In our Exness review, we found the broker interesting mostly for their unlimited leverage and for the Forex markets they serve. Exness is a no-dealing desk broker with MT4 and MT5 trading platforms. Read what we think of them
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Our Verdict On Exness
We gave Exness a score of 50 out of 100 making them a decent choice for a Forex broker but unless you are located in an emerging market (like the Philippines, Malaysia or much of Africa), you can’t trade with them. With MT4 and MT5 trading platforms and spreads with instant execution, the broker’s most unique feature is their unlimited leverage.
Exness offers unlimited leverage, which for better or worse, is a clear differentiator that sets it apart from many other forex brokers. Overall, we think Exness offers reasonably competitive spreads, a good range of account options, diverse funding methods which include cryptocurrencies, and a decent education.
Unfortunately, if you live in Canada, the USA, most of Europe, Australia or New Zealand, you won’t be able to use Exness, so there are some geographical restrictions to be aware of.
Strangely, although Exness is regulated by two notable regulators, these being the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom and CySEC in Cyprus (for EU markets) they don’t accept clients from these markets. This can be explained by the fact that Exness used to offer trading services in these markets but has since left the UK and EU to focus on emerging markets. For this reason, we have a hard time recommending this broker just because for safety reasons we feel a responsibility to only recommend brokers using top regulators.
When it comes to trading platforms, Exness has its own proprietary Terminal which combines with TradingView giving you a good range of analytical tools and order types in addition to MetaTrader 4 and Metatrader 5. The brokers also have an in-house developed App for trading and a separate one for social trading. So you are not short for when it comes to software to trade with.
Exness is a global forex broker which has been in operation since 2008. They have their headquarters in Cyprus, with satellite offices in Seychelles, South Africa, Curacao, the United Kingdom, and Kenya.
From what we could tell, they have three entities offering CFD trading services:
Additionally, Exness is a market maker which means they provide their own liquidity and are the counterparty to your trades.
Exness offers fairly competitive spreads on their RAW account with spreads starting from as low as 0 pips for certain major pairs like EUR/USD. On their Zero account, they have zero pip spreads for the top 30 currency pairs 95% of the time however, you will be charged commissions on both types of accounts in addition to the spread.
In the table below, we compare the published spreads Forex brokers list on their websites with the published spreads Exness list for their commission-based accounts. Exness does claim to have an average of 0 pips for selected certain currency pairs and this stands out since no other broker claim this. While we don’t know how they measure their average, we question how the broker calculates this average and much prefer to recommend a broker such as Pepperstone since they performed very well with their very own RAW spreads account testing.
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ECN Broker Spreads
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0.00 | 0.00 | 0.40 | 0.40 | 0.20 |
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0.10 | 0.40 | 0.60 | 0.40 | 0.20 |
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0.02 | 0.14 | 0.25 | 0.27 | 0.17 |
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0.30 | 0.50 | 0.60 | 0.50 | 0.50 |
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0.30 | 0.30 | N/A | 0.50 | 0.40 |
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0.44 | 0.20 | 0.83 | 0.40 | 0.42 |
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0.17 | 0.24 | N/A | 0.54 | 0.30 |
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0.20 | 0.30 | 0.70 | 0.50 | 0.40 |
Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 04/01/2024
For their standard account, average floating spreads start from 1 pip on EUR/USD. These spreads are taken from the broker’s website and we benchmarked them against other Forex brokers, and while they are fairly decent, they’re not the most competitive. We are more comfortable recommending IC Markets since we have tested the broker’s standard spreads ourselves and so have proof this broker is one of the best choices.
