Our Take

eToro offers an innovative trading platform highlighted by a unique social trading experience. With eToro’s social trading network, users can explore and copy the trades of more experienced investors for crypto, stock, and ETF assets. The platform shines with an intuitive site design so investors can easily discover traders they’d like to follow or quickly place their own trades on the platform.

eToro operates in more than 140 countries, underscoring the platform’s ability to appeal to a diverse range of users. eToro is available to most but not all investors in the United States. Although eToro has recently added an app for options trading for U.S. customers only, its platform still lacks many of the tools and features typical of more comprehensive trading experiences, limiting the usefulness of the platform to more sophisticated investors. The service is best aligned with traders who want a social and crypto focus, but traders seeking more than this will likely find alternative online brokers better suited to them.

Introduction

eToro was launched in Israel in 2007 by three entrepreneurs. The platform originally focused on forex trading but quickly found traction to expand its product lineup and grow into a global service. In 2010, eToro created one of the first social trading experiences, called OpenBook, enabling users to learn from and copy other seasoned traders. The platform continued to show its innovative nature by expanding its services to include stock trading, ETFs, automated portfolios, crypto, and cash management features. eToro recently added options trading to its platform. eToro now operates in more than 140 countries around the world and boasts over 20 million users.

The company’s flagship offering is the social investing feature, CopyTrader. Users can quickly find investors to follow and copy trades based on investor star ratings, coin interests, and performance metrics. With a minimum investment of $200 for this dynamic, traders can copy up to 100 investors simultaneously. This feature is only available for crypto.

eToro announced expanded offerings in the U.S. in January 2022, launching support for stock and ETF trading. In addition, the company launched options trading in November 2022. The U.S. version of the platform now includes these assets and crypto combined with the social trading experience. eToro’s cash management service, eToro Money, and the automated portfolio management service Smart Portfolios are also available in the United States. While the platform is available in more than 40 states, eToro is not available to everyone across the country.

Every user of eToro is given a $100,000 paper trading account so you can learn more about the market and test different trading strategies before risking your own money. This makes it easier for beginner investors in particular to enter the market. An educational section lets users learn more about investing and trading. However, the range of topics covered is relatively limited and lacks material on financial guidance and goal planning. Tools, calculators, and research functionality are limited as well. A narrow range of available asset types is further restricted to 3,000 stocks and over 300 ETFs. Important trading functionality like margin accounts is absent altogether.

Pros & Cons

Pros Explained 

• Established, global platform: eToro’s established, global platform appeals to millions of users. While the U.S. platform is more limited than international versions, eToro has a product offering that resonates with users from all backgrounds.
• Innovative and easy-to-use social trading experience: CopyTrader lets you quickly leverage expertise from other investors. You can evaluate traders based on user ratings and performance metrics to ensure you’re following a trading strategy that aligns with your goals.
• Support for fractional shares: This gives traders more flexibility to access more expensive investments with less money, keeping more of your portfolio invested.
• eToro Money cash management service: This feature gives you more control over your finances by letting you manage more of your money in one place. You can store crypto, deposit and withdraw funds, and easily send and receive money.

Cons Explained 

• Only available in 46 U.S. states: The platform has slowly been expanding its reach across the country, but residents of New York, Nevada, Hawaii, and Minnesota can’t use eToro. The virtual portfolio demo account is open to investors residing in all states. 
• Relatively limited ETF and stock selections: This hurts the platform’s appeal to traders beyond the intermediate level. With 3,000 stocks and over 300 ETFs, some investors will feel left out and unable to pursue their desired trading strategy due to these constraints.
• Limited account types: Users can only open brokerage accounts because retirement and other types of accounts are not available.
• General lack of advanced trading tools, features, and research: Without these, more sophisticated investors can’t execute complex trading strategies.

Usability

eToro has a straightforward, simple design that makes it easy for traders to find what they’re looking for. The app and website experience provide similar functions and features, so users can seamlessly transition to trade through their preferred version. The new eToro Options platform is also easy to use. The CopyTrader tool lets you quickly search for and copy the crypto trades of popular investors. Traders can engage with other members of the platform through the Popular Investor Program, which facilitates the sharing of trading insights and knowledge. Popular Investor Program members are compensated the more copiers they have. Payouts can reach up to 2% of the amount of assets a trader has on the platform.

