eToro Review

Our Take

eToro is a market-leading, multi-asset online brokerage and social trading network that enables you to seamlessly buy and sell leading cryptocurrencies and copy the trades of experienced crypto traders on the platform. eToro stands out with its intuitive user interface, providing a beginner-friendly trading experience.

In addition to its cryptocurrency trading offering, eToro also allows you to invest in stocks, ETFs, and other securities, with the number and types of assets depending on your location. U.S. citizens can trade 100+ digital currencies and tokens, over 5,000 stocks, more than 730 ETFs, and options contracts on a range of assets.

Introduction

eToro was founded in 2007 as a forex trading platform in Tel Aviv by brothers Ronen Assia and Yoni Assia and co-founder David Ring. In 2010, eToro launched its flagship social trading feature that allows users to copy the trades of successful traders on the platform. Next, in 2013, eToro added stock trading to its forex and commodity trading platform, and also became one of the first brokers to support Bitcoin (BTC). In 2017, eToro expanded its crypto trading business by adding more assets and entered the U.S. market with its crypto trading offering the following year. 

Today, eToro enables its more than 25 million customers from 75 countries to trade a variety of assets, including crypto, stock, ETFs, and more, making it one of the most popular online trading platforms in the world.

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 automatically copy the trades of successful crypto traders on the platform. You can evaluate traders based on user ratings and performance metrics to ensure you’re following a trading strategy that aligns with your goals.

Cons Explained 

• Crypto trading not available in all 50 U.S. states: While the eToro platform is available to U.S. citizens in all 50 states and territories, except for American Samoa and Guam. However, crypto trading is not available to residents of Hawaii, Nevada, New York, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. 
• Margin trading not available in the United States: More experienced traders looking to trade crypto or other assets with margin will not find this feature on eToro.
• Lacks advanced trading tools and features: eToro’s focus is on simplicity and user experience, primarily targeting a broad investor base. As a result, there’s a lack of more complex trading tools that professional traders would appreciate.

Usability

The eToro platform features a straightforward and simple user interface that makes it easy for traders to find what they’re looking for. The mobile app and web-based user experience offer similar functions and features, allowing users to seamlessly transition between them to trade through their preferred version.

eToro’s flagship CopyTrader feature allows you to quickly and easily search for and copy the crypto trades of popular traders on the platform, making it incredibly easy to get started. 

The platform’s News Feed highlights eToro’s social trading network aspect, providing a social media-like experience where users share their insights on what’s happening in the markets. That enables users to understand the thought process behind many of the successful traders on the platform, making the decision of whether to copy these traders a lot easier.

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 start trading quickly. It is also easy to set up an eToro Options account, which lets you trade options in the eToro Options app.

On the eToro platform, a “Trading” tab lets you view prices and buy, sell, or convert crypto, ETFs, or stocks. Prices are provided in real time. eToro offers 100+ cryptocurrencies, over 5,000 stocks, and more than 730 ETFs, covering the most important assets and securities. However, its list of tradable assets is not as vast as some of its peers. Additionally, users won’t find many order types beyond basic market and limit orders, which prevents more advanced traders from getting the most out of the system.

The flagship CopyTrader and Popular Investor Program features are arguably the highlights of the platform, enabling users to copy the trades of successful traders while the most successful traders earn rewards when their trades are being copied. 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. 

Custom watchlists can be synced between the mobile and web platforms, enabling users to track their interests regardless of which platform they use to access eToro. Watchlists can be customized to add volatility alerts that send notifications directly to your phone.

Mobile Trade Experience

eToro’s mobile app is user-friendly, with a simple, uncluttered design. The beginner-friendly user interface, 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 on 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 offers a significantly broader range of options on its international versions of the experience. The U.S. platform has very limited offerings compared to competitors. There are no mutual funds, futures contracts, or forex on eToro's U.S. platform, and all trading is limited to long positions only—there is no short selling. 

On eToro U.S., you have access to:

• 100+ cryptocurrencies
• 5,000+ stocks
• 730+ ETFs
• Crypto copy trading through CopyTrader
• Options trading
• Cash management through eToro Money 
• Portfolio automation through Smart Portfolios 
• Fractional share investing

Order Types

eToro only offers a narrow range of order types on its platform. They include market order, limit order, stop-loss order, and take-profit order. 

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. 

eToro’s Smart Portfolios lets 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 healthcare, while blending the allocation of ETFs, stocks, and cryptocurrencies. 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, stock, and crypto trading is relatively straightforward. Charting capability is included with all asset types, but no backtesting capabilities are included on the platform. Beyond that, screening tools and other more robust trading functionalities 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 online brokerages and crypto trading platforms. 

• Crypto trading incurs a 1% fee for the amount of crypto bought or sold. This fee is added to the bid-ask spread.
• A fee is applied when you transfer your crypto assets from your eToro trading account to your eToro Money crypto wallet.
• There are no fees or commissions for ETFs and stocks (ETFs may have their own internal costs).
• There is a $5 withdrawal fee and a $30 withdrawal minimum.
• Withdrawals and deposits are conducted in USD, and any non-USD transaction fee will incur a conversion fee. Depending on the currency and payment method, the fee may vary.
• A $10 monthly inactivity fee is applied to users who have been inactive for more than a year.

How This Broker Makes Money From You and For You

eToro 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.

