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Best Platforms for Social Trading in December 2024

Turn trading into an interactive experience and learn from other traders. We list the best social trading platforms available in the UK, and discuss how to pick the right one for you.
Chris Williams
Author: 
Chris Williams
Sharon Bahravi
Editor: 
Sharon Bahravi
20 mins
October 31st, 2023
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Our Top Pick for Social Trading in the UK

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Top 10 Social Trading Platforms Reviewed

There are several interesting social trading platforms available today. Here is a quick recap of the top 10 you should consider and their best use cases:

  • Overall best platform for social trading - eToro

  • Best social trading platform with the lowest fees - Pepperstone

  • Best social trading platform for stocks - Vantage Autotrader

  • Best social trading platform for cryptocurrencies - Pionex

  • Best social trading platform with copy trading functionality - CopyFx

  • Best social trading platform for forex - FXTM

  • Social trading platform with the best networking section - IG

  • Best social trading platform with no minimum investment - TD Ameritrade

  • Best social trading platform with a large user base - ZuluTrade

  • Best social trading platform for beginners - DupliTrade

eToro
eToro

eToro's social trading feature provides access to the financial market by introducing social trading features and making it more accessible to anyone around the world. Its Copy People screen contains several methods for locating people a user may wish to follow, while the Editor’s Choice section showcases popular investors actively trading. Users can also search for traders using filters such as gain, risk score, location, and so on, all of which can be found on eToro profiles. Moreover, eToro is a popular social trading platform that offers retail CFD accounts, allowing traders to access a wide range of markets and instruments with leverage.

eToro also has its own rewards program called the Popular Investor Program that incentivises successful members of the eToro community for being copied. The more copiers they have, the higher their payout is. They can also leverage the platform's personalised social news feed to stay up-to-date with their favourite instruments and traders, interact with fellow users, and open discussions.

The main feature that sets eToro's copy trading platform apart from other online copy trading platforms is its unique CopyTrader system. With just one click of a button, users can automatically follow and replicate every move made by their desired traders or investors in real time - according to a specified amount they wish to invest. This allows users to benefit from experienced professionals without learning everything themselves.

Pepperstone
Pepperstone

Pepperstone offers clients three different social trading services - Duplitrade, MyFxbook, and Metatrader signals. DupliTrade is a copy trading platform distinguished by its careful selection of signal providers, who have been tested for a long time and have achieved excellent results. The downside, however, is that Pepperstone clients must have a minimum deposit of £5,000 to use Duplitrade

Myfxbook's AutoTrade is available to Pepperstone clients and provides a convenient account mirroring tool for users to mirror the trading strategies of successful traders.

Finally, Metatrader signals on Pepperstone provide copy trading services but gives users control over the account, allowing traders to close trades, change capital allocation and insert stop-loss at any given time. Pepperstone offers a range of financial services including retail CFD accounts, allowing traders to speculate on the price movements of various underlying assets.

Pepperstone is suitable for traders who desire low fees, as there are no deposit, inactivity, withdrawal or trading account fees.

IG
IG

IG Community is a trading forum that allows traders of all skill levels to interact and share their knowledge and experiences. Through the platform's chart feature, traders can discuss their copy trading techniques to take advantage of copy trading opportunities and hone their skills. Many traders on IG, use retail CFD accounts to gain exposure to various financial markets.

IG broker has a strong social trading community and provides trading signals from two third-party providers; Autochartist and PIA-First. These services monitor the market and send trade ideas and analyses from professional traders. These trades may be executed at the discretion of the traders and then to take advantage of in-depth technical analysis and professional expertise without forfeiting control over their own copy trading decisions.

4. CopyFx - The best copy trading platform

RoboForex's CopyFX is an investment platform that simplifies and facilitates the copy trading process. It enables users to manage their own risks effectively, as well as profit from sharing their forex trade ideas and copy trading experiences.

A notable feature f the platform is the proportional copying mode. This mode dynamically determines the volume of the transaction copied to an Investor's account based on the ratio between funds held in a Trader's and Investor's accounts when the transaction takes place.

CopyFX also offers an affiliate program where partners can promote traders and earn commissions for each referral. However, Investors are limited to no more than ten subscriptions at one time. Financial charts for traders, depicting their profitability over different timeframe intervals, are available for more experienced Investors to view. This allows them to make more informed decisions when subscribing to a trading strategy provider and also helps keep the copied traders accountable.

