Best Social Trading Platforms
A copy trading platform effectively enables anyone to trade the financial markets by copying traders. Copy trading is simply when investors copy the trades of other traders on the platform, giving them access to diversify their trading portfolios and to see the trading skills of others in action. It can be a useful tool for beginners to gain insight into effective trading strategies, while continuing their education.
Online trading can be very complicated, especially for beginners who have no previous trading experience. Learning to trade with consistent results can take many years of studying and practice. Some aspiring traders simply do not have enough time to become a professional full-time trader and may consider using a social trading platform instead.
However, with the increasing popularity of social trading, there are many copy trading platforms and services to choose from. This can seem overwhelming at first, which is why we have compiled this handy social trading platform guide to help you decide which copy trading platform is best for you. Having the best platforms according to our findings listed in one place, can help you save time when looking for the best copy trading platform for your own individual needs.
Top 10 Social Trading Platforms
AvaTrade
AvaTrade make it into our best social trading platforms list as they offer traders multiple direct and indirect social trading platforms and trading apps. AvaTrade has partnered with some of the best signal providers in the world to ensure that traders can follow the best traders wherever they may be. They also offer self-directed trading across intuitive trading platforms on a wide range of popular trading instruments including CFDs on forex, stocks, commodities and cryptocurrencies.
The AvaTrade social trading platforms include:
- Mirror Trader – Enjoy manual trading, semi-automatic trading, or automatic trading when following your preferred signal providers. You also get to copy the algorithmic trading strategies developed by experienced traders in conjunction with top developers.
- ZuluTrade – Select from a large number of signal providers, who have been ranked using various practical parameters including maximum drawdown and average profitability.
- DupliTrade – DupliTrade is an MT4 compatible platform, which allows traders to automatically follow more experienced traders’ signals and strategies in-real time. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy to build and manage a trading portfolio while gaining valuable insights on successful trading strategies.
- AvaSocial – AvaSocial’s all about social trading within the AvaTrade community. The social trading app shortens the learning curve. This brings copy trading into focus, where you can discover mentors, ask questions, and copy their trades. By learning from some of the best, you can mimic their performance in your own portfolio.
AvaTrade are one of the world’s largest online brokers in terms of trading volume. They are regulated in an impressive range of jurisdictions including Europe, Australia and South Africa. Their regulatory licenses span over multiple continents. This ensures that you can make safe and secure trades within the all-inclusive trading environment that they provide.
AvaTrade offer a variety of different social trading platforms along with competitive fees, industry leading trading infrastructure and excellent customer support. For these reasons and many more, they easily make it into our best social trading platforms.
eToro
Of course, eToro earns a spot in our list of the best copy trading platforms. They have established themselves as the leading online social trading platform, offering user-friendly social trading to millions of traders from over the world. Whatever your experience level, the eToro platform has a large range of signal copying and sharing solutions with a vast online trading community. They have a large selection of trading instruments (stocks, forex, cryptos, etc) available across the eToro web and eToro mobile platforms.
Founded in 2006 just like AvaTrade, the eToro online trading platform lets you easily connect with other traders, to view, compare and discuss trading strategies. The patented CopyTrader™ technology allows you to automatically copy trades from another trader’s portfolio, creating your own bespoke portfolio. In addition to copying other traders, you can also place and manage your own trades which can then be offered to other traders for them to copy.
eToro also have a “Popular Investor Program” where top-tier popular investors can earn a second income by being followed and copied by other users on the eToro platform. There is an eToro club which offers a range of exclusive benefits, services, and tools to customers according to membership tier. This includes a dedicated account manager, market analysis, live webinars, expert investment support, premium trading tools, exclusive VIP events and other benefits.
eToro is regulated by some of the most respected regulatory authorities. This ensures that they must abide by strict rules and regulations in place to protect investors and gives their clients the peace of mind that they are using a trusted social trading platform.
I think eToro can be a good social trading platform for anyone who is looking for the most innovative copy trading technology presented in an easily accessible way. There is a reason they have remained at the forefront of the brokerage industry for so many years when it comes to social trading.
Pepperstone
Pepperstone have earned a place in our best social trading platforms. They have partnered with a range of copy trading providers to help traders gain access to strategies from some of the world’s best traders. Pepperstone clients can choose to follow and copy trades from other popular traders using third-party services whilst learning how to improve their own online trading. The copy trading platforms they offer include:
- Myfxbook – An account mirroring service that lets you copy verified trades without the need to run any additional software.
- ZuluTrade – Copy trades directly into your account and run them on Zulutrade’s own servers.
- Mirror Trader – Access over 3,000 global, verified and tested algos.
- MetaTrader Signals – Access thousands of strategies from MetaTrader’s own copy trading platform.
- DupliTrade – A marketplace of signals automatically traded on your own MT4 account.
In addition to providing clients with social trading solutions, Pepperstone also offer a wide range of trading instruments for self-directed trading which includes Forex, Commodities, Cryptocurrency, Stocks, Shares, Indices, Metals, Energies, Bonds, CFDs and ETFs. They provide these markets across a selection of the best trading platforms including MetaTrader and cTrader. These platforms are packed with useful trading tools for conducting detailed chart analysis to find potential trading opportunities.
