UK Spread Betting Demo Accounts

IG Markets’ score of 86/100 in our tests was enough to secure fifth place on our list. The range of markets is exceptional – we found more than 17,000 spread betting instruments, each with competitive trading costs.

However, it was the broker’s trading platform options that really stood out to us. With MetaTrader 4 and ProRealTime, you’ve got top auto trading features. The demo account gives you £10,000 in virtual funds to use.

70% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

Our testing of IG Markets’ demo accounts uncovered two excellent automated spread betting platform options – MetaTrader 4 and ProRealTime.

SpreadBet co-founder gave us his view on the IG Markets platform options:

“For me, MT4 is the best option here,” he said.

“You can choose from a huge range of Expert Advisors – automated trading bots. I personally like to use the platform’s own MQL4 code language to create my own, customising all aspects of the automation.”

If this sounds like it might be a little difficult, ProRealTime makes automation a little easier – although we don’t find it as comprehensive as MT4. You can still create and backtest your own automated bots, though, just without using code.

ProRealTime gives you a handy interface where you can add your own trading rules and parameters. The platform then takes these rules and crafts an automated bot ready for you to deploy. This is a good way to start auto and algo trading, without messing around with complex code.

You’ll be able to use these automated tools on the broker’s demo account. The demo gives you £10,000 in virtual funds, and there’s no expiration date – we always like a relaxed, pressure-free demo environment.

To finish up our IG Markets examination – the spreads. These generally came out very well in our testing, and the popular EUR/USD pair offered an average of just 0.85 pips.

Learn more about IG’s average spreads in our table below.

Pepperstone is an award-winning spread betting broker, and achieved a 98/100 in our tests. This was largely thanks to low spreads (only 0.80 pips on the EUR/USD) and its selection of trading platforms, which provide excellent automated trading tools to practice with.

The broker’s demo account gives you £50,000 in virtual funds, and you can use MT4, MT5, cTrader, or TradingView to practice with Pepperstone’s excellent trading services.

75.9% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

The first thing that impressed us as we tested Pepperstone’s free demo account was the choice of third-party spread betting platforms. You can trade with £50,000 virtual funds in real-time, over TradingView, cTrader, MetaTrader 4, or MetaTrader 5.

These trading platforms provide some of the best automated trading features available to you in the market. We particularly like the Expert Advisor algo trading features on MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5, which help you achieve streamlined and effective spread bets through automation.

Once we’d set up our demo account, we were pleased to see that it was unlimited. This means you can use all of their exclusive services, all of their available markets, and all of their premium features, in a risk-free environment.

This means you can access things like the Autochartist market scanner on the demo account, and seek potential trading ideas based on price action.

This is a big plus point for a broker, as not all the brokers we tested offered unlimited accounts. Putting limitations on demo accounts means you don’t get to trade in the way you would on the real trading platform, so it’s great that Pepperstone puts all their features at your fingertips.

As we said at the beginning of this guide, spreads were an important metric as we choose the best demo accounts. During testing, we found that Pepperstone’s spreads were highly competitive and consistently lower than the industry average.

Spread Bet Spreads	EUR/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDAUD/USDUSD/CADEUR/JPYAUD/JPYUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDAUD/USDUSD/CADEUR/JPYAUD/JPYUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDAUD/USDUSD/CADEUR/JPYAUD/JPYUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDAUD/USDUSD/CADEUR/JPYAUD/JPYUSD/JPYUSD/SGD	EUR/USDEUR/GBPGBP/USDAUD/USDUSD/CADEUR/JPYAUD/JPYUSD/JPYUSD/SGD
	0.80	1.10	1.40	1.00	1.40
	0.90	1.20	1.40	1.10	1.80
	1.00	1.10	1.50	1.20	1.50
	0.85	1.40	1.40	0.82	1.77
	1.10	1.30	1.60	1.20	1.60
	1.20	1.30	1.30	1.20	1.70
	1.00	1.50	1.50	1.00	1.80
	1.00	1.30	1.60	1.30	1.50
	1.30	1.50	1.50	1.50	1.50
	0.90	1.40	1.40	1.30	2.20
	0.90	1.20	1.60	1.50	1.80
	1.10	1.50	1.40	1.40	1.70
	1.20	1.50	1.50	1.40	1.80
	1.90	1.20	2.00	1.00	1.70
	1.40	1.70	1.60	1.40	1.80
	1.40	1.40	1.70	1.90	1.70