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Standard Account Spreads
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1.00 | 1.40 | 1.60 | 1.20 | 1.10 |
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1.10 | 1.20 | 1.40 | 1.40 | 1.40 |
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0.62 | 0.77 | 1.27 | 0.83 | 0.74 |
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1.10 | 1.20 | 1.30 | 1.30 | 1.30 |
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0.90 | 1.10 | 1.50 | 1.50 | 1.00 |
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1.20 | 0.90 | 1.50 | 1.80 | 1.80 |
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1.20 | 1.40 | 1.50 | 1.60 | 1.50 |
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1.10 | 1.20 | 1.40 | 1.50 | 1.20 |
Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 04/01/2024
Our Verdict On Trading Costs With Exness
Overall, while these spreads aren’t bad, they’re also not the best, so If you’re looking for a broker with the tightest spreads, you can read our analysis on the most competitive brokers. We gave Exness a score of 5.85 out of 10 for trading costs.
Exness offers several account types which are suited to different levels of experience. The Standard account has no commissions while the RAW spread and Zero accounts are the best choices for experienced traders.
Standard Account
The Exness Standard account offers you the full range of assets across forex, metals, cryptocurrencies, energy, indices, and stocks with no commission cost. With over 100 forex pairs, 34 crypto pairs, 98 blue-chip stocks, 13 commodities and 10 indices, you’ll have plenty of assets to choose from.
Minimum order sizes start from 0.1 lots and the account is integrated with both MetaTrader4 and MetaTrader 5, there’s also a greater number of account currency types to choose from.
Pro Account
The Pro Account is much the same as the Standard Account but has instant execution instead of market execution. Instant order execution is available for assets across forex, metals, indices, energy, and stocks but not cryptocurrencies and is a good choice if you want greater control of your orders.
Unlike with market execution, you will get a requote when spreads differ from your ordered price thus giving you a chance to accept or reject the new price. Our experience is that instant execution can be of some benefit when requotes are when slippage is positive, but keep in mind that you can end up with a flood of requotes if the market is volatile which is why most accounts focus on market execution.
Zero Account
This account has zero pips spreads on the 30 most traded currency pairs for the majority of the trading day making it suitable for high-frequency and if you are using automated trading strategies. As such, if you use EAs, then this account could be for you. We think this account is best if you know exactly which currency pairs you intend to trade.
Exness makes its money by charging a commission when orders are opened or closed. These start from USD 0.2 per (0.4 round-turn) a lot but vary depending on the instrument you’re trading. It’s important to note that both the open and close commission is bundled together when the position is first opened.
Raw Spread Account
Similar to the Zero Account, this account also offers ultra-low to no spreads with a fixed commission on orders which is capped at USD 3.5 per lot in each direction. While the commission does vary depending on the instrument traded, the degree of this variation appears to be less than the Zero Account which can fluctuate more widely.
Standard Cent Account
If you’re just starting out as a beginner, the Standard Cent account could be a good option as it allows you to trade with smaller lot sizes (0.01). It’s important to note that values are also reflected in cents rather than dollars (or whatever the cent equivalent is in your account currency). No commissions are charged on Standard Cent accounts, however, be aware that since you are trading with micro-lots, spreads will be wider than with other accounts.
If this sounds of interest, there are a few limitations that you should know about first before opening an account. Firstly, account currency types are reduced, and the range of assets you can trade is restricted to forex and metals, with a total of 36 instruments available.
There is also no integration with MetaTrader 5, but MetaTrader 4 does work.
Swap Free Account
We found it interesting when we discovered that Exness automatically allocates a swap-free account (also called an Islamic account) to all clients based in countries that follow Sharia law. A swap-free status can be applied to all accounts. And unlike many swap-free accounts where there is an admin fee or widened spread in place of swaps, Exness does neither making it closer true sharia compliant account.
Our Verdict on Trading Accounts
Overall we think the accounts on offer by Exness are pretty good, providing you with the choice to select an account that aligns with your trading style. The commissions charged by Exness are also reasonable and as a result, we scored them highly for this.
Minimum deposits on Exness start from $10, but you’ll initially need to deposit $200 when first opening an account. You can withdraw as little as $2 and Exness doesn’t charge any withdrawal or deposit fees.