A social news feed adds another interactive element to the experience, with the site functioning much like a distinct social media feed. Trading decisions and news can also be shared to external social media sites such as Facebook and X.

While these features combine to make a unique, interactive trading experience, the inability to short positions in the U.S. limits Popular Investor Program trading strategies. CopyTrader is also only available to trade cryptocurrency, as ETF and stock trading aren’t included in this feature.

eToro makes it easy to search for and transact ETFs and stock trades. However, the limited number of assets available to trade inherently reduces the impact of the available filters and financial tools. Users of eToro can quickly see an asset’s performance metrics and view historical charts that help them visualize trends, although the level of detail available leans more on the basic side.

Trade Experience

eToro provides a streamlined onboarding process with a self-guided questionnaire that asks for some personal information to help set up your account. The platform supports a wide variety of financial institutions that you can link up to eToro to make deposits into your account. Getting up and running doesn’t take long and you can begin trading quickly. It is also easy to set up an eToro Options account, which lets you trade options in the eToro Options app. A “Trading” tab lets you view prices and buy, sell, or convert crypto, ETFs, or stocks. Prices are provided in real time. There is a limited menu of assets that you can trade, as eToro offers 25 cryptocurrencies, 3000 stocks, and over 300 ETFs. Users won’t find many order types beyond basic market and limit orders, which prevents more complex traders from getting the most out of the system. The flagship CopyTrader and Popular Investor Program features are the highlight of the platform. These offerings combined with the site's interactive nature can make the user experience feel more akin to a social media platform than a traditional brokerage service. In addition to these areas, another unique aspect of the platform is embedded ESG ratings that score assets based on socially conscious factors. You can also filter for ESG scoring in the trade search menu. Custom watchlists can be synced between the mobile and web platforms, allowing users to keep track of their interests regardless of which version is used to access eToro. Watch lists can be customized to add volatility alerts that send notifications directly to your phone. 

Mobile Trade Experience

eToro’s mobile app is user-friendly and created with a simple, uncluttered design. The straightforward design combined with the feel of a social media app makes for an innovative, creative user experience. The app is built with interactive functionality so you can engage with other traders and navigate to popular investor profiles. Beginner investors may feel more comfortable with the app’s familiar feel, since eToro is not modeled like other traditional brokerage offerings. Experienced traders looking to execute orders without the social feel may find eToro to be a bit of an adjustment, but overall the mobile app is very intuitive.

Range of Offerings

eToro provides a much wider range of offerings on international versions of the experience, but the U.S. platform has very limited offerings compared to competitors. There are no mutual funds, futures contracts, or forex on eToro, and all trading is limited to long positions only—there is no short selling. On eToro, you have access to:

• 3,000 stocks
• over 300 ETFs
• 25 cryptocurrencies
• Options trading
• Cash management through eToro Money
• Portfolio automation through Smart Portfolios
• Fractional share investing

Order Types

eToro offers a narrow range of order types on the platform. Basic order types include market, limit, trailing stop loss, and other similar options. Support for more sophisticated order types, like order-triggers-other (OTO) is important because these help traders navigate risk, quickly enter and exit positions, and take gains off the table.

Trading Technology

eToro doesn’t disclose order execution quality statistics, but it has a best execution policy and has a very low level of payment for order flow, suggesting that the broker follows it. One of the most helpful features of the platform is a free demo account, which is included for all eToro members so they can practice trading before entering the market. Users start with $100,000 in virtual currency.

eToro’s Smart Portfolios let you select from diversified automated portfolios so you don’t have to allocate your money yourself. You can invest in a wide variety of portfolios that focus on everything from private equity and infrastructure to technology and health care, while blending the allocation of ETFs, stocks, and cryptocurrency. An investment team monitors the portfolio offerings to ensure that they continue to match thematic elements and risk parameters. These portfolios are particularly appealing to beginner investors. The trading technology associated with ETF and stock trading is relatively straightforward. Charting capability is included with all asset types, but no backtesting capabilities are included on the platform. Users can create and customize a trading journal. Beyond that, screening tools and other more robust trading functionality are largely absent. The CopyTrader product and social trading element remain the focus of eToro’s trading experience.

Costs 

eToro's fees are in line with most other crypto and trading platforms.  