Avg. spreads are taken from each broker's website and updated monthly. Last update on 01/01/2025

Here’s what SpreadBet’s senior analyst Ross Collins thought about the spreads:

“I was particularly impressed with the EUR/USD, where Pepperstone tested at just 0.80 pips on average – around 30% cheaper than the industry standard,” Ross said.

“This is going to translate to a significant saving over time. It was the same story across other major pairs I tested, like the GBP/USD and USD /JPY, with respective average spreads of 1.4 and 1.2.”

In fact, Pepperstone performed really well on all nine of the currency pairs Ross tested. The broker really is our top choice for tight spreads, whether you’re trading with virtual funds or your own money.

Another thing that all great trading platforms need, in our opinion, is ultra-fast execution speeds. This was another area of our testing where Pepperstone scored highly.

You can learn more about these execution speeds in the table below.

The 100ms market execution speed is among the fastest we’ve seen, as is the 77ms limit order speed. These execution rates should adequately protect you from slippage.

View Pepperstone ReviewVisit Pepperstone

75.9% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

CMC offers its own NGEN platform, which is among the best web platforms we tested. You’ll get advanced charting for market analysis, an intuitive interface, and automated price action and chart pattern signals.

For the demo account, you’ll be able to trade with £10,000 in virtual funds, for up to 30 days. This, plus CMC’s strong range of markets, landed the broker an overall score of 62/100.

69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

We typically like to trade with platforms like MT4 and TradingView. While CMC Markets’ doesn’t support spread betting on these platforms, its proprietary NGEN platform is an excellent alternative. The minimalist design makes it easy to use, so you’ll quickly find the platform’s powerful charting tools and features.

As we explored the platform’s demo account, we found a strong range of more than 60 indicators and drawing tools, far in excess of those offered by rivals like FxPro.

You won’t be able to install any custom indicators on NGEN, but we think you should still find that the platform’s available indicators are enough as you build your strategy. Popular choices like Ichimoku Clouds and Fibonacci retracements are included.

NGEN provides automated price action and chart pattern recognition tools, both of which caught our attention. You can simply overlay these indicators onto the charts, so they automatically plot patterns in real-time. Suggested entry, stop-loss, and take-profit levels are easy to identify.

More analysis is provided from CMC’s in-house team, accessible on the platform at no extra cost.

This offers a significant advantage in our view. You’ll get a stream of trading ideas based on real evidence, helping you select the right trading opportunity.

While you can automate your chart pattern recognition on the demo account, you won’t be able to automate the spread bets themselves. This is a slight drawback, and it did lose the platform some points in our testing.

Last, but certainly not least, there is the CMC range of markets to think about. You’ll have access to over 12,000 markets on the demo account. While this is fewer markets than competitors like IG, CMC does offer nearly three times as many forex pairs – 330 in total.

We found City Index offered more than 8,500 financial markets for spread betting, including more than 84 currency markets. While IG and CMC both outperform City Index here, the fast execution speeds (sub-100ms) and competitive spreads (1.1 pips on the EUR/USD pair) make City Index a great choice for multi-asset trading. You’ll get a 12 week demo account, and £10,000 of virtual funds.

71% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

City Index is another broker that attaches no restrictions to its demo account, other than the 12 week time limit. This helped the broker achieve third place on our list.

You’ll get £10,000 in virtual funds to trade with, but you can top this up at any point over the 12 weeks. While we always prefer demo accounts with no expiry date, this should still give you plenty of scope to test out the features and develop your strategy.

