the process:

Hold a portfolio that exceeds $500,000 and does not include property or cash.
Have a verified track record of placing orders that are of significant size, which is at the discretion of eToro.
The trader must have previous experience working within the capacity of a professional position that relates to derivatives, speculation and/or trading.

For negative balance protection, professional traders will be able to hedge in the event that market conditions cause a negative balance on the trading account where eToro will absorb this loss and the trader’s equity will be reset to zero, just as with the retail account.

Professional traders have access to much higher leverage than in retail accounts, allowing you to open much larger positions and in turn margin rates will be reduced in cases where leverage is applied to financial instruments.

eToro Demo Account

eToro offers another type of trading account, but in this case a fictitious one, also known as a demo account (DEMO).

Every customer who opens a Standard account at eToro can have a Demo account, where they can use all the features of a Standard account but this time without any real investment risk or profit.

By signing up for a Demo account with eToro, you will receive $100,000 in virtual funds along with access to all the tools and tradable financial instruments, including Copy trading.

You can open a demo account at no cost and with no time limit from the eToro broker’s website:

https://www.etoro.com/

We haven’t found any relevant opinions on eToro’s account types and not much is said about them considering that there is currently only one type, the standard one, but some users appreciate the possibility of trading on a demo account allowing them to adapt to their trading platform, both web and mobile.

eToro’s trading platforms reviews

eToro offers a proprietary trading platform, a not so favourable point even though it is one of the best platforms of its kind, as many of its users have left comments and reviews stating that they miss being able to use other platforms such as Meta Trader 4/5, Trading View, among others.

So let’s see what eToro has to offer in terms of platforms:

Web Terminal: With this platform you can trade all the assets available on eToro. For each asset you will have access to news, statistics, and the asset’s chart even if you are not logged in, but of course you will not be able to open any positions until you have logged in with your credentials.

The web terminal has a large number of tools and indicators for the technical analysis of the different instruments. It also allows you to compare assets in real time and many other options that make it a competitive and powerful platform, such as its star functions CopyTrader and CopyPortfolios.

Trading App: The version of its platform is available for both Android and iOS operating systems. This application allows us to perform the same actions as with its web platform, such as CopyTrader and CopyPortfolios.

It is important to note that eToro does not offer a desktop version, leaving its users the only option to trade via a web browser, or the mobile app, and this is another point mentioned by its customers in their reviews, as although it has its advantages, as you do not have to install anything on your PC to trade, a desktop application would be a good option for some, especially for professional clients.

Analysis and training tools

eToro provides its clients with a number of technical/fundamental analysis and trader training tools, let’s take a look at some of the main ones.

Research: When you select an asset you will be able to view various analysis options including the “Research” tab. This tool allows users to access various analysis from professionals, and in this way obtain recommendations for action on a given asset. Offering their sentiment on whether to buy, hold or sell that asset.

CopyPortfolios: With this tool, each user can access portfolios (portfolios) of other investors, portfolios made up of different assets (shares, currencies, crypto-assets…) or market segments (technology, banking, video game companies…). This tool enables social trading to be carried out, allowing less experienced investors to follow experts or invest in portfolios generated from the investment of the millions of users that make up the platform.

ProCharts: With this tool you can perform professional technical analysis and compare graphs of different financial instruments to know their evolution, trend and behaviour over time, among others.

Dividend calendar and income reports: Through these options you can find out the reports and dates of the movements of the largest companies in the world, in order to predict the possible movement of an asset.

eToro Academy: eToro takes the education of its clients very seriously. To that end, eToro provides its users with a wide range of resources including Courses, Guides, Webinars, Podcasts, Videos, Articles, etc. Each of these elements, created by professional traders, allow both novice and novice users to access free, high quality training to increase their knowledge and thus reduce the risks involved in investing in the financial markets.

Many of eToro’s customersappreciate the support material and sophisticatedtools such as the Research, CopyPortfolios, and ProCharts functionsin their reviews, which is why this broker gets so many positive ratings.

eToro’s main commissions

eToro has a fee and commission scheme just like any other financial intermediary, where its fees come from spreads and other commissions.

We can separate its fees into two groups:

Operational Fees
Non-Operating Fees

Operational fees

Operational fees or commissions are those that arise from the execution of trading operations. The most common of these are the spread and the overnight commission.

Spreads at eToro: The spread is the difference between the bid and ask price of a particular asset. eToro will charge a variable spread rate, meaning that it can vary in value depending on factors that directly affect the markets, such as volatility.