• No fees or commission for ETFs and stocks (ETFs may have their own internal costs).
• Crypto trading incurs a 1% fee for the amount of crypto bought or sold.
• There is a $5 withdrawal fee and a $30 withdrawal minimum.
• Transfer fees are incurred when you transfer crypto off of the eToro platform and into the eToro Money crypto wallet.
• A $10 monthly inactivity fee is applied for users that are inactive for more than a year.
• A $75 transfer fee applies when transferring accounts elsewhere.

How This Broker Makes Money From You and for You

eToro actually makes money by taking the difference between bid and ask prices. This practice is a typical way for brokers to price trades and collect fees, even if a platform notes fee-free or commission-free trading.

• Interest on uninvested cash: On Nov. 29, 2023, eToro announced the launch of an interest on cash feature. Available to eToro Options account holders, the new opt-in program offers 4.9% APR on cash balances, and is free for eligible users with an at-rest cash balance of $5,000 or more. For users who opt in to the program and maintain less than $5,000 at rest in their account will still benefit from the offering but be charged a small monthly fee.
• Payment for order flow: Many brokers generate income by accepting payment from market makers for directing orders to those trading venues. This is called payment for order flow (PFOF). eToro’s PFOF agreement is with a clearing firm called Apex, although a February 2022 F-4 filing with the SEC states eToro does not practice PFOF. The simple translation of the filing is that Apex may collect PFOF and share a portion with eToro, but the broker is focused on execution quality and not PFOF.
• Stock loan programs: No stock loan programs are offered.
• Price improvement: No price improvement information is available. eToro has a best execution policy, but a policy is not execution statistics.
• Portfolio margin: No portfolio margin accounts are offered.
• Cryptocurrency: eToro charges a 1% fee for the amount of crypto assets bought or sold.

Account and Research Amenities

Traders can search for stocks and ETFs on the discovery page, search bar, and home screen. For crypto assets, traders can browse from a menu of available coins or view portfolios of other investors and decide whether to use the CopyTrader feature to automatically copy popular traders. eToro lacks many of the tools, calculators, and detailed trading functionality that most sophisticated investors would find necessary to carry out advanced trading techniques. Planning and screening tools are largely non-existent as well.

However, the eToro Club offering provides you with five separate site tiers that progressively unlock more research features and news options as you level up. The tiers range from Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Platinum+ to Diamond, requiring deposits ranging from $5,000 to $250,000.

Stock Screener

eToro doesn’t have a traditional, detailed stock screener allowing you to filter by price-to-earnings, market cap, and so on. What it does have is a biggest daily movers list that can be further filtered by industry or exchange. Filtering the list will also display the sentiment of users on the platform with a percentage of people buying listed. You can also add the biggest movers to a watchlist.

ETF and Mutual Fund Screener

No ETF screener tools are available, and mutual funds are offered on the platform. 

Options Screener

eToro now offers an options screener, after the recent addition of its options trading platform.

Fixed Income Screener

No fixed income assets are available on eToro.

Tools and Calculators

eToro has no tools or calculators of note. Goal and financial planning tools are not offered.

Charting

eToro provides charting capabilities through a professional-grade technical tool, ProCharts. This charting feature helps you analyze an asset’s history and performance by providing line, bar, and candle charts. ProCharts also lets you view two or more charts on the same screen, enabling you to compare their performance.

ProChart users can filter their data by time interval or price. Some more sophisticated tools are available from the chart screen as well, including Fibonacci retracement and accumulative swing index. Users can place trades directly from the desktop chart. One major drawback, however, is that eToro’s charting platform does not provide volume analysis, which is a major component of technical market analysis.

Trading Idea Generators

CopyTrader provides the extent of trading idea generators at eToro. Users can search for, follow, and copy trades of investors that match their interest and goals. This feature is only available for crypto.

News

A news and analysis tab offers a variety of weekly site journals and insights that provide content appealing to different interests, including the Crypto Roundup and The Bottom Line. The eToro Club unlocks more news and research features with more money invested on the platform.

Silver level members get access to live-stream webinars, while Gold and Platinum members add a subscription to Delta PRO and Business Insider. Platinum+ members and Diamond users unlock Wall Street Journal and Financial Times subscriptions.

Third-Party Research

eToro’s third-party research is powered by TipRanks, a leading source for up-to-date recommendations from professional analysts at investment banks and financial companies from around the world.

Cash Management

eToro Money is the platform’s solution to cash management needs. With this feature, you can deposit and withdraw funds, easily send and receive money, and store crypto. 