We found the broker’s 8,500+ spread betting markets very impressive indeed. It’s great for you to learn how to diversify your spread bets, and the 84 currency pairs should help you do that. To put this into context, most brokers we’ve seen only offer between 55 and 72 pairs.

On top of this, you’ve got more than 4,700 stocks, 20+ indices, 14 commodities, and ETFs, all available on a single demo account.

It’s also important for us to mention futures markets here. You’ll be able to spread bet these markets on City Index, which is an excellent way to hold positions for a longer period. With futures, you can bet on your chosen market, and keep the bet open for up to 3 months without incurring the normal overnight fees.

If you’re a medium- to long-term trader, this can really reduce your trading costs. And you’ll be able to benefit from spread betting’s tax-exempt status. Just bear in mind that spreads are going to be wider than they would be for a standard instrument.

On the subject of spreads, let’s take a quick look at City Index’s cost-efficiency on other instruments. The 1.1 pip spread for the EUR/USD forex pair is certainly good, City Index kept this strong performance up across other pairs too.

You can learn more about our findings in the table below:

Share spreads are excellent too. For UK and US shares, City Index offers some of the lowest spreads in the industry – a 4 point and a 0.10% spread respectively.

We gave OANDA a score of 91/100, after the broker impressed us in our trading cost and risk management tests. OANDA really eases the transition from demo account to full trading, with low stake sizes starting at only £0.01p per point. There are also guaranteed stop-loss orders, offering extra protection. We found the free demo account gives you £100,000 in virtual funds.

OANDA offers one of the best trading environments for you as a new trader. We were impressed by the £100,000 in virtual funds provided on the demo account, and you can use this for as long as you like – it will only be closed if you don’t make a trade for 90 days.

As well as the highest level of virtual funds out of any of the brokers we tested, OANDA gives you a strong range of trading platforms to choose from. MetaTrader 4 and TradingView are two of our favourite spread betting platforms due to their technical analysis features, and you’ve got both here.

But for beginners, we feel OANDA’s own Trade platform is probably the best option. The guaranteed stop loss orders are an excellent feature in our view, as you’ll be protected from unexpected market movements when you graduate up from the demo account.

Let’s talk a bit more about that transition. While the account is unlimited, there’ll come a time when you want to start trading for real, and OANDA’s ultra low stake minimums of only £0.01p per point are going to help you do just that.

You’ll be able to spread bet on forex pairs and other markets without exposing yourself with too much risk at the outset. No-one else we tested offered such low spreads – most require a minimum of between £0.50 and £1 per point.

Of course, OANDA Trade needs to offer more than just beginner friendly features. We were happy to see the inclusion of a number of different charting tools, including the 100+ indicators offered by TradingView.

The spreads also tested strongly. We found that OANDA beat the industry average over all of the nine currency pairs we tested. This is certainly a cost-effective option for new spread bettors.

Lower spreads equal lower trading costs. This means traders should be able to manage their trading strategy even with a relatively small balance – ideal if you’re a beginner.

It’s FxPro’s trading tools that impressed us enough to include it on the list. The broker supports Trading Central, with great technical analysis, research, and trading signals. The £100,000 of virtual funds on the demo account was the joint highest of the brokers we tested. It lasts for six months, and gives you access to all of the 100+ markets FxPro offers.

73% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

Free access to Trading Central was a major advantage from our tests. We quickly made this an integral part of our daily trading routine as we used the broker.

Trading Central really helps you develop a trading routine. You’ll get analysis emails each morning, with a comprehensive overview of the markets and trading conditions. This gave us the insight we needed to plan our trading day.

The technical analysis from Trading Central is also helpful, covering spread betting markets like indices, commodities and forex. As these are continuous tools, we were able to use pivot points, support and resistance levels, and Japanese candlestick pattern detection to find potential opportunities without constantly monitoring our charts and watchlists.