In the case of Forex and Indices, we can have spreads ranging from 0.75 pips to 50 pips, which are certainly not the lowest in the market.

For Commodities this range is much wider and can vary from 2 pips to 20,000 pips in the case of Palladium.

In the cryptocurrency market we are charged a spread measured in percent, in this case the range varies from 0.75% to 5%.

Overnight rates

eToro charges overnight (rollover) fees which apply from 17:00 (New York time). Commissions are charged for any positions opened before that time and closed after that time.

The value of this fee varies depending on market behaviour and the type of trade you have open, either long or short.

Non-operating commissions

In the case of non-operating fees or commissions, we refer to those that will take place even if you do not trade on the platform, for example:

Opening, maintaining or closing an account
Making deposits and/or withdrawals
Foreign Exchange

For the case of eToro opening and closing an account is totally free, as is maintaining it as long as you show activity on it, as if you don’t log in for more than 12 months, you will have to pay a $10 USD/month or equivalent inactivity fee.

For deposits and withdrawals, eToro only charges a commission on withdrawals, charging a fee of $5 USD for each withdrawal you make, with a minimum withdrawal fee of $30 USD.

Another non-operating fee at eToro is the currency conversion fee, as this broker only allows you to set your account currency to USD, so a deposit or withdrawal involving a different currency will incur a conversion fee, which in this case varies depending on the method you use, ranging from 50 to 150 pips of the currency other than USD.

You can find out more about eToro’s fees in this article: eToro Fees and Commissions.

As for the commissions, we can say that it is one of the points that this broker could improve, and many of its customers think the same and express their opinions, as they consider high some of their costs.

Is eToro a safe broker?

If a broker with the regulations and reputation that eToro has is not safe, then none of them are, given that we are talking about one of the best and most well known brokers, which is also a benchmark in the social trading sector.

But words can be taken with the wind, so let’s take a look at the actual proof of each of eToro’s regulations:

For the United Kingdom, eToro (UK) Ltd is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), one of the best known and respected supervisors internationally.
eToro (Europe) Ltd. is regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) and is internationally licensed by CySEC to offer its services in the member states of the European Economic Area.
For the Netherlands, eToro (Europe) Ltd is registered with De Nederlandsche Bank N.V. (DNB) as a cryptocurrency service provider, where DNB supervises eToro (Europe) Ltd’s compliance with the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act and the Sanctions Act 1977.
For the United States, the subsidiary eToro USA LLC is registered with FinCEN as a money services business. In addition, eToro USA Securities Inc is a member of FINRA and SIPC.
For Australia, eToro AUS Capital Limited is a subsidiary regulated by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), Australian Financial Services Licence number 491139.

But that’s not all, it’s also worth mentioning that their clients’ funds are properly backed and protected…

Protecting Client Funds

eToro maintains client funds in segregated accounts, so that your funds and assets are always segregated from your own assets. This separation of accounts is monitored both internally and externally. And they make it clear that they only work with reputable providers and payment institutions.

eToro offers its clients free insurance underwritten with London-based Lloyd’s, one of the world’s leading providers of specialist insurance, offering coverage up to EUR 1 million, GBP 1 million or AUD 1 million (depending on the region). Insurance is automatically offered to all eToro customers, without the need to register.

In the unlikely scenario that eToro becomes insolvent, eToro’s customers have three layers of protection covering any type of user.

In addition to the above, eToro applies other security elements directly related to electronic accounts, as it allows you to enable two-factor authentication (“A2F”) on your account, where you are required to enter a verification code sent to your mobile phone via SMS in order to access your account, an additional layer of security that you can enable or disable in your account settings.

So, in this aspect (security) to sum up we can see that eToro is a secure, trusted broker, and many traders have realised this, and it is one of the reasons why they have decided to start trading with this broker and in turn leave excellent reviews about it.

For which user profile is this broker suitable?

Considering that with eToro you can trade and profit without the need to be an experienced trader, thanks to the broker’s flagship features, CopyTrade and CopyPortfolios, we can deduce that eToro is a broker recommended for beginners, or those who don’t have a lot of time to analyse the markets on their own.

But we can also say that it is also a great broker for more experienced traders, for example, its high degree of security and protection of funds, or its compensation plan for traders who become copy investors (Popular Investor) are some of the reasons that support our opinion in this regard.

So whatever your investor profile, in our opinion eToro can be a good choice for anyone who decides to invest in the financial markets.

How to open an account with the eToro broker?

