What is each platform actually for?

Both firms hold Australian financial services licences, and that is close to where the resemblance stops. I checked each company's Australian pages on 1 September 2026, and they are not selling the same product to the same person.

Pepperstone: a specialist CFD broker

Everything at Pepperstone is a CFD, a leveraged derivative capped for Australian retail clients at 30:1 on major forex pairs, 20:1 on gold, 5:1 on shares and 2:1 on crypto. You never own the underlying. What you get in exchange is the trading machinery: raw spreads plus a fixed commission on the Razor account, spread-only pricing on Standard, and a platform list that runs to TradingView, MT4, MT5, cTrader and Pepperstone's own web and mobile platform. The A$-equivalent minimum deposit is about $10 by card, none on bank transfer, and there is no inactivity fee. My comparison against its closest structural rival covers the execution side in more depth: Pepperstone vs IC Markets.

eToro: ownership first, CFDs attached

eToro's Australian offer leads with real assets. Shares across 17 major global exchanges, ETFs with zero commission, and real crypto with a staking rewards program, all held in your name on the platform rather than as derivative exposure. CFDs exist inside the app too, under the same ASIC caps that apply to Pepperstone, but they are the seasoning rather than the meal. The 2026 addition that changed the comparison is AUD currency accounts: deposit, hold and withdraw in Australian dollars, with no FX conversion fee when trading Australian stocks and free withdrawals from AUD accounts. Older reviews still list a US$5 withdrawal fee and a monthly inactivity charge. As at 1 September 2026 the fee page shows neither for AUD-account users, though the US$5 fee still applies to withdrawals from USD accounts.

So the fork is ownership versus execution. eToro will actually sell you the share; what Pepperstone sells is a faster, cheaper way of trading its price.

What do they cost where you can compare them?

Not everywhere, is the first thing to say.

Pepperstone publishes no stock-ownership pricing because it has no stock ownership, and eToro publishes no per-lot forex commission because its CFDs are spread-only. The comparable ground looks like this.

Published pricing, both brokers' Australian pages, checked 1 September 2026. Note how much of it is quoted in US dollars.
Cost linePepperstoneeToro
Forex CFD, per standard lotRazor: raw spread + AUD 7 per lot round turn on MT4/MT5 with an AUD account (at open on MT4, AUD 3.50 per side on MT5); Standard adds roughly 1 pip insteadSpread-only; no per-lot commission published
Share exposureShare CFDs, commission-based, price exposure onlyReal shares: a US$1 or US$2 commission may apply each way depending on exchange; the AU headline is a US$2 flat fee
ETFsNot offered as ownershipZero commission on all ETF trades
CryptoCrypto CFDs (2:1 retail cap); spot buying sits with the separate Pepperstone Crypto productReal coins at a flat 1% per side; crypto CFDs carry a 1% spread
WithdrawalsFreeFree from AUD accounts; US$5 from USD accounts, minimum US$30
InactivityNoneNone per the current fee page

For a pure forex or index CFD trader, Pepperstone's raw-plus-commission model is built to be the cheaper route at any real frequency, and eToro does not seriously contest that ground. The other thing the table shows is how little of it is quoted in AUD: Pepperstone's commissions are USD figures converted at spot to your account currency, and eToro quotes stock commissions and CopyTrader minimums in USD outright. eToro's AUD accounts soften this for Australian shares specifically. On everything else, both firms make you do the conversion.

Who wins the copy trading question?

eToro, and it is not close. CopyTrader is the product the whole platform is named for: pick an investor, allocate a minimum of US$200, and your account mirrors their moves proportionally, up to 100 traders at once, with a copy stop loss to cap the arrangement and no charge for the copying itself beyond normal spreads and fees. The pool of people to copy is enormous because eToro's social layer is the point of the place.

Pepperstone's answer is thinner in Australia. cTrader has a copy facility built into the platform itself, with strategy providers setting their own fees, but Pepperstone's Australian pages do not currently present a copy trading product, so treat availability as something to confirm with the broker rather than assume. If copying other investors is the reason you are opening an account, that ambiguity settles the whole comparison by itself.

eToro's commodities discovery screen listing gold, oil and gas markets with sell and buy prices, one day sparklines, 52 week ranges and a buying sentiment bar for each market
The commodities screen in eToro's platform, with community sentiment shown per market.