Account minimum deposit

Starting from £80

Copytrading Fee

Set by the copied trader

Inactivity Fee

£0

Commission

£0

Investment types

Forex, CFDs on stocks, indices, commodities, and cryptocurrencies

App

Yes

Vantage
Vantage

Vantage offers three different copy trading accounts for customers to choose from: the Standard STP account which has spread-only pricing, the commission-based RAW ECN and the PRO ECN accounts. To support their traders on mobile devices, the platform provides its own proprietary copy trading appas well as the MT4 and MT5 platforms on iOS and Android.

As regards social trading, users can take advantage of Vantage's auto trade feature, which allows them to copy trades from a pool of over 90,000 successful Forex traders. The copied traders have often experienced traders that are verified by Vantage before being allowed to provide their services.

Clients have complete control over copied trades as they can modify or close at any time through online browser access, with no need for software downloads. Furthermore, Vantage provides both copy trading statistics and in-depth portfolio analysis to give investors an edge in their copy trading experience.

The platform provides access to over 500 US stocks which can be traded with zero commission - making it one of the best copy trading platforms for stocks.

6. Pionex - The best social trading platform for cryptocurrencies

Pionex is perfect for crypto traders of all levels, from beginners to experienced. It offers automated bots with several copy trading strategies, such as Grid and Martindale trading strategies, which are commonly used by professional or experienced traders in the real world.

Each bot comes with a detailed guide that explains what it is, how it works, and step-by-step instructions on how to configure settings. The guides have simple explanations and screenshots of more advanced features, FAQs, and usage examples.

Social trading on Pionex can be done by sharing ideas on their discussion forums or replicating copy trading bots being used by professional traders.

Account minimum deposit

£0

Trading Fee

0.05% per trade

Withdrawal Fee

Varies based on the crypto

Inactivity Fee

Yes

Demo account

No

Investment types

Forex, cryptocurrencies

App

Yes

7. FXCM - The best social trading platform for forex

FXCM has partnered with ZuluTrade to offer its clients the ability to copy trades of top-performing traders. After signing up for a demo account on ZuluTrade's website, users are provided with virtual funds and can subscribe to the signals of other traders. There are several criteria for the copied traders, including their number of copies, profitability growth rate, strategies used, capital amount managed and more.

Copying trades from ZuluTrade's signal providers to FXCM's platform is easy: after selecting a trading strategy provider, simply subscribe, and their trades will be copied over to your account. With this service, investors can maximise their profits while minimising risk by following the strategies of experienced and successful traders in the market.

Account minimum deposit

£40

Copytrading fee

£30 monthly subscription fee25% of trading profits

Withdrawal Fee

No

Deposit Fee

No

Inactivity Fee

Yes

Investment types

Forex, Stocks & Shares, CFDs.

App

Yes

8. HotForex - The best social trading platform with no minimum investment

HotForex broker requires no minimum deposit and offers investors the opportunity to interact, share ideas and copy trades with ease.

Traders can choose which professionals to copy and use the broker’s risk management tools to adjust their trades when necessary. Those who prefer a hands-off approach can copy trades automatically and follow multiple strategy providers if needed. In fact, eToro is a leading online trading platform that offers retail CFD accounts to its users, providing access to a wide range of financial instruments and markets.

Strategy providers get paid up to 50% in performance fees with a bi-weekly payment option to incentivise better performance.

Account minimum deposit

£300

Commission

Varies based on the asset

Inactivity Fee

Yes

Investment types

Stocks & Shares, CFDs, Forex

App

Yes

9. ZuluTrade - The best social trading platform for a large user base

ZuluTrade is a copy trading platform that helps investors copy experienced traders in the forex and financial markets. It also provides a social platform for best traders and investors to share ideas and leave feedback.

The platform offers several useful features, such as the Lock Trade feature - which allows users to verify the execution of a trade after receiving the signal. The Automator, on the other hand, can be used to notify users or instantaneously execute specific actions when the predetermined triggers appear.

ZuluTrade also lets users create trading bots or Expert Advisors (EAs) through Zuluscript - the platform's scripting facility. Furthermore, it has included a unique feature called ZuluGuard™ that protects investors from entering erratic trades by traders they are following.

Users benefit from additional support resources, including training videos, tutorials, user guides, and PDFs, as well as advice about selecting supported social trading brokers. They can comment directly on traders’ profile pages, establishing an effective review process.

Account minimum deposit

Starting from £1

Trading Fee

Depends on the broker

Copytrading Fee

£30

Withdrawal Fee

Depends on the broker

Demo account

No

Investment types

Forex, stocks, commodities and indices.