Withdrawals and deposits also get processed very quickly (within seconds typically) but can take up to 24 hours and they have a diverse range of funding methods which include cryptocurrencies via crypto wallets, and a few e-wallets like GCash and Perfect Money. Finding out the available funding methods was quite tricky, their deposit and withdrawal methods only mentioned Bank Card and Perfect Money, and other options are hidden in the FAQ section or by asking the BOT on live chat. Unfortunately, Exness don’t offer PayPal, or Klarna and limits NETELLER and Skrill to Kenya which is surprising.
Our verdict on funding
While Exness has a range of funding options, they are missing some major providers such as PayPal, Apple Pay and Klarna. However, we notice Exness do accept cryptocurrencies which is good if you have embraced crypto payments. We gave Exness a score of 4 out of 10 for funding options.
Exness offers various trading platforms including their own proprietary Exness Terminal and the Exness Trade app. Their Terminal is a web-based trading platform which means you won’t need to download and install anything and can get trading right away. The other trading platforms of note are mainstream MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.
Exness Terminal
We took the browser-based Exness Terminal developed from scratch by the Exness team for a spin and can confirm it has all the standard features you would expect including portfolio view, watchlists, over 100 indicators, various order types, chart customisation and more. It also integrates with both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 which is a big plus.
The Exness terminal is built using HTML5 which ensures the browser loads fast and is secure thanks to advanced encryption. When we test the platform, we found it performed as well as any desktop which is a good thing as it means you can use the platform on any medium you can access a web browser, even mobiles.
We thought the interface for this terminal was very clean which made it super easy for us to navigate to find information related to the trading instruments and analytical tools we wanted to research. Another feature we liked is that you can set your stop levels by price, percentage or account currency.
A popular feature we have seen many Forex brokers with a proprietary trading platform offer is integration with TradeView and Exness is no exception. Integration with TradeView with the Exness Terminal means you can access
Drawbacks we noticed include the lack of ability to set price alerts but strangely we can do this with the mobile version. The other missing feature is a lack of education and integrated research tools like connectivity to Forex news.
Exness Trade App
At face value, the app looks and sounds pretty good. It’s available for both iOS and Android, it has all the features you would expect of a mobile trading app. That is one-click trading and charts designed for the small screen, unsurprising the analytic tools are a bit more limited compared to the web version. The mobile version comes with TradingView charts integrated which is good especially as you can receive signals that TradingView will curate for you. We also found that the buy and sell buttons have market sentiment displayed on the, which was quite cool. Unlike the terminal, you can create orders and watchlists. Overall we thought the app to be decent, although a little clunky.
Funnily enough, I asked my colleague in Australia (where Exness don’t serve to assist me with testing the app) and unlike me, he uses iOS and he had a strange experience.
When he downloaded the app from the iOS app store, Exness Trade launched an entirely new branded product called Pocket Option which we hadn’t seen referenced anywhere on the Exness website. We are not entirely sure how to explain this, since we are not aware of any partnership between Exness and Pock Option, we can only presume this came about because Exness does not serve the Australian market. As an aside, my colleague also tried to test using the Australian Google Store and the Exness app does not show which makes sense.
We visited their website and it was pretty vague with details and had no information on the team. They’re also not on LinkedIn which is somewhat concerning. We subsequently checked Trustpilot and although they have a 4-star rating, there are several very negative reviews that accuse Pocket Option of being a scam. While there are positive reviews also, it raises some suspicion.
Exness Social Trading
At the start of 2022, Exness launched its own developed social trading called Exness Social Trading. Like most decent social trading software, you will find a large range of strategy providers as well as a ranking system for the best copiers in the network and filters to help you find the people you wish to follow. However, we found this app to be somewhere different from other apps we have seen as it kept information displayed about strategy providers to what you should care most about such as risk and profit rate. In other words, it does not bother with nice to have information such as stop loss, take prod and equity.
