MT4 Spread Betting Brokers In UK

Pepperstone is our choice as the top MT4 spread betting broker due to its quick execution times, reasonable spreads, and wide selection of platforms. For spread bettors who are just getting started, you can either open a demo account to practice first or start trading live if you feel comfortable doing so.

Pepperstone is our favourite MT4 broker

We think Pepperstone is the best overall MT4 spread betting broker because of several, combined factors. These include the broker having one of the fastest execution speeds we’ve tested, the best zero pip spread broker and an excellent MT4 platform experience. This is why we scored Pepperstone a near-perfect 97/100 in our overall ranking score. To summarise, Pepperstone’s greatest strengths are:

• Fast MT4 execution speeds
• Zero-pip spreads available
• Capitalise.ai integrates with MT4 for automation
• Easiest account opening experience

Our Pepperstone Limit Speed Tests Determined Them The Fastest

We think spread betting requires tight spreads and, as such, fast execution speeds to achieve this. Execution speed tests conducted in 2023 by our own, Ross Collins, compared the top 20 brokers based on limit and market orders using MetaTrader 4. His limit order testing determined that Pepperstone was the fastest broker, with an average limit order speed of 77ms.

Pepperstone Has Competitive Standard Account Spreads

We have always ranked Pepperstone as the UK’s best spread betting platform highly for its competitive spreads, particularly its standard account (I.E. no-commission account) spreads. Our team compiles the average spreads of all the top brokers (obtained from their websites or via testing) and publishes the results, which are updated monthly. Our most recent data (September 2023) shows Pepperstone tops the list for most competitive Standard Account spreads. The Standard account is the only account type that spread betting is available for.

Standard Account Spreads	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD	EUR/USD AUD/USD EUR/GBP GBP/USD USD/JPY AUD/JPY EUR/JPY USD/CAD USD/SGD
	1.12	1.22	1.40	1.69	1.47
	1.13	1.01	1.71	1.66	1.12
	0.60	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
	1.12	1.64	0.86	1.30	1.38
	0.90	1.10	1.50	1.50	1.00
	1.30	1.70	2.10	1.40	1.50
	1.10	1.20	1.40	1.50	1.20
	0.70	2.20	1.10	1.10	0.60
	1.32	1.95	1.37	1.70	1.40

Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 01/09/2023

A Pepperstone spread betting account is like the Pepperstone Standard Account with no commissions. You’ll obtain spreads from 0.7 pips and only be able to bet in GBP, with a good range of spread betting markets. The trading platforms available for spread betting are MT4, MT5 and cTrader.

Another category we gave Pepperstone full marks for was its account opening process[1]Our team opening accounts in 2023 . Not only did we find it easy (a simple 4-step process) with no blockers, we had great customer service in the form of a dedicated account manager. We scored Pepperstone a maximum of 15/15. As a bonus, you can even start testing the trading platforms with a demo account without providing any of your funding details since there are no deposit requirements with Pepperstone.

Pepperstone’s Great Range of Spread Betting Trading Platforms

Pepperstone has a great range of trading platforms you can spread bet on, including MetaTrader 4 (MT4), MetaTrader 5 (MT5) and cTrader.
MT4 is our pick for forex spread betting, as the most popular platform, globally and the one many of the team use, personally. MT5 is better suited for share trading given its capacity to trade on centralised exchanges while cTrader has good automation and depth of market features.
For experienced traders looking for advanced trading tools for charting and algorithmic trading, there are some great features with MT4 including:

• Multiple chart types, technical indicators, and timeframes
• Expert Advisors (EAs) for automation
• EA Backtesting
• Autochartist
• Smart Trader Tools
• Basic and advanced order types
• Capitalise.ai available for code-free automation with MT4

MT4, MT5 and cTrader are multi-device platforms available on desktop, webtrader and mobile.

