Best all-round paper trading account – Interactive Brokers (IBKR)
Interactive Brokers is a sophisticated trading platform aimed at experienced investors. It offers excellent chart tools, research and educational materials, along with a wide range of global investments.
New investors can test the platform by opening an Interactive Brokers demo account on its stock trading app or through the broker's website. You are given $1 million in virtual money, which you can use to test trading stocks, bonds, currencies and funds.
In my testing, I found Interactive Brokers offered the best demo experience overall. A watchlist is automatically populated for you, listing popular stocks and currency pairings. It’s also easy to get inspiration for new investments by selecting the ‘markets’ tab. You can filter by industry, market cap, region, price-to-earnings ratio and dividend yield along with many other filter options. You can also see popular ETFs, making it easy to search for an ETF by sector or region.
The research material is excellent, even on the demo account, and you can also check out IKBR’s free investing resources through the IBKR Trading Academy. Overall, IBKR offers a great experience whether you are a new investor or a more sophisticated one looking to test new strategies. Read my Interactive Brokers review to learn more.
Best social experience - eToro
| Company |
Overall Rating |
Minimum Deposit |
Share Trading |
 eToro
|
 |
$50 info |
Yes |
The eToro paper trading app is another great option for newer investors. New traders are granted over $100,000 in virtual money through its demo account. You can then use these virtual funds to invest in stocks, commodities or even cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. Crypto trading is typically not offered by U.K. investment platforms, so it could be a good way to test the crypto market.
Through the eToro app, you can create a watchlist, set stock price limits, discover trending and popular stocks and see trending cryptocurrencies. eToro is a social trading app, and you can copy other users’ portfolios to save you making your own. It’s a good way to see what assets beyond stocks could be in your portfolio.
The eToro Academy is also available through the demo account, offering free articles, courses, podcasts and webinars for all investor levels.
Overall, I enjoyed the experience of operating a demo account with eToro. The copy trading offering is unique among other brokers, although be aware these traders may have no professional credentials. Like with any investing, you are taking a risk. But with the demo account at least you’re not risking your own actual money (just the virtual $100,000). Read my eToro review.
Simple option for new investors – Trading 212
| Company |
Overall Rating |
Minimum Deposit |
Share Trading |
 Trading 212
|
|
£1 |
Yes |
Trading 212 is a highly rated investing platform that offers very low investing fees. It's free to buy and sell stocks and there are no management charges – even if you are investing through an ISA. Trading 212 also currently pays market-leading interest on cash savings of 5%.
When opening a demo account at Trading 212, you are given £5,000 of virtual money to play with and to ‘invest’ in companies or ETFs. You can practise buying and selling stocks, setting price alerts, and view discussion boards used by other users. It’s a great way to get familiar with the app.
In comparison to eToro, Trading 212 offers a more limited range of investments – just company stocks and a limited range of ETFs. So if you are looking to test wider markets or assets – or you want a higher virtual amount of money to practise on, eToro may be a better choice. Check out my Trading 212 review to find out more.
Most in-depth experience – Saxo
| Company |
Overall Rating |
Minimum Deposit |
Share Trading |
 Saxo
|
|
£0 |
Yes |
Saxo’s trading platform offers one of the most extensive investment options of any of the main U.K. brokers I’ve tested or reviewed. Saxo’s SaxoTraderGo demo account is therefore a great way to experience investing in stocks from multiple countries beyond the U.K. and U.S.
You can open a demo account through Saxo’s website; from there, you gain access to £100,000 in virtual money. You can create your own virtual investment portfolio, create watchlists, and set up price alerts. You can filter stocks by dividend yield, popularity or ESG score. Market updates, research and top global business news are also available through the demo account.
Overall, I think Saxo’s platform is quite complex for beginner investors. But if you’re an experienced investor looking to test new markets, Saxo’s demo account could work well for you. Read my Saxo review to learn more.
High amount in virtual funds – Webull
| Company |
Overall Rating |
Minimum Deposit |
Share Trading |
 Webull
|
 |
£0 |
Yes |
With Webull’s demo account, you are given a very generous $1 million in virtual money to practise investing. You can place market orders or limit orders, and you can see your overall profit and loss.