Fractional Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP)

Although eToro has fractional investing, dividends paid out on the platform are not automatically reinvested in your portfolio. eToro credits a payment to your cash balance if you hold a position in a stock or ETF that pays dividends.

SRI/ESG Research Amenities

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores are provided for more than 2,000 assets on the platform. eToro makes this information especially visible, as you’ll see different color patterns and a rating based on how well an asset aligns with socially conscious values. You can also screen for socially responsible investing (SRI) and ESG factors with a filter when searching for assets.

Portfolio Analysis

eToro provides limited portfolio analysis, especially in comparison to competitor platforms. While you can see current balances and positions clearly, not much exists in the way of further analysis outside of charting features. eToro’s charting capabilities are adequate, but give you a better sense of performance as opposed to helping you see where portfolio changes might be needed.

Education

An online educational portal is accessible through the eToro Academy. While many of the articles educate on cryptocurrency, other materials focus on products like the Smart Portfolio and trading strategies like technical indicators.

A filter lets you quickly toggle the educational library between beginner and advanced material so that you can customize the experience to your skill level. A variety of educational formats are available as well, with long-form articles and videos as options. 

With the introduction of stock and ETF trading in 2022, the education material still has a lot of room to grow so that the platform provides more comprehensive, insightful content. 

Customer Service

eToro provides a help center that has a large volume of FAQ articles that address a range of potential inquiries. Outside of this self-serve option, more traditional customer support options are limited. Phone and email support is available, but the contact information is not readily available for you to find. Chat functionality is provided through the help center so you can chat directly with an agent. You can also open a support ticket online.

Security and Reliability

• Two-factor authentication (2FA) and biometric fingerprint entry 
• Equity assets like stocks and ETFs are covered by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), which protects securities customers of its members up to $500,000 (including $250,000 for claims for cash).

In addition to the above SIPC insurance, eToro's clearing partner, Apex, also added supplemental insurance, protecting eToro customers with up to $37.5 million in securities and $900,000 in cash per individual.

A digital wallet is provided by eToro to store cryptocurrency, known as the eToro wallet. Users can transfer cryptocurrency from eToro’s platform to their own digital wallet, but they should note that coin transfers are one-way—which means any coins transferred can’t be transferred back to the eToro trading platform.

Transparency

eToro generally has a transparent platform in terms of pricing, but lacks when it comes to execution statistics. Crypto pricing is explicitly laid out at 1% of all trades. There are no fees for stock and ETF trading, although some ETFs may carry additional expenses on their own. The spread pricing and payment for order flow (PFOF) information is available as well. The inability for users to transfer coins from the wallet back to the eToro trading platform may not be immediately obvious to clients.

Available Account Types

Individual brokerage and options accounts are the only types of accounts that can be opened with eToro. Joint accounts, retirement accounts, trust accounts, and custodial accounts are not available. Just as notable, eToro doesn’t support margin accounts. This aspect can be a severely limiting factor for users looking to open accounts that are better suited for a wide variety of goals.

Final Verdict 

The social trading experience is the standout feature of eToro’s trading experience. The CopyTrader dynamic paired with the Popular Investor Program gives the platform an engaging, collaborative feel. The introduction of stock and ETF trading combined with eToro Money cash management and Smart Portfolios further expands the range of users that can utilize the platform’s services. Innovative approaches to ESG screens and filters also attract investors who prioritize these aspects. However, there are severe limitations of the platform that will give many traders pause before seriously considering eToro as their preferred trading platform. The lack of powerful financial calculators, research tools, and trading amenities largely prevents many types of investing strategies from being executed. The significant restrictions in the available stock and ETF selections combined with no margin account or options trading support eliminate a lot of potential traders. Even though it has recently added options to its product offerings, until eToro moves to add more robust platform features and trade functionality, the experience is best suited for individuals that prioritize the social investing dynamic as their main trading interest.

Is eToro a Good Broker for Beginners?

eToro is user friendly and provides access to enough assets to more than satisfy most investors just starting out. Where eToro loses some ground for beginners is in the educational supports around investing, although it does get points for the free demo account for users to learn on prior to putting up their own money. If you are comfortable with investing concepts and just want to learn hands on, then eToro can fill that niche. Overall, we'd like to see more analysis tools and onboarding content, but the social element may take care of that for the crypto focused investors at least.