• Cryptocurrency: eToro charges a 1% fee for the amount of crypto assets bought or sold.
• Other platform fees: eToro also charges fees for withdrawals and account inactivity.
• Interest on uninvested cash: Its High Interest Cash Program is available to eToro Options account holders. The opt-in program offers 3.25% APR on cash balances and is free for eligible users with an at-rest cash balance of $5,000 or more. Users who opt into the program and maintain a cash balance of less than $5,000 in their account will still benefit from the offering but may 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 of it with eToro, but the broker is focused on execution quality, not PFOF. 
• Price improvement: While eToro has a best execution policy, the company does not provide information on the actual statistics of this program..

Account and Research Amenities

eToro’s beginner-friendly platform enables users to search for and filter assets on its trading dashboard. Stock investors have the option of a simple stock screener, while crypto 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.

Stock Screener

eToro offers a simple stock screening tool that allows you to filter stocks by a range of criteria. The platform also offers a volatility tracker where you can view the biggest movers.

ETF Screener

While users can sift through a list of eToro’s available ETFs based on proprietary social inputs, there is no option to customize their search with helpful technical or fundamental indicators.

Mutual Fund Screener

Currently, there are no mutual fund screener tools are available, as this asset class is not offered on the platform.

Options Screener

Currently, eToro does not offer the ability to screen option contracts.

Crypto Screener

No crypto screener tools are available. Only the biggest movers of the day and trending assets are highlighted on the platform. 

Fixed Income Screener

Currently, there are no fixed-income screener tools available, as this asset class is not offered on the platform.

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 the accumulative swing index. Users can place trades directly from the desktop chart. 

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 interests and goals. This feature is only available for crypto.

News

eToro’s news feed is primarily composed of other eToro users' analyses, thoughts, and insights, highlighting the social trading network’s social media-esque look and feel. 

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.

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 payment to your cash balance if you hold a position in a stock or ETF that pays dividends. 

Cash Management

eToro offers cash management through eToro Money, which enables you to seamlessly deposit and withdraw funds to and from your eToro account. You can also use it to send and receive money and store cryptocurrency.  Additionally, users can earn 3.25% annual interest on their cash through eToro’s High Interest Cash Program. Beyond that, eToro’s cash management solution doesn’t provide any further banking-related services to customers in the U.S.

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 they 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 eToro Academy. While many of the articles provide information on cryptocurrency, other materials focus on products like the Smart Portfolio and trading strategies like technical indicators.

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

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

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, known as the eToro Wallet, is provided by eToro to store cryptocurrency. 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.

Users can also expect the following measures:

• 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)

Transparency

eToro generally has a transparent platform in terms of pricing but is lacking 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. Spread pricing and payment for order flow (PFOF) information is available as well. The inability of 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 in the U.S. 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.

The Bottom Line

eToro is one of the most established online brokerages offering crypto trading services in the United States. The user-friendly interface and platform’s CopyTrader and SmartPortfolios features further expand on the beginner-friendliness of the platform, making the crypto asset market more accessible for newcomers. 

In addition to crypto trading, eToro users can also invest in stocks, ETFs, and options, providing a suite of products to choose from. However, the list of tradable assets across all supported asset classes is not as long as at some eToro’s competitors. Moreover, the lack of advanced trading tools, in-depth research, and margin trading makes eToro less suitable for experienced traders looking to deploy advanced trading strategies. 

eToro is best suited for beginners and less experienced traders looking to trade the most popular cryptocurrencies (and other assets) as well as make use of the platform’s flagship copy trading feature. However, advanced traders looking to trade cryptocurrency may want to look at popular crypto exchanges to fulfill their crypto needs.

How to Buy Bitcoin on the eToro App

To buy bitcoin on eToro in the United States, you need to sign up for an account on eToro.com, verify your identity to pass the customer onboarding process, link your bank card to your account to transfer funds, and then purchase bitcoin with the funds you have deposited on the eToro platform. The purchased BTC will then be held on your eToro account, but you can also transfer it to eToro’s official crypto wallet, eToro Wallet. 

Is eToro Safe?

eToro is a licensed online brokerage company with an excellent track record for security. The company’s U.S.-based securities business, under the entity eToro USA Securities Inc., is a broker-dealer registered with the SEC and FINRA. eToro’s U.S.-based cryptocurrency business, operating under the entity eToro USA LLC, is a registered Money Services Business (MSB) with FinCEN. Moreover, the company has not reported any major security breaches on its platform.

How We Picked the Best Online Brokers and Trading Platforms

Providing readers with unbiased, comprehensive reviews of online brokers and trading platforms is a top priority for Investopedia. We combined our industry research, subject matter expertise, and investor survey data to guide the research and weightings for our 2024 online broker awards. To collect the data, we sent a digital survey with 110 questions to each of the 26 companies we included in our rubric. Additionally, our team of researchers verified the survey responses and collected any missing data points through online research and conversations with each company directly. The data collection process spanned from Feb. 19 to March 19, 2024.

We then developed a proprietary model that scored each company to rate its performance across 11 major categories and 89 criteria to find the best online brokers and trading platforms. The score for each company’s overall star rating is a weighted average of the criteria in the following categories:

Additionally, during our 2024 research, many of the companies we reviewed gave us live demonstrations of their platforms and services via video conferencing methods and also granted our team of expert writers and editors access to live accounts so they could perform hands-on testing.

Through this all-encompassing data collection and review process, Investopedia has provided you with an unbiased and thorough review of the top online brokers and trading platforms.

Learn more about how we review online brokers.

Cryptocurrency is offered by eToro USA LLC (“the MSB”) (NMLS: 1769299) and is not FDIC or SIPC insured. Investing involves risk, and content is provided for educational purposes only, does not imply a recommendation, and is not a guarantee of future performance. Investopedia is not an affiliate and may be compensated if you access certain products or services offered by the MSB.

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.