Vantage Review 2023 : Get an Unbiased Look at the Online Brokerage Service

Vantage Review 2023

Vantage FX is a forex and CFD broker regulated by the Cayman Islands, Australian financial authorities and the Vanuatu Financial Services Commission. Vantage’s non-trading fees are very favorable (e.g. there is no inactivity fee). Opening an account at Vantage is a very rewarding experience as the process is super fast (less than 5 minutes) and fully digital. The broker offers a great variety of deposit and withdrawal options and most are free of charge. On the negative side, the product portfolio at Vantage is rather limited as the broker only offers forex and some CFDs to trade. Customer service could be better, especially the relevance of email responses. Lastly, Vantage provides investor protection only in the UK.

Vantage is a regulated broker, it is overseen by top-tier financial regulators in multiple countries . We always test brokers with real money, including the withdrawal process.

Reliable broker in the forex Market

Over All Rating 4.2

Minimum Deposit $50

Fast & Easy Account Opening

Zero Deposit Fees

Spreads from 0.0

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Contents

Vantage highlights

🗺️ Country of regulation	Vanuatu, but Vantage Group has regulation in Australia, UK, Cayman Islands
💰 Trading fees class	Average
💰 Inactivity fee charged	No
💰 Withdrawal fee amount	$0
💰 Minimum deposit	$50
🕖 Time to open an account	1 day
💳 Deposit with bank card	Available
👛 Depositing with electronic wallet	Available
💱 Number of base currencies supported	8
🎮 Demo account provided	Yes
🛍️ Products offered	Forex, CFD, Crypto

Vantange Review 2023

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Fees

Vantage has average forex trading fees and low non-trading fees, and does not charge an inactivity fee. On the negative side, financing rates and share CFD fees are relatively high.

Pros	Cons
• Low non-trading fees	• High stock CFD fees
• No withdrawal fee
• No inactivity fee

Assets	Fee level	Fee terms
EURUSD	Average	MetaTrader Raw ECN account: $3.00 commission per lot per trade plus spread cost. 0.1 pips is the average spread cost during peak trading hours.
GBPUSD	Low	MetaTrader Raw ECN account: $3.00 commission per lot per trade plus spread cost. 0.3 pips is the average spread cost during peak trading hours.
S&P 500 CFD	Average	The fees are built into the spread, 0.3 points is the average spread cost during peak trading hours.
Inactivity fee	Low	No inactivity fee

How we ranked fees

We ranked Vantage’s fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.

To get things rolling, let’s go over some some basic terms related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees and non-trading fees.

Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

In the sections below, you will find the most relevant fees of Vantage for each asset class. For example, in the case of forex and stock index trading the most important fees are spreads, commissions and financing rates.

We also compared Vantage’s fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, Fusion Markets and IC Markets. This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of Vantage alternatives.

To have a clear overview of Vantage, let’s start with its trading fees.

Vantage trading fees

Vantage trading fees are average. There are different cost structures for different account types. We tested the ‘Pro ECN with MetaTrader’ account, which charges a commission but offers tight spreads.

We know it’s hard to compare trading fees for forex brokers. So how did we approach the problem of making their fees clear and comparable? We compare brokers by calculating all the fees of a typical trade for selected products.

We selected popular instruments in each asset class usually provided by forex brokers:

Forex: EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, EURCHF and EURGBP
Stock index CFDs: SPX and EUSTX50
Stock CFDs: Apple and Vodafone

A typical trade means buying a leveraged product, holding it for one week and then selling. For the volume, we chose a $20,000 position for forex and a $2,000 position for stock index and stock CFD transactions. The leverage we used was:

30:1 for forex
20:1 for stock index CFDs
5:1 for stock CFDs

These catch-all benchmark fees include spreads, commissions and financing costs for all brokers. Let’s see the verdict for Vantage fees.

Forex fees

Vantage forex fees are low, mostly similar to the fees charged by its main competitors.

	Vantage	Fusion Markets	IC Markets
EURUSD benchmark fee	$17.9	$12.3	$12.1
GBPUSD benchmark fee	$9.6	$6.7	$6.1
AUDUSD benchmark fee	$9.8	$5.2	$7.0
EURCHF benchmark fee	$3.0	$2.3	$1.2
EURGBP benchmark fee	$13.4	$11.4	$8.2

CFD fees

Vantage has mixed CFD trading fees. Stock index CFD fees are generally low, but stock CFD fees are quite high.

	Vantage	Fusion Markets	IC Markets
S&P 500 index CFD fee	$3.5	$2.6	$2.4
Europe 50 index CFD fee	$1.8	$1.3	$2.4
Apple CFD fee	$14.6	$3.3	$1.8
Vodafone CFD fee	$25.0	–	$6.0

Non-trading fees

Vantage has low non-trading fees. It charges no account, inactivity, or deposit fees.

There is no fee for credit/debit card and electronic wallet withdrawals. One international bank withdrawal per month is also free of charge, while all subsequent withdrawals are charged 20 currency units of your account ($20, €20, etc.).

	Vantage	Fusion Markets	IC Markets
Account fee	No	No	No
Inactivity fee	No	No	No
Deposit fee	$0	$0	$0
Withdrawal fee	$0	$0	$0

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Account Opening

Vantage accepts customers from all over the world with some notable exceptions, like the US.

What is the minimum deposit at Vantage?

The required Vantage minimum deposit is $200 for an STP account and $500 for a RAW ECN account.

Account types

If you want to explore the possibilities offered by Vantage, we recommend opening a demo account. There are 3 main types of trading accounts at Vantage (STP, Raw ECN, Pro ECN), which differ in their pricing structure and the spreads provided. The key differences are shown in the following table.