Our Final Verdict on Pepperstone

Pepperstone is our pick as the best MT4 spread betting broker due to having fast execution speeds, competitive spreads and a good range of platforms. You can either open a demo account to practise first (for inexperienced spread betters) or start trading live if you feel confident enough to.

Pepperstone ReviewVisit Pepperstone

We’ve put IG through its paces and wholeheartedly recommend it to our UK traders for its top range of spread betting products with MT4. We particularly valued IG’s exceptional proprietary platforms, comprehensive learning materials, and advanced trading tools. In the realm of spread betting, these features set IG a cut above the rest. For those in the trading game, IG is an indisputable leader.

IG has 17,000 markets to spread bet on

The most trusted forex and spread betting broker in the UK with over 30 years of experience, IG offers the best range of spread betting products we can find. IG offers over 12,000 stocks, 100 forex pairs and a wide range of additional asset classes. IG’s highlights include:

• Huge range of markets
• Excellent proprietary platforms
• Useful education resources

IG’s Immense Spread Betting Product Range

IG offers the biggest range of spread betting markets of any broker we’ve reviewed. These products are spread across a wide range of asset classes, all of which are listed below. Having such a huge range appears to translate to volume, as IG is one of the largest UK forex brokers in the world, based on daily trading volume.

• 100 Currency Pairs
• Over 13,000 stocks (major AU, EU and US stock exchanges)
• 80 Indices
• 6000 ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds)
• 32 Commodities (precious metals, softs and energies)
• 12 Treasuries
• 6 Interest Rates
• 13,000 Options

IG’s Spread Betting Account is suited for beginners
To trade its huge product range, IG offers a spread betting account which is the same as its CFD account. You can trade the same products with the same spreads, the only difference is that you bet using GBP, meaning you don’t need to concern yourself with conversion fees. Spreads with IG start from 0.6 pips for major currency pairs, which is lower than the industry average, keeping your costs lower.

We recommend IG’s spread betting account if you are a beginner to spread betting, based on the broker’s outstanding proprietary platform, which we awarded the best spread betting platform in the UK for beginners. You will also be able to train yourself to place better spread bets via an extensive education library which includes its IG Academy designed for beginners, intermediate and experienced traders via webinars, seminars and risk management courses.

While MT4 is our recommended platform for forex spread betting, just keep in mind that betting with shares is limited with this platform. Should you wish to bet with shares, IG also has 2 other excellent platforms for spread betting: ProRealTime, and the broker’s own, IG trading platform. Should you choose this last platform, you can protect your bets using a guaranteed stop loss.

Final Verdict on IG

Overall, IG has the best range of spread betting products, in addition to a number of other key benefits. We also like IG’s excellent proprietary platforms, educational resources and trading tools. All of these factors give IG an edge in the niche world of spread betting.

IG ReviewVisit IG

We’ve personally tested Admirals and confidently recommend it to UK traders for its superior spread betting capabilities with MetaTrader 5 (MT5). What stood out for us was MT5’s enhanced flexibility in allowing share betting, an aspect that MT4 often complicates. Additionally, MT5 offers a broader toolkit for traders compared to MT4. For those yet to commit to a platform, Admirals with MT5 is a top pick.

Admirals has MT5 which also has shares betting

Formally Admiral Markets, Admirals, unlike other brokers on this list uses MetaTrader 5 (MT5) as its spread betting platform. If you are not yet committed to the MT4 trading platform, the MT5 platform is well worth considering as you can bet using shares (which isn’t so easily available with MT4) and access more trading tools than with MT4.

These increased features that MT5 have over MT4 include more indicators (38 vs 30), extra analytical tools (68 vs 33) and tighter timeframes (21 vs 9). All these features plus 64 bit vs 32 bit processing (good for backtesting) make MT5 a more powerful platform overall than MT4.

