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PepperstoneExness Review
Written by Steven Hatzakis
Edited by Jeff Anberg
Fact-checked by Joey Shadeck
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. Trading is risky. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Exness has steadily grown globally in recent years into a major forex broker offering a unique blend of services across multiple account types and platforms, despite its narrow product range of barely a few hundred tradeable CFD symbols.
The biggest drawback is that Exness doesn’t accept retail clients in its more regulated European-licensed entities, located in the U.K. and Cyprus, leaving non-institutional clients to sign up under its offshore entities in the Caribbean and Africa.
-
Minimum Deposit:
$10 -
Trust Score:
81 -
Tradeable Symbols (Total):
227
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Exness pros & cons
Pros
- I enjoyed using the Exness Terminal web platform due to its minimalist design, featuring quick management of pre-trade and post-trade order types when trading.
- Exness’s Pro account offers both instant and market execution.
- The Exness Terminal web platform has a few innovative features that I love to use like the ability to quickly drag-to-modify a stop-loss or limit level.
- Exness offers two levels of swap-free account statuses that are preferable to different trading activities, such as day trading versus holding positions overnight.
- Exness is a relatively large broker, with over 1,100 staff in its Cyprus office alone.
- Exness offers a wide variety of currency pairs.
- Exness is a member of the Financial Commission, an independent provider of External Dispute Resolution (EDR) services.
Cons
- Exness’s U.K. and Cyprus licensed entities - its only Tier-1 licenses - do not accept retail clients.
- Exness does not offer a wide range of markets to trade.
- Besides “Top Movers,” there are no predefined screeners alongside the watchlist by asset class category.
- Spreads on its Standard Cent account are higher compared to other account types at Exness, and the account only offers forex and metals.
- Exness’s ability to restore clients' account balances to zero in the event of a negative balance depends on its own financial position and ability to remain solvent.
- I found some of the educational content to be promotional despite its otherwise good quality and helpful content for beginners.
- The minimum for social trading at Exness is $500 to copy-trade a strategy provider and $2,000 to become a strategy provider, which can be a hurdle.
Overall Summary
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Overall Rating |
|
| Trust Score | 81 |
| Offering of Investments |
|
| Commissions & Fees |
|
| Platform & Tools |
|
| Research |
|
| Mobile Trading |
|
| Education |
|
ForexBrokers.com has been reviewing online forex brokers for over eight years, and our reviews are the most cited in the industry. Each year, we collect thousands of data points and publish tens of thousands of words of research. Here's how we test.
Is Exness safe?
Exness is considered Trusted, with an overall Trust Score of 81 out of 99. Exness is not publicly traded, does not operate a bank, and is authorised by two Tier-1 regulators (Highly Trusted), three Tier-2 regulator (Trusted), zero Tier-3 regulators (Average Risk), and three Tier-4 regulator (High Risk). Exness is authorised by the following Tier-1 regulators: Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and regulated in the European Union via the MiFID passporting system. Learn more about Trust Score.
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 2008 |
| Publicly Traded (Listed) | No |
| Bank | No |
| Tier-1 Licenses | 2 |
| Tier-2 Licenses | 3 |
| Tier-3 Licenses | 0 |
| Tier-4 Licenses | 3 |
Offering of investments
Although the range and availability of CFD products will depend on the Exness entity that holds your account and the specific account type you choose, there are generally 96 currency pairs for forex trading, 10 indices, 18 commodities, 10 cryptocurrencies, and over 90 stock CFDs.
While Exness offers a smaller range of tradable products than the industry average, it still has the most popular products to help meet the majority of its clients' needs. However, if you are looking to trade a product that Exness doesn't offer you will of course need to use a different broker.
Cryptocurrency: Cryptocurrency trading is available at Exness through ten different CFDs, but not the underlying asset (e.g., you can’t actually purchase and hold bitcoin). Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum CFDs against the U.S. dollar are obtainable, and the other seven CFDs trade bitcoin against various other currencies or commodities like the Japanese yen or gold.
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Forex Trading (Spot or CFDs) | Yes |
| Tradeable Symbols (Total) | 227 |
| Forex Pairs (Total) | 96 |
| U.S. Stock Trading (Non CFD) | No |
| Int'l Stock Trading (Non CFD) | No |
| Social Trading / Copy Trading | Yes |
| Cryptocurrency (Physical) | No |
| Cryptocurrency (Derivative) | Yes |
| Disclaimers | Note: Crypto CFDs are not available to retail traders from any broker's U.K. entity, nor to U.K. residents (except to Professional clients). |
Commissions and fees
Exness offers an extensive selection of account types with five primary offerings: two standard accounts and three professional accounts. Note that there are also two specific social copy trading account types, Social Standard and Social Pro, with their own trading conditions for those who wish to share their trading strategies for easy copying.