	Standard STP	Raw ECN	Pro ECN
Spread	1.4	0.0	0.0
Commission	0	$3	$1.5
Minimum deposit	$50	$50	$10,000

In addition, you can also open swap-free or Islamic STP and ECN accounts. At swap-free accounts, if you hold your leveraged position overnight, instead of overnight interest you are charged an administrative fee.

You can open corporate accounts as well. In this case, Vantage’s support team will contact you with the required forms.

How to open your account

Opening an account at Vantage is an easy and fast process, the client interface is super user friendly. Follow these simple steps to open an account in under 5 minutes:

Click on the ‘Live Account’ button.
Enter your name, email address and phone number.
Provide additional personal data required and answer a few questions on your financial status and trading experience.
Select a trading platform, account type, and account base currency.
Upload a copy of your photo ID or passport and proof of residence (utility bill or bank statement are accepted).

Vantage review – Account opening

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Deposit and withdrawal

Account base currencies

At Vantage, you can choose from 8 base currencies: USD, EUR, AUD, SGD, CAD, GBP, NZD, JPY.

	Vantage	Fusion Markets	IC Markets
Number of base currencies	8	8	10

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you don’t have to pay a conversion fee.

Deposit fees and options

Vantage does not charge a deposit fee.

Although depositing is generally free of charge, there are some exceptions. When depositing funds via China Union Pay you will be charged 1.30%-2.50% of the transfer amount; deposits made via Neteller and Skrill are subject to their fee policy; and broker-to-broker transactions are subject to bank transfer fees.

Besides bank transfer and credit/debit cards, you can use the following electronic wallets:

Skrill
Neteller
Union Pay
Fasapay
Bitwallet
Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Tether)
BPAY
POLi
JCB
AstroPay
Vload
Perfect Money

	Vantage	Fusion Markets	IC Markets
Bank transfer	Yes	Yes	Yes
Credit/debit card	Yes	Yes	Yes
Electronic wallets	Yes	Yes	Yes

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with a credit/debit card is instant.

You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.

Vantage review – Deposit and withdrawal – Deposit

Vantage withdrawal fees and options

Vantage has no withdrawal fees for credit/debit cards and electronic wallets. The first international bank withdrawal each month is free of charge; all further withdrawals within the month carry a 20 currency unit fee ($20, €20, etc.).

	Vantage	Fusion Markets	IC Markets
Bank transfer	Yes	Yes	Yes
Credit/debit card	Yes	Yes	Yes
Electronic wallets	Yes	Yes	Yes
Withdrawal fee	$0	$0	$0

How long does it take to withdraw money from Vantage? We tested the debit card withdrawal and it took 1 business day.

You can only withdraw money to accounts in your name.

How do you withdraw money from Vantage?

Log in to the client portal.
Click on ‘Withdraw Funds’.
Select from the drop-down menu how you funded your trading account.
Enter the requested data (such as name, bank address and account number).
Enter the withdrawal amount.
Upload a copy of your bank statement (not older than 3 months).
Click ‘Submit’.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Web trading platform

Trading platform	Score	Available
Web	2.8stars	Yes
Mobile	3.8stars	Yes
Desktop	3.4stars	Yes

Vantage doesn’t have its own self-developed trading platform. It provides the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 third-party trading platforms. We reviewed MetaTrader 4.

MetaTrader 4 is available in an exceptionally large number of languages.

Arabic	Bulgarian	Chinese	Croatian	Czech	Danish
Dutch	English	Estonian	Finnish	French	German
Greek	Hebrew	Hindi	Hungarian	Indonesian	Italian
Japanese	Korean	Latvian	Lithuanian	Malay	Mongolian
Persian	Polish	Portuguese	Romanian	Russian	Serbian
Slovak	Slovenian	Spanish	Swedish	Tajik	Thai
Traditional Chinese	Turkish	Ukrainian	Uzbek	Vietnamese

Look and feel

The Vantage web trading platform has great customizability. You can easily change the size and position of tabs.

However, the platform feels outdated and some features are hard to find. For example, it took us a while to figure out how to add an asset to our watchlist.

Vantage review – Web trading platform

Vantage provides only a one-step login. Two-step authentication would be more secure.

Search functions

The platform’s search functions are OK. Assets are grouped into categories, but we missed the usual search box where you can enter asset names or other keywords manually.

Vantage review – Web trading platform – Search

Placing orders

You can use all the basic order types. However, you won’t find more sophisticated order types such as ‘one-cancels-the-other’. The following order types are available:

Market
Limit
Stop
Trailing stop (available only in the MT4 desktop platform)

To get a better understanding of these terms, read our overview of order types.

There are also order time limits you can use:

Good ’til canceled (GTC)
Good ’til time (GTT)

Vantage review – Web trading platform – Order panel

Alerts and notifications

You can’t set alerts and notifications on the Vantage web trading platform.

Portfolio and fee reports

Vantage has clear portfolio and fee reports. You can easily find your profit-loss balance and the commissions you paid under the ‘History’ tab.

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74-89% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Mobile trading platform

Vantage provides both its own mobile trading platform and the MetaTrader 4/5 third-party mobile trading platforms. Please note that MetaTrader iOS version is currently not available to download in the EU. In this review, we tested Vantage’s own mobile trading platform, which has great visual design and offers a wide variety of functionalities.

The platform is available for both iOS and Android. We tested it on both.

Under ‘Settings’, you can select one of the following languages: English, French, Chinese and Thai. Stock index-related analyses, a newsletter, and FX TV are also available under the ‘Signals’ menu item.