All this is good for you as you move towards your trading goals. However, you might have noticed that FxPro ended up with a relatively low score of just 28/100. So why was this?

The high spreads were a big disadvantage for us. It’s great to be able to analyse things, but it’s frustrating to encounter such high trading costs when it comes to putting your insight into action. The EUR/USD pair averaged 1.40 pips on FxPro – close to 30% above the industry average, and nearly double the 0.80 pip average of Pepperstone.

We also found the range of spread betting instruments pretty limited. While FxPro advertises access to 2,100 markets, you’ll only be able to spread bet on 100 of these.

FxPro’s analytical tools did impress us, and you’ll be able to use these on the broker’s demo accounts. However, the overall package fell a little short for us, and we found that broker’s like Pepperstone offer better spreads and a broader range of instruments.

It was Spread Co’s fixed spreads that impressed us most. Indices like S&P 500 came in at only 0.40 points, beating most other brokers out there. You can practice betting on these spreads with the demo account, although only for 14 days. The account gives you £25,000 in virtual funds.

68.4% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

Spread Co actually surprised us with its fixed spreads on indices. We found the NASDAQ index averaged 0.50 points, while the FTSE 100 came out at 0.60 – both below the industry standard of around 1 point.

Fixed spreads might be appealing to you if you day trade, as you won’t need to worry about volatility impacting your costs. You’ll get the chance to practice trading on the demo account, to make sure this is right for you.

You’ll get £25,000 to work with in this demo account, which we feel should give you plenty of funds for experimentation. We must admit, though, that 14-day period is pretty short. In fact, it’s the shortest of any of the brokers we tested, and may leave you feeling a little rushed.

If you do decide to open a live account after using the demo, however, Spread Co does at least try to make this easy. You’ll get the chance to spread bet with stakes as low as £0.10p, limiting your risk as you ease the transition to real trading.

This is quite a lot higher than OANDA, with its £0.01p minimum stakes, but we still feel this is generally a strong option for beginner spread bettors.

We found that Capital.com is a good choice for spread betting, and the broker achieved 72/100 in our tests. You’ll be able to test MetaTrader 4’s powerful features stress-free, with the no-expiration demo account, although you’ll only get £1,000 to play with here.

71% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with this provider.

Capital.com rounds off our list of the top 8 FCA-regulated broker demo accounts, thanks to its beginner-friendly features and its support for MetaTrader 4.

MetaTrader 4 is one of our favourite spread betting platforms, with a wide range of technical indicators, one-click trading tools, and custom features. Millions of traders across the globe agree with us on this.

You can actually add to MT4’s capabilities with Capital.com. The broker’s Smart Trader Tools give you 30+ indicators, like High-Low and Pivot points. We find these particularly helpful for betting breakouts.

MT4’s Expert Advisor automated tools are another factor that sets the platform apart, and Capital.com adds to these too. We were able to access an additional 24 Expert Advisors, further expanding the auto trading scope on the platform.

One additional EA we found particularly notable was the Mini Terminal. You already get one-click trading with MT4, but Mini Terminal helps you add stop-loss and take profit orders instantly, certainly saving you some time, and possibly saving you some money too.

If you’re a scalper or day trader, this is going to be particularly valuable.

Of course, the reason Capital.com makes this specific list is that you can access all of this using the broker’s demo account. There’s no expiration date on the demo, which is something we like – we believe you’ll learn better in a stress-free environment.

There’s only £1,000 of virtual funds available, which is the lowest from any of the brokers we tested. However, we think this might not actually be such a bad thing – it probably reflects the experience of beginner traders better than a huge number like £100k.

Lastly in our run-down of Capital.com’s features – its spreads. These tend to be competitive spreads, and the broker beats the industry average on most of the pairs we tested.

However, only 5 out of 9 popular currency pairs we tested had better than average spreads, which is why we couldn’t score the broker above 6/10 for trading costs.