App

Yes

10. Duplitrade - The best social trading platform for beginners

DupliTrade is a premier social trading platform that enables copy trading from experienced traders. Copy traders can customise their portfolio with predefined risk boundaries and take control of their own trades through the MT4/MT5 terminals.

All aspects of trade copying are managed by DupliTrade, providing investors with data visualisations such as charts and tables to help them track and manage their retail investor accounts. The platform also handpicks the best Strategy Providers to ensure comprehensive coverage of forex, stocks, commodities and indices.

Unlike other platforms discussed so far, Duplitrade is not a broker. Hence, investors would be required to open a brokerage account and connect it to the Duplitrade trading terminal.

Account minimum deposit

£5,000

Trading Fee

Depends on the trader and broker

Withdrawal Fee

Depends on the broker

Deposit Fee

£0

Investment types

Forex, stocks, commodities and indices.

App

Yes

Social Trading Explained

Social Trading is a type of trading that enables individuals to observe the copu trading behaviour of experienced traders with a view to gaining insight and knowledge into the financial markets.

This form of trading combines the knowledge and experience found in traditional financial markets with the power of social media, which allows users to benefit from collective wisdom. The idea behind social trading is simple: it involves connecting investors looking to replicate winning portfolios with experienced traders willing to share their knowledge.

For experienced investors, Social Trading provides an opportunity to expand their copy trading knowledge and optimise their portfolios within a vibrant community of peers. It offers novice traders an easy way to learn the ropes without risking significant amounts of money.

What is the difference between social and copy trading?

Copy trading and social trading often come hand in hand, but there are definitive differences between the two.

Social Trading

  • This involves traders analysing the markets and discussing their approaches and strategies in an online forum or community. It allows traders to learn from each other’s successes and failures, as well as build relationships with other like-minded investors.

  • The best Traders can exchange knowledge, ideas, and information about market opportunities

  • Social platforms offer real-time insight into copy trading trends and strategies

  • Participants can join specialised groups to discuss particular topics, such as technical analysis

Copy Trading

  • This type of copy trading allows users to copy the trades of experienced traders automatically.

  • By opening a dedicated account with a broker that supports copy trading, users can select which traders they wish to follow according to their investment style or risk tolerance level.

  • Copytrading is a style of social trading which allows users to copy the trades of experienced traders.

  • The user’s account is automatically synchronised with the chosen trader’s account, replicating their movements in real time.

Manual vs Automatic Copy Trading

Users can choose to either manually select which traders they want to copy or use an automated system that will make the selections for them.

Manual copy-trading allows traders to take a more selective approach in choosing the traders they wish to follow and copy. This provides more room for customisation, as well as greater control over the risk they take with their investments.

Automated copy trading removes the need for manual decisions by allowing users to set predetermined parameters according to their investment goals. This is more suited to beginners as automatic trade executions enable them to replicate a chosen strategy with no additional input required.

Choosing a trader to follow and copy

Choosing a trader to copy is an important decision and one that should not be taken lightly.

There are several factors to consider, including:

Trading history & returns – Look at the trading history of the investor you want to follow. Review their past returns as well as previous trades to assess their trading style. This helps you determine if the copy trading parameters, such as drawdown and risk-to-reward ratios, match your copy trading goals.

Preferred assets – Find out what type of assets the investor prefers to trade and their level of expertise in those markets. Some assets are riskier than others, which can inform your investments or the percentage of your portfolio allocated to copying a given trader.

Risk appetite – It is vital to assess how much risk the investor is willing to take on with their trades. This can be done by reviewing the trading history and any other relevant information available.

Experience level – Analyze the experience level of the investor you want to follow. Experienced investors have a better understanding of markets, which could lead to more consistent returns.

Trading frequency – Check how often the trader makes trades in order to determine their copy trading frequency. Some traders prefer scalping or day trading, while others prefer longer-term investments. Knowing this information helps you decide if their style matches your own investment goals and timeline

Social trading can be very profitable but be wary of risks

Social trading is a relatively new form of online investing that has the potential to increase profits while reducing risk. This involves copying trades made by other investors, which can benefit those lacking the experience and knowledge to make their own profitable investments. According to ZuluTrade, 73 % of investors on the platform make a profit when copying top traders correctly - this highlights the potential rewards of following a successful trader.

It is essential to remember that social trading is still subject to market risks, and there is no guarantee of profits.