However, in my testing, I found the Webull paper trading app to be fairly limited. It’s not easy to get investment inspiration, as you can’t organise or sort stocks by sector, popularity, or dividend yield. Instead, you have to already know the stock you want to buy when using the app.
Webull is new to the U.K. market and you can currently only invest in U.S. stocks. It’s not free to buy or sell shares, but trading fees are low at 0.025%. For a demo account, costs are obviously less of an issue.
Overall, Webull’s demo account is limited and there are other platforms that offer a better user experience. Read my Webull review if you are still interested in opening an account with Webull, or check out my other U.K. broker reviews.
FAQs
What is paper trading?
Paper trading allows you to practise trading stocks or other investments without having to worry about losing real money. Many of the best U.K. trading platforms offer demo accounts, also known as practice trading accounts, that allow you to do paper trades while getting to grips with the platform. You are given virtual money (in some cases, up to $1,000,000 of virtual funds to play with), so you don’t have to risk your own.
What are the advantages of paper trading?
The main advantage of paper trading is that you won’t have to worry about losing money – or real money, anyway! You can learn about trading while making mistakes and test new investments or markets, safe in the comfort that you are only risking virtual funds. Investing always carries an element of risk, and demo accounts are a great way to explore the world of trading and investing without risking your own savings.
Can I create a paper trading account for free?
Yes, it’s free to create a paper trading account in the U.K. That said, not all U.K. trading platforms offer demo accounts. Demo accounts are used by both beginner investors looking to learn the basics of the stock market and experienced investors looking to test new strategies, assets or markets.
What broker offers the best education for new traders?
eToro’s academy offers great educational material for new investors. There are guides that explore the difference between investing and trading, how to invest in bitcoin for the first time, and an explanation of the different investing techniques. For those looking for further depth, Saxo has a wide range of tutorials and guides aimed at more experienced investors. There are also regular webinars each month discussing topics such as how to use commodities, CFDs, or bonds in your portfolio.
Why you should trust us
Elizabeth Anderson has been a financial journalist for more than a decade. She’s written for major national newspapers, contributed to corporate reports and research, and reviewed dozens of share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISAs, and brokerage firms. Elizabeth started her career at Bloomberg and has worked for the BBC, The Telegraph, The Times and the i newspaper. She is passionate about helping people understand finance and investing. A keen investor herself, Elizabeth invests through general dealing accounts, ISAs and several SIPPs.
Steven Hatzakis is a well-known finance writer with 25+ years of experience in the foreign exchange and financial markets. He is the Global Director of Online Broker Research for Reink Media Group, leading research efforts for ForexBrokers.com since 2016. He has served as a registered commodity futures representative for domestic and internationally-regulated brokerages. Steven holds a Series III license in the US as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA).
All content on UK.StockBrokers.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 U.K. brokerage industry.
Ultimately, our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than .1% each year, providing site visitors with quality data they can trust. Click here to learn more about how we test.
How we tested
At UK.StockBrokers.com, our online broker reviews are based on our collected quantitative data as well as the observations and qualified opinions of our expert researchers. Each year we publish tens of thousands of words of research and collect hundreds of data points while testing brokerage firms, share dealing platforms, SIPP providers, ISA providers, and other financial service providers relevant to U.K. investors.
Mobile testing is conducted on modern devices that run the most up-to-date operating systems available:
- For Apple, we use MacBook Pro laptops running macOS 14.5, and the iPhone 15 running iOS 17.6.1
- For Android, we use the Samsung Galaxy S9+ and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra devices running Android OS 14.
All websites and web-based platforms are tested using the latest version of the Google Chrome browser.
Our researchers thoroughly test a wide range of key features, such as the availability and quality of trading platforms for web, desktop, and mobile, charting, real-time and streaming quotes, and educational resources – among other important variables. We also evaluate the overall design of the mobile experience, and look for a fluid user experience moving between mobile and desktop platforms.
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