Start with Pepperstone. It is the highest-scoring account of the 14 we rank that publishes both halves of what you need to know before signing up: how long the demo lasts, and whether opening one costs anything.
Updated on 24 Sep 2026: we recomputed every score on the site as the sum of the six criterion marks, each out of 10, divided by 60 and multiplied by 100, rounded half up, with no criterion weighted, and the ranking follows the scores, with brokers on the same score sharing a place. The scores and the order of the demo accounts follow. A sentence was added that links our guide to what spread betting is and how it works.
Every Spread Betting Demo Account Compared
Every provider we rank is in this table, in our own score order, with the demo terms it publishes on its own UK site.
A demo account lets you place practice bets without real money, and our guide sets out what a spread bet is before you try one.
Our spread bet content is supported and we may receive payment when you visit a partner site. This page is information rather than financial advice.
Every provider we rank, in our score order, with how long its demo lasts, the virtual balance, the deposit to open it and our score.
Publishes no demo terms on its UK site that we could read on 26 Aug 2026.
Demo terms read from each provider’s own UK site on 26 Aug 2026. A blank cell means the provider publishes nothing we can quote, not that the feature is absent. Our scores come from the criteria set out in how we score spread betting accounts and are never influenced by what a broker pays us. The same accounts are ranked on cost, platforms and markets in the platforms comparison.
How The Pick Was Made
One rule, applied to that table. Of the accounts that publish both a demo term and whether opening one needs money, take the highest-scoring. Three of the 14 clear it and Pepperstone is first among them, which you can redo from the table above.
72.9% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider. Your capital is at risk. This page is not financial or tax advice.
There are two different kinds of limit and they are not interchangeable.
A fixed term starts when you register and ends on a date, whether you use the account or not. ThinkMarkets states the shortest of these and Spread Co the longest.
An inactivity window is different: the account stays open as long as you keep using it, and expires only after a set period with no logins or trades.
Fixed term from registration: ThinkMarkets (14 days from registration. A demo that does not expire is available only to live account holders); StoneX Trading (12 weeks); Spread Co (6 months)
Inactivity window: Pepperstone (No fixed term; Pepperstone, MT4 and MT5 demo accounts expire after 60 days of inactivity, Trader and TradingView demo accounts after 90)
The virtual balance is worth a second look. Seven providers publish one, and they do not agree. The sterling balances run from £10,000 to £50,000, and the commonest is a starting balance of £10,000. Our spread betting calculator shows what a given stake is worth per point, which is the sum worth doing at the size you will really trade.
The Providers That Will Not Tell You
Spreadex and FxPro publish nothing about their demo terms on their own UK sites that we could read on 26 Aug 2026. That does not mean they have no demo. It means you find out how long it lasts, and what you get, after you have handed over your details.
Every provider in the table above has a full assessment in our spread betting broker reviews directory, which records what each one publishes and where we read it, and the same accounts are ranked on cost and markets in our spread betting platforms UK comparison.
Moving From A Demo To A Live Account
Use the demo of the account you intend to fund on indices, commodities or currency pairs. Move to a live trading account at the smallest stake, where margin is real from the first bet.
Keep the demo open afterwards where the provider allows it. Testing a change to how you trade costs nothing there and costs real money live, and that is worth more once you have a live account than it was before.
A demo teaches you the platform, and the platform is the easy half. It cannot tell you what your stake is worth per point on the market you are about to trade, and that arithmetic is what the size of a first live bet turns on.
Execution in a fast market. There is no real order going to a real venue, so slippage and the way a fill behaves when a price moves quickly are simulated rather than experienced. We timed live orders at every ranked provider; the results are on our slippage page. No demo was timed, so we cannot put a figure on the difference.
Your own behaviour. Between 61% and 76.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with the providers we compare, and that band is the whole range across the fourteen rather than a selection from it.
Spread betting uses leverage, so your losses can exceed the amount you set out to risk on a bet. This page is not financial or tax advice; our page on spread betting and tax covers where the UK exemption stops.