The main risk associated with social trading is that you can lose money from copying traders who do not have a consistent track record of making profitable decisions. It’s also important to remember that past performance does not guarantee future returns, so even experienced traders could put your capital at risk if their strategy fails to yield successful outcomes. Ultimately, it's best to prioritise risk management and research to ensure that the trader you are copying is well-suited to your own risk appetite and investment goals.

Picking a Good Broker for Social Trading

Let's face it, not all brokers are created equal, and many don’t offer an excellent experience for social trading. Here at Moneyzine, we have researched for you and identified six key considerations for choosing a good broker for social trading. These are;

Regulation

Look for brokers that are regulated by major financial authorities such as the FCA in the UK and the SEC in the US. Regulatory compliance helps to ensure that brokers are operating within a legal and ethical framework and gives you a layer of protection against fraud. This means that they are subject to regular audits, must hold customer funds separate from company funds, and must adhere to strict financial regulations such as the “Know Your Customer” (KYC) policy.

Check for robust social trading platforms with reliable technology and robust security measures. This includes data encryption, multi-factor authentication, and other safeguards that protect your copy trading account from malicious actors.

beware of scams

The FCA lists at least 600 unauthorised social trading platforms. Make sure to confirm your preferred platform's authorisation before signing up.

  1. Head to their home webpage, and scroll down to the footer. Most of the best copy trading platforms display an FCA reference number there.

  2. After copying the number, head to the FCA register and enter the details.

  3. There, you can confirm that the copy trading platform is registered and that they have updated their details within the last year.

Social networks and signals

The essence of social trading is the ability to copy or follow experienced traders. Hence, it is crucial to ensure the broker has a solid network of signal providers. This includes access to reliable market data and analytics tools and an easy-to-navigate social feature that allows investors to communicate and discuss trade opportunities with each other.

Platform stability and usability

A broker for social trading should offer robust platform stability across all asset classes and markets. This means reliable execution speed, accurate stock market data integration, low slippage levels, zero downtime during peak times, and so on. It also needs fully functional products for both mobile and desktop platforms with bug-free experiences for users. Moreover, usability factors such as ease of navigation and customisation should also be considered.

Number of users

It is beneficial for social traders to have access to a wide network of users as this increases the chances of finding reliable signal providers. A broker with fewer users may restrict options for copying successful trades and limit opportunities for diversifying one's portfolio. It is also essential to check what types of filters are available on the platform, as these can help you find preferred traders more quicker and easier.

Demo account

The ability to practice trading in a risk-free environment before committing real money is critical for both novice and experienced investors alike. All prospective brokers should offer free demo accounts that allow you to get accustomed to their trading platforms, test out strategies, and familiarise yourself with the features of social trading.

Trading fees

Social trading often involves copying other traders, which can incur additional costs for investors in the form of copy fees or performance fees. Look for trading brokers that offer competitive copy rates, as well as access to discounted or zero-fee services if you are using the platform frequently.

Most brokers without proprietary copy-trading platforms don’t charge additional fees or commissions for copy-trading. This is because users will be required to link their retail investor accounts to third-party services such as ZuluTrade and Duplitrade.

Is Social Trading Profitable?

In conclusion, social trading can be a profitable investment strategy for those looking to improve their own trading strategies by copying successful traders and diversifying their portfolios. However, it is important to remember that social trading carries its own risks, such as potential conflicts of interest within the network or lack of transparency when copying trades. For this reason, it is important to do your research before selecting a platform, ensuring that the traders you copy or interact with suit your individual needs.

FAQ

Is social trading legal?
Does social trading work?
What is the best copy trading platform?
Is social trading good for beginners?
How do you do social trading?
How do I withdraw funds from social trading?

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Contributors

Chris Williams
With a masters in Business administration, Christopher is a financial content writer with a knack for crafting articles, blogs and insightful reviews about all areas of finance. His passion for writing led him to work as a full-time writer for forex brokers (DecodeFx, Keytomarkets) and crypto blogs (Bitcompare), creating educational pieces for investors and traders around the world. In his spare time, he runs a crypto YouTube channel while learning about ways to help his readers make better financial decisions.
Sharon Bahravi
Sharon Bahravi has been a developmental and managing editor since 2010 and helps authors through various stages of their manuscripts and blogs. An entrepreneur, educator, speaker, and fitness trainer, she has written on a range of subjects and heads up the Language Analyst team for Pluralytics. Sharon loves horses, music, poetry, and coffee - not necessarily in that order.