We reviewed Admirals’ top benefits as:

• Access to MT5 for shares betting
• Low no-commission spreads
• Volatility protection
• Excellent educational tools

Admirals Has Competitive Spreads For Spread Betting

Admirals’ spread betting account is much the same as their Trade MT5 account. This means you will be using the MetaTrader 5 trading platform and all trading products have no commission costs. Spreads when trading with the EUR/USD currency pair can be as low as 0.5 pips. While Admirals uses a market maker model, spreads are kept low because prices are matched to the best spreads from their pool of liquidity providers.

Admirals’ product range is solid, with the ability to spread bet on shares, a feature available with MT5 but not MT4. We recommend MT5 to trade Admirals’ full range of 45 forex pairs and 3350 shares. MT5 also allows for flexibility to trade additional products such as commodities, indices, bonds and ETFs.

Volatility Protection Settings

Admirals has a unique offering known as a Volatility Protection setting. Volatility refers to the speed prices can change which can result in negative slippage meaning you may end up losing more than intended. Volatility Protection Settings are sophisticated trading orders and settings designed to help you have greater control of your trading condition to better help you avoid the negative impacts of volatility.

Setting available include:

• Ability to set limit orders with predefined maximum price slippage to ensure you can manage the slippage you will accept
• Pre-determined stop-loss levels with limit orders on the same tick to better prevent instant losses
• Limit or even prevent losses by ensuring pending orders cannot fall into price gaps
•  Allow partial fills on large orders
• Avoid orders being activated when spreads change even though markets haven’t moved

Spread betting has a high level of risk, so we think some of these volatility protection features can be very useful.

Final Verdict on Admirals

Overall, we think Admirals stands out with the lowest zero-commission spreads and a supercharged MetaTrader platform experience. All of which are important for spread betting.

Admirals ReviewVisit Admirals

We particularly liked Avatrade’s consistent “over market” spreads during regular trading conditions, akin to fixed spreads. However, note that these spreads might vary in extremely turbulent market conditions. For traders seeking instant execution on their MT4 orders, AvaTrade stands as a compelling option. Just bear in mind that AvaTraderGo and AvaOptions aren’t on the table.

AvaTrade spreads are fixed at certain times

Unlike other brokers on this list which have market execution, AvaTrade has instant execution. This means that if AvaTrade is not able to execute your betting order within the parameters you have specified, the broker will come back to you with a new price (a requote), which you can accept or reject. Using instant execution means you can avoid having your orders actioned with the slippage you may wish to avoid. We think instant execution is a useful feature but do be aware that in times of high volatility, you might find yourself regularly needing to review requotes.

AvaTrade’s Key Strengths are:

• Choice of MetaTrader 4 and 5
• ‘Over Market’ spreads (partially fixed)
• Instant execution

AvaTrade is our top fixed spreads broker

AvaTrade offers a Standard account for spread betting, with no commissions and spreads starting from 0.9 pips for forex spread betting. These spreads are wider than other market makers have reported, such as Admirals but in line with the industry average (of 1 pip).

The broker also offers ‘over market’ spreads, which are mostly consistent (like fixed spreads) during normal trading conditions but can change when markets are extremely volatile. Having consistent spreads is vital in volatile market conditions, helping you stay in control of your execution costs while trading.

In terms of platforms, we like AvaTrade as it offers both MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms for spread betting, giving you a great choice of platforms to place spread bets with that not all brokers offer.

You will need $100 to open a spread betting account with AvaTrade.

AvaTrade offers a wide spectrum of asset classes, including complex derivatives like ETFs and Indices like FTSE . You can trade 55 forex pairs with leverage up to 30:1 if you are a retail trader and high leverage of up to 400:1 if you qualify as a professional trader.

Final Verdict on AvaTrade

Overall, we would recommend AvaTrade for beginner traders who want to lock in a spread without worrying about variable market conditions. Having a range of top trading platforms like MT5 and AvaTrade Go plus AvaProtect for risk management provides a solid foundation for spread betting.