The trading costs will depend on the account type you select, as the two commission-based accounts have lower spreads compared to the commission-free accounts. All account types use market execution, except for the Pro account which offers both instant and market execution methods.
Standard Cent: This account has the highest spreads, comparably, and more restrictive risk management in terms of margin stop-out levels, and offers market execution.
Standard: Similar to the Standard Cent account, this one has slightly better spreads, less restrictive margin stop-out levels, and offers market execution.
Pro: The Pro account has even lower spreads than the other two commission-free accounts and you can switch between instant (dealer, or market maker) and market (agency) execution.
Zero Spread: Exness’ “zero spread” account charges a per-trade commission of $0.05 and provides market execution, with no restrictions on leverage or stop-out, although margin calls trigger at 30%.
Raw: The Raw account also charges a per-trade commission of up to $7 per round turn lot ($3.5 per side) and features lower spreads with market execution, no restriction on leverage or stop-out, and a 30% trigger on margin calls.
Exness accepts deposits in different cryptocurrencies, available from within the client portal under its wallet section.
Active Trader program: Exness offers a Premier Program with various perks available depending on your total lifetime deposits and quarterly trading volumes, akin to an active trader program.
While there are no discounts in spread or commissions, there are three tiers: you qualify for Preferred if your total accrued deposits are at least $20,000 with $50 million or more in trading volume per quarter, Elite if you have at least $50,000 in deposits and $100 million or more in volume, and Signature if you have at least $100,000 in deposits and $200 million or more in volume. All tiers provide priority customer support, exclusive educational content, and trading analytics, along with special promotions and rewards from Exness. The benefit to the higher tiers are lifestyle benefits, such as access to events and unique experiences.
While some lifestyle perks can be valuable depending on your style and tastes, I am more of a fan of discounts on trading costs for active traders and believe educational content should be free regardless of the need to recoup the costs of providing such content to traders.
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Minimum Deposit | $10 |
| Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard | N/A |
| All-in Cost EUR/USD - Active | N/A |
| Active Trader or VIP Discounts | No |
| ACH or SEPA Transfers | No |
| PayPal (Deposit/Withdraw) | No |
| Skrill (Deposit/Withdraw) | Yes |
| Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit) | Yes |
| Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw) | Yes |
Mobile trading apps
Alongside the full MetaTrader suite, including both MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5), Exness offers its flagship mobile app, the Exness Trade app for Android and iOS Devices.
Exness Trade app: The Exness Trade app is available on the App Store for Apple iOS devices, and on Google Play for Android. The mobile app closely resembles the web platform, and has a good balance of features for trading, charting, and market analysis.
MetaTrader: The MT4 and MT5 mobile apps come standard for Android on the Google Play Store and on the Apple App Store for iOS devices. To learn more, read my full guide about MetaTrader.
Social Trading App: The Exness Social Trading app is dedicated to supporting the three social trading accounts at Exness, available for Android devices on the Google Play Store. However, due to a country restriction I was unable to test the app (even with a VPN). See my overview of the web app version below.
Overall, Exness has made slow but steady progress in innovating its Exness Trade app and Social Trading app, bringing several useful features and touches to the trading experience. Still, the Exness Trade mobile app has a way to go to catch up to the best brokers for mobile trading.
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Android App | Yes |
| Apple iOS App | Yes |
| Mobile Alerts - Basic Fields | Yes |
| Watchlists - Total Fields | 7 |
| Watchlist Syncing | No |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total) | 106 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools (Total) | 87 |
| Mobile Charting - Draw Trendlines | Yes |
| Mobile Charting - Multiple Time Frames | Yes |
| Mobile Economic Calendar | Yes |
Other trading platforms
In addition to offering the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) platforms, Exness also provides its Terminal web platform which features robust charting and order types in an otherwise minimalist design.
MetaTrader: Both the MT4 and MT5 offerings at Exness are plain and vanilla - what you would expect out of the box. The main difference for the broker is the available range of markets and trading costs (spreads, plus any commission) depending on the account type you choose.
Exness Terminal: The flagship trading platform at Exness is its web app Terminal which has a few neat features in an otherwise plain design featuring TradingView charts. For example, while it's common for many of the best platforms to feature the ability to drag-to-modify your stop-loss and limit-order for an open position, on Terminal you can do it on a pre-trade basis in addition to modifying an open position on a post-trade basis. You also have Trading Central integrated into the watchlists, and within the charts themselves, with a directional arrow to indicate potential trading signals.
Exness Terminal Charts: Charts in Terminal are strikingly similar to TradingView and feature two subtle additions that I appreciated which could easily be overlooked: including the integrated analysis from Trading Central and economic calendar events.