Spread Betting Demo Accounts: FAQs
How Long Can I Use A Spread Betting Demo Account For?
It depends entirely on the provider. ThinkMarkets states 14 days from registration. A demo that does not expire is available only to live account holders. Nine of the providers publish no term anywhere on their own site, so with those you find out when access stops.
Do Demo Accounts Have Spreads?
Yes. What a demo does not reproduce reliably is slippage and how an order fills when a market moves fast, because there is no real order going to a real venue.
Is A Demo Account Real Money?
No. The balance is virtual and cannot be withdrawn. Providers set that starting balance themselves and the figures differ a lot between them, which matters more than it sounds: practising with a virtual balance many times larger than the account you will actually fund teaches you position sizes you cannot afford.
How Do I Open A Spread Betting Demo Account?
You open a demo account with the provider from its site, with email and contact details. Seven of 14 providers state no deposit is needed, and none we rank says its demo costs anything; one that states nothing has not said it is free. At least one provider restricts its non-expiring demo to people who already hold a live account.
What Is The Downside Of Demo Trading Accounts?
A demo removes the one variable that decides most outcomes, which is how you behave when the money is yours. Use one to learn the platform and the mechanics, then go live at the smallest stake the account will take rather than the size you practised with.
What Makes A Good Demo Trading Account?
Three things you can check before you sign up. It runs long enough to be useful, it tells you the terms up front rather than after registration, and it uses the same platform as the live account so nothing you learn is wasted. The table on this page covers the first two for every provider we rank, including the ones that publish nothing.
Justin Grossbard co-founded Spread-Bet.co.uk with Noam Korbl in 2024, and co-founded the broker comparison network CompareForexBrokers with him in 2014. He has written for Kiplinger, Entrepreneur, Finance Magnates and MoneyShow since 2022, with articles on forex and trading at MoneyShow, Finance Magnates and Kiplinger.
Change history: 5 earlier dated notes
Updated on 23 Sep 2026: A large amount of commentary was removed, including passages that repeated what other pages own, advice on how to use a demo, and several unsourced or duplicated statements. Specific demo terms were added: ThinkMarkets states 14 days from registration, at least one provider restricts its non-expiring demo to existing live account holders, and the virtual balance cannot be withdrawn. The guide to getting started and beginner comparison links remain.
Updated on 22 Sep 2026: Pepperstone’s demo terms were re-read on its own demo page on 22 Sep 2026. There is no fixed term: Pepperstone, MT4 and MT5 demo accounts expire after 60 days of inactivity, and Trader and TradingView demo accounts after 90. The page now gives those terms in full.
Updated on 6 Sep 2026: the comparison table was restyled with the site’s shared colour tokens and type scale, empty cells are shaded to show unpublished data, and a link to the platforms comparison was added under the table. No term, balance, deposit or score figure changed; the pick is unchanged.
Updated on 5 Sep 2026: the page now defines a demo account, lists providers’ stated fixed term, inactivity window or no expiry and which state nothing, gives the sterling balance range, links our live-order timing results, and answers demo costs. No term, balance or deposit figure changed; the pick is unchanged.
Updated on 28 Aug 2026. The comparison now reads as a card per provider on a phone, where the “Deposit to open” and “Our score” columns had been past the right edge of the screen, and a provider that publishes nothing says so in the card rather than showing three blank lines. Pepperstone’s and ThinkMarkets’ stored demo terms were re-punctuated into two sentences each; neither term changed. Rebuilt on 26 Aug 2026, and the ranking has gone. This page used to order nine demo accounts first to ninth with a superlative on each, and that order came from nobody’s data: it put ThinkMarkets first, whose own FAQ says its demo expires 14 days after you register. In its place is what each provider publishes about its own demo, sourced and dated, with one pick derived from a stated rule. Pepperstone’s “30-day demo”, which this site had carried unconfirmed since 2026, has been retired: Pepperstone publishes no fixed term at all.
