Saxo vs XTB — which broker is better?

Pros

• Full Danish banking licence (Finanstilsynet licence 1149) and SIFI designation — a stronger structural safeguard than a broker-only permission
• US stocks and ETFs at 0.08% with a USD 1 minimum on the entry-level Classic tier, and 0.05%/0.03% at higher tiers
• Roughly 71,000 instruments including 23,000 stocks, 7,400 ETFs, 5,200 bonds, 3,100 listed options and 250 futures across 50-plus exchanges
• SaxoTraderGO and the mobile app are the best-designed retail trading interfaces in Europe, and the app is not a cut-down version of the web platform
• Mutual funds carry no transaction commission, no custody fee and no platform fee
• One of very few retail platforms with a genuinely usable bond offering — 5,200 government and corporate issues with live prices
• No inactivity fee, no minimum deposit on Classic, and free withdrawals
• Majority-owned by J. Safra Sarasin since 2026, adding a large private-banking group behind the balance sheet

Cons

• Currency conversion costs 0.25% over mid-market for EU and Swiss clients, and up to 0.60% at the UK entity's Classic tier — the single largest hidden cost for cross-currency investors
• A holding fee of up to 0.15% a year on shares, ETFs and bonds still applies at several booking entities; coverage varies by country and is easy to overlook
• No spot cryptocurrency trading — exposure is limited to exchange-traded products
• No fractional shares on ordinary orders, so building small positions in high-priced US stocks is awkward
• Bank transfer is the only funding route since card deposits were withdrawn in April 2025
• Trustpilot sentiment sits around 3.8 with responsiveness of support the recurring complaint, despite good published coverage

Pros

• xStation 5 is the best platform in the commission-free bracket - a real screener, market heat map, sentiment data, economic calendar and news in one workspace, on web, desktop and mobile with near-identical features.
• Commission-free real stocks and ETFs up to EUR 100,000 of turnover per calendar month; above that only the excess is charged at 0.2% with a EUR 10 minimum.
• No minimum deposit at all, plus fractional shares, so a monthly savings plan can start at almost any amount.
• Listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange since 2016 under XTB, with audited financials and a KNF licence held continuously since 2005.
• EUR/USD spreads averaging around 0.9 pips on the Standard account with no separate forex commission - competitive for a spread-only model.
• Support is genuinely multi-channel including a phone line, with local-language desks across its main European markets - a real differentiator against the chat-only app brokers.
• The mobile app keeps the analysis tools rather than stripping them out, so charting and screening actually work away from a desk.

Cons

• The 0.5% currency conversion charge (0.8% at weekends and on public holidays) applies whenever the instrument currency differs from your account currency. For a EUR investor buying US stocks it is charged on the way in and again on the way out, and it dwarfs the commission it replaces.
• A EUR 10 monthly inactivity fee kicks in after 365 days without a trade and 90 days without a deposit - a charge Trading 212 and eToro have both abolished.
• Four disclosed regulatory actions since 2018: a PLN 9.9m KNF fine for asymmetric slippage (2018), a EUR 300,000 AMF fine for compliance failures and misleading advertising (2021), a Brazilian CVM stop order (2023) and a PLN 20m KNF fine over MiFID II CFD sales breaches (2026).
• No exchange-traded futures, no individual bonds and no mutual funds. Options exist but only around 140 contracts on US stocks and ETFs, with no headline per-contract price published.
• At the Cyprus entity, withdrawals below EUR 100 cost EUR 10 - a 10% haircut on a EUR 99 withdrawal, which penalises exactly the small accounts the no-minimum-deposit policy attracts. The Polish entity, which books most EEA clients, charges nothing.
• The Belize entity (XTB International Limited, FSC licence 000302/438) is a tier-3 offshore licence with materially weaker recourse than the Polish or UK entities. Check which entity you are onboarded to.