The calendar events within the Exness Terminal charts can be clicked on once they appear as their respective source country flag, revealing the event details, whereas to see the analysis from Trading Central you have to click on an arrow within a green or red square and the article appears as a hovering window. Overall, these are both nice touches to otherwise powerful charts, loaded with over 100 indicators and almost as many drawing tools.
Exness Social Trading: The web app for social trading provides details such as maximum drawdown and monthly returns, and a simplified performance statistic metric called Trading Reliability Indicator which averages the safety score and Value at Risk (VaR) of each provider.
Performance metrics like these are common in the best social copy trading platforms and I was pleased to see them included in the Exness Social Trading platform, although additional parameters and settings could be helpful to filter across the 3,288 available providers. For example, it is easy to find the most copied providers and “best” strategies but not the least copied or worst performing ones, which can result in a database bias when sorting through providers.
The Exness Social Trading offering has potential but needs some important refinements, including potentially moderating the claims made by providers which more strict regulators could frown upon. For instance, I came across one strategy called “Risk Free Forex” and another called “Forex safe 2,” which are misleading strategy names - forex trading always involves a high level of risk. The Forex safe 2 strategy provider describes its strategy as “forex safe profits second strategy very safe welcome everyone,” yet had a maximum drawdown of -42.81% at one point despite showing an overall return of 35% as of July 8th, 2024, with a medium trading reliability of 61 out of 100, per Exness.
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Virtual Trading (Demo) | Yes |
| Proprietary Platform | Yes |
| Desktop Platform (Windows) | Yes |
| Web Platform | Yes |
| Social Trading / Copy Trading | Yes |
| MetaTrader 4 (MT4) | Yes |
| MetaTrader 5 (MT5) | Yes |
| DupliTrade | No |
| ZuluTrade | No |
| Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total) | 106 |
| Charting - Drawing Tools (Total) | 87 |
| Charting - Trade From Chart | Yes |
| Watchlists - Total Fields | 7 |
Market research
Exness has been a long-time provider of Trading Central to complement its in-house research offering, including videos with technical and fundamental market analysis. Headlines from FXStreet also stream within the Exness MetaTrader platform suite.
Video content: Beyond third-party video content and articles, there is the weekly market outlook with commentary from in-house analysts. These videos are also available on the official Exness YouTube channel.
Overall, I found the research content to possess good production quality. However, adding more videos and research articles will help boost Exness’s rating in this category as it otherwise lags behind the best brokers for research. For example, the Exness Blog isn’t updated as frequently as brokers that produce dozens of daily content pieces. Expanding the quantity of content, if it remains just as high-quality, would be a welcome addition.
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Daily Market Commentary | Yes |
| Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) | Yes |
| Autochartist | No |
| Trading Central (Recognia) | Yes |
| Social Sentiment - Currency Pairs | Yes |
Education
While Exness doesn’t stand out in this category it has a good foundation and potential to improve, with a combination of quality articles and videos, despite its limited range of each when it comes to client education.
Team Pro: There is a group of nearly a dozen traders under the “Team Pro” at Exness who share their methodologies in an influencer-educator style with Exness customers. While I enjoyed much of the content and it is certainly well-crafted, it did appear partly promotional and not purely educational. The promotional aspect - which may just be incidental - is that you can follow and copy some of these Team Pro trader’s live positions via Exness’s social copy trading platform.
Beyond the sales pitch, I enjoyed much of the content from the Team Pro, despite a few unbalanced claims. However, it’s worth noting that some of them claim to be full-time traders willing to share their experience with Exness clients, so while it could be a mutually beneficial relationship for the broker, its educators, and its traders, clients must be aware of the potential conflicts of interest at play.
Potentially misleading claims: An example of some of the claims that could be considered unbalanced or misleading made by its Team Pro were statements describing Exness as the only broker to allow you to specify your risk or profit in pips or as a percentage from the trade ticket in their platform. The truth is that many brokers have already offered such basic features in their platforms for years. I also heard the claim that the negative balance protection Exness offers doesn’t allow your account to go negative, even though this could indeed happen if a volatile enough market anomaly or gap occurs. Even if Exness is willing to bring a client’s account back to zero, this assertion assumes Exness would be sufficiently capitalized to do so which might not always be the case. Despite these concerns to keep in mind, Exness could still be great for beginners as well as more experienced traders.
