AvaTrade vs Pepperstone review – Brokers with 0 commissions

Pepperstone and AvaTrade are two very popular Forex brokers. They have been in the Forex industry for more than 10 years now. The brokers continue to develop continually and keep up with the current market standards. Both of them provide advanced and up-to-date trading tools, a competitive trading environment, and diverse financial instrument portfolios. These two brokers are regulated and therefore secure for all Forex traders. However, in this broker comparison review of Pepperstone vs AvaTrade, we are going to cover the major differences that these brokers have to choose the best among this pair.

Pepperstone is a Forex broker accounting for more than a decade of experience as a Forex trading broker. At first, the company served clients from Australia and neighboring regions only. However, nowadays, Pepperstone broker is an international company delivering its services to hundreds of different countries worldwide. You can find both major and minor currency pairs within the list of the trading assets portfolio of the broker, as well as shares, commodities, indices, and cryptocurrencies. The maximum leverage on these products can go up to 1:200.

AvaTrade is an industry-leading brokerage company with regulations across six different jurisdictions. It is also one of the most experienced brokers established in 2006. With AvaTrade you have an option to choose from 60 currency pairs, hundreds of stock assets, commodities, precious metals, energies, indices, FX options, ETFs, bonds, and cryptocurrencies. In fact, the trading portfolio of AvaTrade is one of the most diverse portfolios out there. The maximum leverage on these products can go up to 1:400, however, in the European Union, the leverage limit remains at 1:30.

Which broker offers better spreads and fees, Pepperstone or AvaTrade?

Pepperstone and AvaTrade have different fee structures. However, they do not use a universal revenue model for all types of accounts that they offer. Instead, some of the commissionable accounts of these two brokers will offer ultra-tight spreads or other benefits. Whereas commission-free accounts will also be available for the traders but with fewer benefits. Both AvaTrade and Peppersone have two live trading account types. With Pepperstone these two accounts are Razor and Standard accounts. AvaTrade offers Standard and Professional trading account types. The Pepperstone minimum deposit for both Razor and Standard accounts is 200 Australian dollars which at the moment accounts for around 151 US dollars. On the other hand, AvaTrade minimum deposit is 100 US dollars for a Standard Account.

Commission rates and spreads

As we already mentioned above, the commissionable accounts with AvaTrade and Pepperstone are usually the ones that offer extra benefits. One of the benefits associated with such accounts is the tight-spreads on trading assets. For example, with the Pepperstone Razor account traders can access EUR/USD currency pair with spreads starting at 0 pips and averaging 0.09 pips. Whereas on Pepperstone Standard accounts the spread on the same currency pair is 0.6 pips on average. Razor account type charges commission rate per 1 lot (100,000 base currency) in the amount of 0.04 USD, or 0.08 USD round-turn. For the AvaTrade Standard account, the spread on EUR/USD currency pair is 0.9 pips on average, which can be significantly reduced on the professional trading account. A standard account is a commission-free account, as well as the professional one. However, traders have to earn the right to open the Professional AvaTrade account.

Get your Standard Account with AvaTrade

Which one has provided better software, AvaTrade or Pepperstone?

The trading platform options that these two brokers provide are incredibly similar. Both of them support MetaTrader software on their trading platforms. The clients of AvaTrade and Pepperstone can access various modifications of MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5. On the Pepperstone platform, the account types with MT4 and MT5 will be different from each other. However, with AvaTrade the account benefits and limitations remain the same no matter which platform you use. Generally, it is known that MetaTrader 4 suits the needs and requirements of Forex traders better than MT5. However, MetaTrader 5 is essentially a multi-trading platform by nature.

Apart from the MetaTraders, these two brokers also offer solutions for automated trading with Pepperstone cTrader and AvaTrade’s ZuluTrade and DupliTrade. These automated trading bots are very similar to each other. All three of them feature the complex charting function of the popular signals along with their respective performances, as well as the detailed information about the signal providers. The traders can follow or copy the trades of the expert traders in the industry.

In addition to the platforms mentioned above, AvaTrade has introduced two innovative and ground-breaking trading platforms – AvaSocial and AvaTrade GO. AvaSocial is very similar to the automated trading tools that we mentioned above. However, it is a mobile app that unites advanced and experienced traders with beginners and novices to the Forex industry. As a trader, you can of course follow and copy the trades of experts. But more importantly, you can ask questions to your mentors or groups and learn more about the trading strategies. While AvaTrade GO is a Forex trading app that connects global trading markets with live feeds and social trends.

Start trading with AvaTrade GO platform

Which broker provides better safety for traders, Pepperstone vs AvaTrade

We measure the safety of a broker according to the authorizations and regulations that it holds. The good news is that both Pepperstone and AvaTrade are highly regulated brokerage companies. However, AvaTrade has a competitive advantage in this case. Pepperstone is regulated by a single authority according to the official website of the broker. It is licensed and authorized by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas with the registration number SIA-F217. On the other hand, AvaTrade holds numerous licenses from the top-tier market regulators below:

• Central Bank of Ireland (license no. C53877)
• the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission
• Australian Securities and Investments Commission (registration number 406684)
• the South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority (license number FSCA 45984)
• Financial Services Agency of Japan (license number 1662)
• Financial Futures Association of Japan (license number 1574)
• Abu Dhabi Global Markets and Financial Regulatory Services Authority (registration number 190018)
• Cypris Securities and Exchange Commission (license number 347/17)
• Israel Securities Authority (514666577)

Start trading with multi-regulated broker AvaTrade

Which one has better bonus offers, AvaTrade vs Pepperstone?

It is not a surprise that these two brokers do not offer any particular bonus program. Most of the Forex market regulators actually prohibit the bonus offerings to Forex traders. However, we were very surprised to see that Pepperstone does not provide any kind of promotional campaign since it is much less regulated compared to AvaTrade. Despite the fact that AvaTrade also does not run bonus schemes, the broker does indeed offer a generous referral program for its clients.

AvaTrade referral program “Refer a Friend” is a very simple campaign that promises generous rewards. According to the terms, your referral should open a real account, deposit a minimum of 500 US dollars and open at least 10 trades with any financial instrument. Consequently, you will be awarded a referral bonus. The amount of the bonus depends on your friend’s or referral’s investment. For deposits between 500-2000 US dollars, you will receive a 50 USD referral bonus. For deposits up to 5000 USD, you will get 100 USD, for 5000-10,000 USD investment you will claim 150 USD, for 10,000-20,000 USD deposit you will be getting 200 USD. As for deposits over 20,001 USD from your friend AvaTrade will grant you 250 US dollars as a referral bonus.

Which one is a better broker overall, Pepperstone vs AvaTrade

Overall, we like AvaTrade better for several reasons. First of all, you will hardly find a Forex broker that holds as many licenses as AvaTrade. The broker has the authorization to operate in more than six different jurisdictions compared to a single regulator of Pepperstone. Moreover, AvaTrade has a more diverse trading portfolio with more flexible leverage of 1:400 compared to 1:200 with Pepperstone. And finally, AvaTrade runs a referral program which is a great rewarding campaign for the loyal customers of the brokers.