If you are a beginner and don’t really understand all the concepts of trading and just want to find good signal providers to follow, the Exness social trading app is a decent option. However, the strength of its simplicity is also its drawback. If you are going to follow someone then there is every reason to want to know the signal providers equity and their risk management strategies.
MetaTrader
As mentioned, Exness integrates with both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, and also offers access to the MT4 MultiTerminal which is helpful if you’re trading on multiple accounts. You can also use MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 as a trading platform in its own right. These platforms are available as downloads for Windows and Mac, as mobile apps for iOS and Android and for web browsers.
MetaTrader 4 is the world’s most popular trading platform, so is a safe choice when it comes to Forex trading platforms. MT4 has 30 indicators and 33 analytical tools to help you trade. You can also automate your trading or create custom indicators using Expert Advisors. It is also Signals software so you can copy trade using MetaTrader signals. The one notable weakness of MT4 is the inability to trade shares.
The MetaTrader 5 trading platform unlike MetaTrader 4, enables share trading so it is a better choice if you wish to access the entire suite of trading products Exness offers. In fact, MetaTrader 5, is an upgrade on MetaTrader 4 meaning it is superior in every way. With more indicators (38 to 30), analytical tools (44 to 33) and timeframes (21 to 9), the only thing that holds the platform back is that MT5 isn’t exactly compatible with MT4 and that most traders are comfortable with MT4 and don’t wish to change. If you wish to know, see our deep dive for the differences between MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 to help you decide.
Demo Account
Exness also offers a demo account which gives you USD $10,000 of virtual currency to play around with and get acquainted with their platform. We found it interesting that you need to verify who you are
Our Verdict on Trading Platforms
If we ignore the quick of somehow downloading Pocket Option (which you are unlikely to come across in markets Exness actually accepts clients from) then we think the offering Exness have is quite decent. Not only can you choose between 3 quality trading platforms they also have a good social trading app that avoids the generic offering many brokers are creating. For this reason, we gave Exness 7 out of 10 for their platforms.
Exness has a decent range of forex pairs to trade but it doesn’t offer any ETFs, bonds or treasuries, futures, or the option to purchase underlying shares. They also don’t offer the full range of commodities that some other brokers do, but they do have some cryptocurrency CFDs which helps offset some of the other limitations.
Overall, we ranked Exness as average for their products on offer.
Exness offers huge amounts of leverage, with 1:2000 available by default for smaller accounts. To access unlimited leverage, several requirements need to be met (summarised below) and it’s important to note that you won’t be able to use it on all markets as Exness has imposed leverage limitations on exotic forex pairs, energy, indices, stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Exness also sometimes caps leverage to 1:200 during times of heightened volatility, including when upcoming news is about to be released. It does this by making changes to the dynamic margin requirements. Traders with Exness Kenya will be limited to 1:400.
Overall, we scored Exness well given the large amount of leverage available. Of course, excessive leverage is never a good thing, but we think the flexibility and the freedom to set your own limit is a big plus for Exness.
Our Verdict on Trading Products
We gave Exness a score of 6 out of 10 for a range of markets for trading. With nearly 100 Forex pairs to trade, and a decent range of cryptos and hard commodities like metals and energies we were impressed. However, we would have liked to have seen more and they have seen more shares, indices, and ETFs available.
We also think unlimited leverage is pretty crazy and opportunistic from the broker. While trading with some leverage when done properly can be very useful, unless you know what you are doing or can afford to lose we recommend responsible trading which means limiting the leverage you use.
While Exness is regulated by various regulators, it’s only covered by one tier 1 regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom.
Exness also doesn’t accept customers from the United States, Canada, most of Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and various others.
We were curious as to why Exness was regulated by the FCA but wasn’t available for UK residents. It turns out that in 2019, they decided to close their retail business in the EU/EEA region, including the UK, which explains why it continues to be regulated by the FCA but doesn’t accept customers from the country.