How different are the platforms?

The count alone says most of it: six against one. Pepperstone hands you TradingView, MT4, MT5, cTrader, its own web platform and its mobile app, and lets you pick per job: MT5 for automation, cTrader for execution depth, TradingView for charting, the house app for simplicity. One catch: Razor commission varies with the platform you choose, so picking your charts also picks your per-lot rate.

eToro runs one proprietary platform, web and app, with no MT4, no MT5 and no TradingView connection. Before writing that up as a loss, be fair about who it serves: a single well-designed app in which stocks, ETFs, crypto, CFDs and copied portfolios sit side by side is exactly what a part-time investor wants, and the learning curve is a fraction of MetaTrader's. Traders who need EAs, depth-of-market data or raw charting control will feel the walls quickly. Investors mostly will not.

One practical note on trying either before funding: Pepperstone's demo lengths vary by platform, 30 days on its own platform, 60 on MT4 and MT5, and cTrader demos persist as long as you log in every 90 days, so the trial itself tells you something about which platform habit you are forming. eToro offers a virtual portfolio inside the same app, which suits its audience for the same reason the single app does.

Daily movers list on the eToro platform's Discover tab, with the day's biggest share gainers beside the biggest fallers and each one's percentage move
eToro's Discover tab: the daily movers list of the day's biggest gainers and fallers.

Who should choose which?

Three profiles cover most readers. The frequent CFD trader, anyone running forex or index strategies with real position counts, belongs at Pepperstone for the raw pricing and the platform choice; start with the account-opening guide, which includes the appropriateness assessment ASIC requires. The buy-and-hold investor who wants actual shares, ETFs and coins in their own name belongs at eToro, because Pepperstone simply does not sell ownership. And anyone still on the fence should read my assessment of who Pepperstone actually suits first. The six-month question still does the sorting after that: picture what you want to be holding by then, and open the account that sells it.

Two panel graphic weighing copy trading against placing your own trades, one side researching people and the other researching markets, with a reminder that delegating decisions is itself a decision

Frequently Asked Questions

Is eToro regulated in Australia?

Yes. eToro AUS Capital Limited holds AFSL 491139 with ASIC, so Australian clients face the same retail CFD leverage caps and client-money rules as they would at Pepperstone (AFSL 414530). The regulatory footing is level; the products differ.

Can I buy real shares through Pepperstone in Australia?

No. Pepperstone's share products are CFDs, which track the price under ASIC's 5:1 retail cap but never put the share in your name. Real share ownership is eToro's side of this comparison.

Does Pepperstone offer copy trading in Australia?

Not as a product presented on its Australian pages as at 1 September 2026. cTrader includes a built-in copy facility globally, with strategy-provider fees set per provider, but confirm Australian availability with Pepperstone directly before counting on it. eToro's CopyTrader, by contrast, is core to its offer: US$200 minimum per copied trader, up to 100 at once.

What are the minimum amounts to start?

Pepperstone's card minimum is about A$10 equivalent, and bank transfers carry no minimum. eToro states minimum investments of $25 for crypto and $50 for stocks and ETFs; its first-deposit requirement for Australians varies by method, so check the eToro help centre for the current figure.

Are eToro's fees really charged in US dollars?

Largely, yes. Stock commissions, the CopyTrader minimum and the USD-account withdrawal fee are all USD figures. The AUD currency accounts introduced for Australian clients remove the conversion fee on Australian stock trades and make AUD withdrawals free, which takes real money off the table for local investors, but they do not convert the fee schedule itself into AUD.

References

  1. eToro: Australian offer, entity and AFSL disclosure (checked 1 September 2026)
  2. eToro: AU fee schedule (checked 1 September 2026)
  3. eToro: CopyTrader terms and minimums (checked 1 September 2026)
  4. eToro: AUD currency accounts (checked 1 September 2026)
  5. Pepperstone: Razor and Standard pricing (checked 1 September 2026)
  6. Pepperstone: platform line-up (checked 1 September 2026)
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