Pepperstone’s customizable nature and low fees make it an appealing choice for novices and veterans alike.
Pepperstone is an award-winning brokerage that combines low fees and spreads with several highly-customizable platforms. These, in conjunction with their platforms, make Pepperstone stand out in the Forex market.
Pros
- Extremely tight spreads and minimal fees
- Large number of currency pairs
- Variety of platforms available
- Great customer service
- Reliable, with strong regulation
- Copy trading features
Cons
- Not available in the US, Canada, or Japan
- No negative balance protection
- Lackluster amount of CFDs
Pepperstone was founded in Melbourne, Australia, in 2010. It is regulated in two tier-1 jurisdictions by the ASIC and the FCA and has experienced meteoric growth and industry acclaim since its inception.
So, what is the secret? A combination of laser-focused investment offerings, a wide variety of customizable platforms and tools, and low fees and tight spreads. The last point being the most important one – Pepperstone offers incredibly competitive spreads to clients.
Pepperstone does not charge inactivity and withdrawal fees, and there is no minimum deposit amount. The broker also offers a free demo account which allows you to get acquainted with the platform of your choosing.
Speaking of platforms, Pepperstone gives you quite a bit of choice in this regard. You can choose between three options – MT4, MT5, and cTrader. All of them are solid choices – and Pepperstone also provides a bevy of premium add-ons for their platforms.
However, once all is said and done, we have to give a slight edge to cTrader. This platform has an advantage over the MTs when it comes to charting tools, and offers a slightly more intuitive user interface. However, the difference isn’t massive – all of the platforms are solid choices, and so are their mobile versions – the choice mostly boils down to personal preference.
This ECN platform has more than 70 technical indicators, as well as the cutting-edge cTrader Automate feature, which makes this platform the best choice for algorithmic trading.
Pepperstone also offers a wide variety of social and copy trading platforms, including myFxbook, DupliTrade, ZuluTrade, RoboX, Chasing Returns, and Mirror Trader.
Some of these platforms require minimum deposits and incur higher commissions, but they are nevertheless useful tools to have on disposal. We’d give the edge in copy trading to eToro – but Pepperstone can definitely hold its own in this regard.
The brokerage offers a good amount of currency pairs – 62, but the offering of CFDs is much more humble. Pepperstone currently offers 60 Stock CFDs, 15 Commodity CFDs, and 14 Stock Index CFDs, as well as 4 cryptocurrencies. If CFDs and crypto don’t interest you, the issue of investment offerings becomes a moot point.
While Pepperstone’s investment offerings might not be so impressive, their low spreads certainly are. The spreads that you’ll be dealing with primarily depend on the type of account you open.
Pepperstone offers two main account types – a regular account, and a Razor account. Regular accounts have higher spreads, but no commissions – Razor accounts, on the other hand, have much lower spreads but also come with a fixed commission. Regular accounts will appeal more to beginners, but we’ve covered that topic much more thoroughly in our in-depth Pepperstone review.
The spread for standard accounts, on average, is 1 – 1.3 pips, while the spread for Razor accounts ranges from 0 – 0.3 pips.
Pepperstone also offers an Active Trader Program that comes with large rebates for customers that make large trades. However, the rebates kick in when you start trading 100 lots or more, so this feature mostly appeals to seasoned traders.
Pepperstone offers customers an impressive amount of well-produced educational materials. These range from platform tutorials to webinars, educational articles, and even a YouTube channel. The research tools that the brokerage offers, such as AutoChartist and Smart Trader Tools are quite useful – although the scope of research and news is rather limited.
Pepperstone’s customer support is available 24/5 and is generally very informative and quick to respond. The brokerage can be contacted via live chat, email, and phone.