Overall: Some of Exness’s content is positioned as relevant to current events, such as “Japan’s economic evolution and how to trade JPY in 2024,” but this type of content can also be evergreen in the sense that it could still be relevant years later. Overall, the educational content is mixed in with other blog content including research. While it does have filters to switch between them, it would be great to see a dedicated educational portal or academy section where Exness could build out its related content as it remains thin compared to the best brokers in this category.
| Feature |
Exness
|
|---|---|
| Education (Forex or CFDs) | Yes |
| Client Webinars | Yes |
| Client Webinars (Archived) | Yes |
| Videos - Beginner Trading Videos | Yes |
| Videos - Advanced Trading Videos | No |
| Investor Dictionary (Glossary) | Yes |
Final thoughts
Exness is a viable option if you reside outside of the U.S., the U.K., and the EU. Despite its small product range, you can choose from multiple account types, the full MetaTrader suite, or use its simple web Terminal platform which comes with some innovative features for active and beginner traders.
Exness has refined its business by leveraging its network of affiliates and clients to incentivize its more experienced traders to help teach its community of less experienced beginners and intermediate investors while marketing to new customers. I genuinely enjoyed much of the content from the Team Pro and believe there is value in what Exness is doing with them on the Educational and marketing side, but there remain challenges to overcome, including some practices that might not be permissible in more trusted jurisdictions.
While Exness is a Trusted Broker, its retail clients are onboarded to less strict jurisdictions where certain business practices could be easier to carry out in a more lax regulatory environment. Still, I am glad to see Exness continue to acquire new licenses across the globe, adding to its Trust Score.
Exness is one of the largest forex brokers globally by trading volumes, handling several trillion dollars worth of volume. If it continues to grow, I would like to see it begin to accept retail clients in its Tier-1 regulatory jurisdictions which would help it be more competitive with Highly Trusted brokers.
FAQs
Does Exness offer a demo account?
Yes, Exness provides free demo accounts for all their account types except Standard Cent. By default, the demo account provides access to MT5 with $10,000 in virtual currency, but you can use it to explore all available platforms. Read my full guide on the best brokers offering demo accounts, also known as paper trading, to learn more.
Can I use Exness in the USA?
No, Exness is not available to residents of the United States. A broker must be registered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in order to accept U.S. forex clients. Check out my guide to the best U.S. brokers for a run down on the forex brokers I recommend to traders located in the United States.
About Exness
Founded in 2008, Exness serves over 800,000 clients across its regulated entities, including in the U.K., Cyprus, South Africa, Kenya, Jordan, Seychelles, Mauritius, the British Virgin Islands, and other offshore entities. Exness has continued to refine its offering and has grown considerably over the last five years, expanding its account offering and releasing its proprietary web platform and social trading offering, which have helped scale its business into one of the largest forex brokers in terms of staff and trading volumes.
2024 Review Methodology
At ForexBrokers.com, our reviews of online forex brokers and their products and services are based on our collected data as well as the observations and qualified opinions of our expert researchers. Each year we publish tens of thousands of words of research on the top forex brokers and monitor dozens of international regulator agencies (read more about how we calculate Trust Score here).
Our research team conducts thorough testing on a wide range of features, products, services, and tools (collecting and validating thousands of data points in the process). We test all available trading platforms for each broker – whether they are proprietary or come from third-party providers – and evaluate them based on a host of data-driven variables.
We also take an in-depth look at each broker’s commissions and fees, such as bid/ask spreads – including the average spread data for some of the most popular forex currency pairs. We research other trading costs, such as inactivity or custody fees, minimum deposit requirements, VIP rebates and/or discounts, and a range of other important fee-based data points.
Some of the other important research categories that are factored into our testing include mobile trading accessibility and capability, availability of market research and educational content, and each broker’s overall Trust Score.
All content on ForexBrokers.com is handwritten by a writer, fact-checked by a member of our research team, and edited and published by an editor. Our ratings, rankings, and opinions are entirely our own, and the result of our extensive research and decades of collective experience covering the forex industry.
Read our full explanation and accounting of our research and testing process to learn more about how we test.
Forex Risk Disclaimer
There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses. Read more on forex trading risks.
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About the Editorial Team
Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Online Broker Research for ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. A forex industry expert and an active fintech and crypto researcher, Steven advises blockchain companies at the board level and holds a Series III license in the U.S. as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA).
Jeff Anberg is a Staff Editor at ForexBrokers.com. Along with years of experience in media distribution at a global newsroom, Jeff has a versatile knowledge base encompassing the technology and financial markets. He is a long-time active investor and engages in research on emerging markets like cryptocurrency. Jeff holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature with a minor in Philosophy from San Francisco State University.
Joey Shadeck is a Content Strategist and Research Analyst for ForexBrokers.com. He holds dual degrees in Finance and Marketing from Oakland University, and has been an active trader and investor for close to ten years. An industry veteran, Joey obtains and verifies data, conducts research, and analyzes and validates our content.