In January 2023, Exness claimed to have 490,000 active traders, up 63% over a year. They also stated that active clients had increased by 12% from 440,000 in December 2022. As of April 2023, Exness had 476,000 active traders, demonstrating a strong growth trajectory. Additionally, their trading volume in 2021 was over $11 trillion, and this was verified by their independent auditor, Deloitte.
We asked their support team about security and they advised that your funds are always segregated from the company’s own funds for protection and that each transaction is verified via your chosen security type.
Regulation
| Exness Safety | Regulator |
|---|---|
| Tier-1 | CySEC FCA |
| Tier-2 | |
| Tier-3 | FSC-BVI CBSC (Saint Maaten) CMA FSCA FSA-S FSC-M |
Our Verdict On Broker Trust and Regulation
We gave Exness a score of 6 out of 10 for broker trust. While the broker is regulated in 8 jurisdictions, only the FCA and CySEC are ones we would take seriously as a regulator and strangely, the broker does not operate out of this market.
Exness does offer a live chat bot which is decent but it still couldn’t answer some basic questions like “Is there an inactivity fee”. It was however able to tell us the difference between the trading accounts and suggested a suitable page with further information.
Additionally, Exness offers you details on the availability of their support teams across the globe and offers phone and email support, 24 hours, 5 days a week. Their help centre also has some pretty good information which can answer some basic questions.
Both their official website and client support are available in 16 languages including English, Thai, Chinese, and Swahili.
One odd thing we noticed is that the live chat gives you a time-out message, even though you are actively chatting. Other than that, we think the customer service and support seem pretty good, and we scored Exness well accordingly.
Exness offers a fairly good selection of educational resources which are categorised from beginner to advanced, so no matter where you sit on the trading experience spectrum, there will undoubtedly be something for you.
The Exness Academy offers various courses which run through key concepts from managing the risks, to analysing price action. Strangely, it wasn’t that easy to find the education section from the main homepage.
Additionally, they also publish blogs fairly regularly on market analysis and insights which provide useful updates on timely news events and the like.
Opening an account with Exness is relatively straightforward and entails the usual steps. You will need to provide proof of identity, proof of residency, and verify your email and phone number.
Once your account is set up (it shouldn’t take long to process), you’re ready to make your first deposit (the minimum is $200) and then proceed to select the account type which works best for you.
From there, you’ll be ready to start trading.
We think Exness offers some interesting features. With an interesting range of trading accounts including an instant execution account and an account with spreads of 0 pips 95% of the time along with low commissions, decent spreads overall, no fees on deposits or withdrawals, and unlimited leverage (which you could argue is a con too), the broker does stand out from their competitors. We also like their choice of trading platforms.
On the flip side, it’s not great that they aren’t regulated by many tier 1 regulators such as in Australia, The US, the UK, and The EU but to be fair Exness doesn’t accept clients from these countries anyway. They’ve got a fairly limited range of markets and they’re missing some obvious options to fund your accounts.
When selecting a broker, traders will need to weigh up which aspects are most important to them. If it’s high leverage, then Exness could be for you. If you’re looking for the lowest cost and a greater degree of safety, it could be worth checking some competitors. Overall we gave Exness 50 out of 100.
Yes, as Exness is a MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 broker, you can automate your trading using Expert Advisors (EAs). Exness is a no-dealing desk broker so encourages strategies such as scaping and high-volume trading commonly associated with automated trading.
If you are using a Standard or Pro account with Exness, then you can trade with up to 96 Forex pairs. This consists of 8 Majors, 25 Minors and 63 Exotics. If you are trading with the Raw or Zero Account you can trade 73 Forex pairs which include fewer exotic pairs compared to the no-commission accounts. .
To open a live account with Exness, you will need to deposit $200. Once your account is live, any further deposits will need to be at least $10. Withdrawals start from $2.
We have compared Exness to other brokers including IC Markets in our head-to-head tables. We focus on spreads, trading platforms, regulation and range of markets.