The process of opening a live account with eToro consists of several steps and is one of the most problematic processes for eToro users, as there are certain requirements that need to be met.

Let’s take a look at how to open an account with eToro, and at the same time understand why their users feel the way they do.

Step 1 – Login to the eToro website

The first thing to do, as a 100% online broker, is to visit the official eToro website in English:

https://www.etoro.com/

Step 2 – Fill in the registration form

The first step would be to fill in the electronic form available on the eToro website with your personal details. This first registration can be completed more quickly by linking it to an existing Facebook or Google account.

This will give you access to your eToro dashboard, from where you will complete the other steps to get your account ready.

Step 3 – Validate your account

At the end of the previous step you are now a registered but not validated user. To validate your eToro account you must pass the KYC process by providing confirmation of your place of residence and a picture of your valid passport or national identity card.

Step 4 – Fill in questionnaire

Next you will be asked to fill in a questionnaire about your financial knowledge and objectives, risk level and professional status.

At this point you should be aware that the verification of documentation may take several days or weeks depending on the volume of new account applications.

It is therefore advisable to verify that the documents were uploaded correctly and are within their validity period, otherwise an error can delay the process even further.

Some of the documents accepted by eToro are as follows:

Bank Statement
Credit card statement
Electricity, water or gas bill
Council tax bill
Tax bill or letter
Official housing rental agreements – issued by the government
Letter from your local council
Telephone bill
Internet bill

Once you have uploaded one of these documents, all you have to do is wait for them to be validated so that you can start trading on your account.

As you can see this process is similar to that of other brokers, the particularity is that in other brokers (they are not the majority) if you can start trading even before validating the account, and that is why many customers say so.

To tell you the truth, my opinion is that all brokers should follow the same process as eToro, as many times clients who start trading without validating their account usually end up in major problems once they want to withdraw funds for example, resulting in bad reviews or negative feedback.

For example, let’s say you sign up, make a deposit and start trading without validating your account, then you have a bad experience where you lose part of your capital, and you decide to withdraw what is left in your account, from then on, you want your money back immediately in the same way you deposited it but you can’t because you have to validate your account before you can make any withdrawals, a process that takes days or even weeks, leading you to start writing reviews or bad opinions of this broker because you can’t withdraw your money.

Every time I review a new broker I find hundreds of bad reviews or opinions that stem from problems like this, when in reality it is usually not entirely the broker’s fault.

So even though many eToro users see this necessary verification process as a weakness, it is actually one of their strengths that in a way gives them a degree of confidence, as this is synonymous with the fact that they like to comply with all existing regulations and even fight against money laundering.

Final thoughts on eToro

As a final summary assessment we can highlight some negative as well as positive ratings.

Positive reviews

Good customer service, although there is room for improvement in some respects
Excellent web and mobile trading platform, easy to use
Adaptable to any trader profile
Highly regulated broker
Possibility of copying other traders’ trades or entire portfolios, in a very simple way (with just one click).
Large variety and number of financial instruments available for trading

Negative evaluations

Fairly high commissions for spreads and withdrawals
Deposits by bank transfer too high
Somewhat cumbersome account opening process (a good thing, actually)

Based on the above and our experience with this broker our personal opinion is that eToro is a good choice as a broker.

This concludes this detailed review of eToro’s features and opinions.

I hope that with this information you will be able to draw your own conclusions as to whether or not it is suitable for you to invest with this broker. Remember that you can also open a demo account with eToro and test their services without risking your money.

If you have any questions or personal opinions about eToro you can write to us in the comments.

If you would like to see other articles like this one where we analyse customer reviews of other brokers you can check out this one for example: XTB Reviews, XM Broker Reviews, IQ Option Reviews or this other one: Pepperstone Reviews.

Don’t forget to share this with your friends and on your social networks.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Warning: eToro is a multi-asset platform which offers both investing in stocks and cryptoassets, as well as trading CFDs.

Please note that CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 77% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work, and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Past performance is not an indication of future results. Trading history presented is less than 5 complete years and may not suffice as basis for investment decision.

Copy Trading does not amount to investment advice. The value of your investments may go up or down. Your capital is at risk.

Cryptoasset investing is unregulated in some EU countries and the UK. No consumer protection. Your capital is at risk.

eToro USA LLC does not offer CFDs and makes no representation and assumes no liability as to the accuracy or completeness of the content of this publication, which has been prepared by our partner utilizing publicly available non-entity specific information about eToro.

This post is also available in Spanish: etoro opiniones

eToro Reviews