Pepperstone offer low fee trading, tight spreads and fast execution speeds. They are regulated by some of the most respected regulatory authorities and have won multiple awards over the years for their online brokerage services. I think they are an excellent choice of broker for anyone who is looking to trade online by themselves or use automated trading strategies with some of the best conditions that you will find anywhere.
ZuluTrade
ZuluTrade easily make it into our best social trading platforms list as they are one of the largest social trading platforms with over a million users and billions in trading volume. ZuluTrade provide a user-friendly online social trading platform that has a plethora of trading signals which you can choose to copy. You simply just need to sign up with ZuluTrade and connect your brokerage account. ZuluTrade customer service is available 24/7 and in various languages.
Once your brokerage account has been connected to the ZuluTrade platform, you can review the trading signals offered and choose the signals that you want copied into your own account. The ZuluTrade platform enables you to filter and sort the statistics of all the trading signals according to overall returns, duration, drawdown, win rate, average pips, currency pairs, amount of trades, etc. Trading signals can be added or removed at any time.
I think ZuluTrade is a decent copy trading platform but I did find the signal providers to be hit and miss. There isn’t that strict a criterion compared to some other platforms but you can find some potential gems if you are willing to sift through the users who are using poor strategies such as martingale money management and grid trading.
I found the performance of some strategies to be misleading as they were using very high risk which could eventually lead to significant drawdowns and even blown accounts if you are not carefully. That isn’t to say there aren’t good traders on there, just be prepared to do some serious digging.
Darwinex
Darwinex earn a place in our best social trading platforms list for enabling sophisticated traders to trade the markets with superior trading conditions and investors to back them. You can quickly and easily build your portfolio of traders that you wish to copy from around the world, with access to thousands of strategies suited to different styles of trader.
Darwinex offers the ability to trade your own account or follow the strategy of other traders (DARWINs). Traders who already have a profitable trading strategy can choose to list their strategy on Darwinex and receive a success fee from the profits made by other traders who follow the strategy.
In addition to social trading platforms, Darwinex also provide self-directed investing with direct market access (DMA) trading on interbank spreads sourced directly from prime brokers and starting from just zero pips. They offer online trading on over 300+ assets including forex, stocks, shares, commodities, CFDs, cryptocurrencies, etc. These markets can be traded through one account via a choice of powerful online trading platforms for desktop, web and mobile devices.
I think Darwinex is more catered towards those of you who already have some experience trading online. Whilst they do not have the most straight forward setup when compared to some of the others, they do seem to attract some highly skilled traders. That being said, you won’t find anywhere near as many trading strategies to copy as you would with eToro or ZuluTrade.
NAGA
NAGA is a popular social investing network where clients can trade and copy investments on over 1,000+ trading instruments including Stocks, Cryptos, Forex, Commodities and ETFs. I am very impressed with the abundance of features including individual trading, copy trading, personalised portfolios, advanced charting tools, market analysis and insights, NAGA wallet and much more.
IC Markets
IC Markets provided social trading platforms via integration through some of the leading third-party providers. They offer AutoTrade to clients, the next generation account mirroring (trade copy) service owned and operated by Myfxbook. This service allows you to copy the trades of any system you select directly into your IC Markets account. You can also choose among thousands of talented ZuluTrade strategies and follow their trading signals for free in your account. They also have the cTrader copy trading platform that is designed for easy and transparent copy trading.
FXTM
FXTM is an award-winning broker with strict regulation in multiple jurisdictions. They have user-friendly trading platforms, various account types and funding methods, along with a vast range of educational materials and trading tools to help you make informed trade decisions. FXTM Trading Signals are available in MyFXTM via a technical analysis tool that provides data and assessments of market movements across a range of trading instruments.
Axiory
Axiory is an established online broker that offers CFD trading via cTrader, MetaTrader and FIX API. They also provide you with some additional trading tools and educational materials to help you get the most out of your trading. Using Axiory CopyTrade, you can choose from the expert traders you want to copy and duplicate their trades onto your own account.
to follow and make their strategies your own. All performance data is shared openly with everyone, and you’ll never find hidden fees. You can interact with fellow traders and investors which is a good way to learn and improve your own trading strategies.
FXPIG
FXPIG have a range of customised trading solutions for traders of all experience levels. Primarily operating as an STP forex broker, they provide the excellent cTrader and MetaTrader platforms along with a FIX API and PAMMs. You can choose from a range of copy trading solutions and a decent selection of managed accounts. It is not the easiest of copy trading solutions so beginners may wish to consider one of the other options. On the other hand, FXPIG have a powerful trading environment and utilise innovative trading technology which may be of interest to the more advanced traders and institutions.
Conclusion
Here you will find our best social trading platforms, based on thousands of hours of extensive research, testing and analysis across hundreds of brokers. Upon conclusion of each of our broker reviews, we have assigned each social trading platform with a rating.
Some of the most important factors that contribute towards a good platform for copy trading have been considered including the features and functionality. We have carefully examined things such as the financial instruments, tools, fees, usability, education, versatility, funding options, regulation, customer service and more.
Each of our chosen copy trading platforms have undergone and passed our stringent broker reviews with flying colours, based on what we consider to be amongst the most important considerations when choosing a platform for social trading.
These platforms are well-established within the online brokerage industry, providing a great range of social trading products and services to traders and investors of all experience levels.
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