Avatrade ReviewVisit Avatrade

We were genuinely impressed with their offering of over 70 currency pairs, a feature that stands out in the market. Furthermore, OANDA’s proprietary technology and suite of platforms genuinely enhance the trading experience. OANDA is a standout choice for those seeking depth and variety in forex spread betting.

OANDA has useful analysis tools with MT4

We rate OANDA highly as a great broker for beginners due to having useful analysis tools with MT4. These tools include customisable layouts, a range of plug-ins and a premium MT4 upgrade with 28 additional tools.

OANDA also has the following strengths:

• 70 currency pairs to trade
• Competitive spreads
• Top mobile app for spread betting
• Charts powered through TradingView (not MT4)

OANDA has slightly wider spreads but top MT4 tools

Spread betting with OANDA is commission-free with spreads starting from 0.6 pips, more competitive than the industry average of 1 pip. However, in reality, our testing found OANDA had wider spreads when comparing 15 brokers for similar Standard account types. OANDA averaged 1.54 pip spreads across the major forex pairs using MT4.

OANDA makes up for these wider spreads with an excellent MT4 platform experience. Our favourite MT4 feature unique to OANDA is the MT4 premium upgrade, which adds 28 additional tools for spread betting, including additional order types, trade management features and a robust alert manager. This all adds up to a great MT4 user experience, from our testing.

OANDA has a good range of 70 forex pairs, which is higher than most brokers offer to spread bet with. While OANDA is lacking in other financial instruments, we do like the silver and gold cross fiats you can trade as a point of difference. What this means is that you can spread bet on Gold against ten other currencies than USD such as AUD, EUR and GBP.

Our Final Verdict on OANDA

In summary, OANDA is a solid spread betting broker with top MT4 tools for beginners. We also like OANDA’s proprietary platform and supplementary platforms, adding diversity to the broker’s platform range.

OANDA ReviewVisit OANDA

Winning the International Investor Magazine’s Best UK Spread Betting broker in 2023, ActivTrades is an award-winning broker with over 20 years of experience. It is the broker’s free MT4 user guides, however, which we particularly recommend for beginners. This includes a quick guide as well as a full manual, both free to download, to help you master the popular trading platform.

ActivTrade’s Learn to Trade includes MT4 set-up guides

ActivTrades’ key strengths include:

• Spreads from 0.5 pips
• Useful MT4 User Guides
• Good proprietary platform
• Fast execution speeds

ActivTrades MT4 spread transparency and fast execution speeds

To open an MT4 spread betting account with ActivTrades, you simply need to register for an account, verify your account and make your first deposit. Once open, ActivTrades offers you the choice of over 300 markets to spread bet with, which is a decent range, though not extensive.

One positive we found with ActivTrades is their spread transparency. The broker publishes a ‘target spread’ (read, minimum spread) and then a current spread (updated live) for all instruments. From our observations, ActivTrades had a 0.5 pip differential between current and target spread for EUR/USD.
While spread transparency keeps this broker trustworthy, ActivTrades also boasts an average execution speed of 0.004 seconds. We discovered it can offer fast execution speeds due to scalable and reliable infrastructure built on IBM Cloud, delivering low latency connectivity.

ActivTrades has great MT4 user-guides for beginners

ActivTrades stands out with its MT4 offering by including free user-guides for beginners to get a feel of the popular trading platform. You can either choose the quick guide or full manual, depending on your confidence using MT4. We found ActivTrades to offer a robust MT4 trading experience with charting features such as 50 pre-installed technical indicators and 9 different time frames.
You can also use the broker’s excellent proprietary platform, ActivTrader, as well as MT5 for spread betting, if you prefer those trading platforms.

Our Verdict on ActivTrades

Overall, ActivTrades offers a great MT4 user experience, with helpful user guides for beginners just starting their spread betting journey. We also think ActivTrades is trustworthy with transparent pricing and fast execution speeds.

Visit ActivTrades

FXCM is one of the top MT4 brokers, which offers a great mobile app that is reliable with plenty of great features for you to be mobile. Our favourite features include the ability to trade in micro lots (0.01 lots), the ability to partially close out your position and set TP (Take Profit) and SL (Stop Loss) orders. We’ve listed the broker’s top features below:

FXCM MT4 app allows you to be mobile

• Great MT4 mobile experience
• Competitive market maker spreads
• Trading Station an excellent proprietary platform

FXCM’s Spread Betting account features enhanced execution

FXCM is unique as a market maker in that it offers a hybrid trading execution model, which means it uses some STP (straight through processing) along with a dealing desk. As such, we found FXCM offers tighter spreads than most market maker brokers, according to our testing. In fact, FXCM had our 3rd tightest spreads for forex brokers regulated in the UK at 1.47 pips with an average spread cost of $13.49.

We also awarded FXCM as the broker with the most stable spreads, according to our testing conducted on ‘Standard accounts’ that don’t charge commission fees. To measure spread stability, we looked at 15 top forex brokers and calculated the highest spread cost (spike) for each broker, averaged across the major currency pairs. FXCM came out on top with a highest spread cost of $38.10.

FXCM’s excellent MT4 Mobile app

You can spread bet on the go with FXCM’s MT4 mobile app, which we found is both reliable and easy to use. The broker’s MT4 app stands out with features including the ability to trade 0.01 micro lots and top risk management tools. This includes our favourite MT4 feature, Max Deviation, which helps you mitigate the risk associated with slippage. You can specify the amount of potential slippage you are willing to accept on a market order by defining a range. Should you wish to auto-trade, you can access MT4’s Trading Signals to copy from successful traders in real-time.

FXCM also proves a double threat, as the broker offers an excellent proprietary platform, Trading Station, in addition to MT4 to spread bet with. We’ve found that Trading Station is an excellent secondary choice to MT4, with top features including nearly 60 indicators and multiple drawing tools. Our favourite feature, however, is how easy it is to select instruments and sync them across devices on FXCM’s Trading Station app.

Our Final Verdict on FXCM

Overall, we like FXCM for its excellent MT4 mobile app, which is perfect for spread betting on the go. The MT4 app is not only easy to use, but also features advanced order types, great risk management features and auto-trading features via Trading Signals.

FXCM ReviewVisit FXCM

*Your capital is at risk ‘67% of retail CFD accounts lose money’

Vantage Markets is the best social trading broker for spread betting due to its excellent MT4 SmartTrader add-ons, in addition to offering multiple social trading platforms. In addition to MT4, the broker offers spread betting via its proprietary platform. Major highlights of Vantage Markets include:

Vantage Markets offers great social trading tools

• Top MT4 social trading tools
• TradingView charts integrated into MT4
• Good proprietary app
• Trading Central available

Vantage Markets offers top social trading tools

Vantage Markets offers great social trading tools, particularly the Signals market on MetaTrader 4. To add this this, Vantage offers three platforms to copy trade with, including the popular ZuluTrade, DupliTrade, and Myfxbook’s AutoTrade.

In addition to the copy trading tools, Vantage offers SmartTrader, which is an MT4 plugin that includes 6 different alert types, multiple timeframes and, our personal favourite, the ability to test trading systems using an Excel RTD link.

To spread bet, however, you can only use MT4.

Vantage Markets has wider spreads for spread betting

The spreads Vantage Markets offers appear wider than the industry average for Standard or no-commission accounts, starting at 1.4 pips for EUR/USD. While you can obtain cheaper spreads with Vantage Markets’ Raw ECN account, you will not be able to spread bet using that account.

The upside is there are no deposit fees and no minimum deposit to open a Vantage MT4 spread betting account. Once opened, you can choose from over 120 products for financial spread betting.

Our Final Verdict on Vantage Markets

If you prefer social or copy trading, Vantage Markets may be the broker for you with access to MetaTrader Signals as well as 3 top, third-party social trading platforms.

Open Demo AccountVisit Vantage Markets