How we rate
We test every broker against 200+ criteria — hands-on, not from a sales sheet. This page shows exactly what we measure.
Our principles
- ✓No broker pays for placement in our rankings.
- ✓We open real accounts and test deposit/withdrawal.
- ✓Every broker is re-reviewed twice a year.
- ✓Our links may earn a commission. It never changes a ranking — this relationship is disclosed clearly on every broker page.
Regulation & safety (40 criteria)
- •Verified registration with each named regulator
- •Negative balance protection across account types
- •Segregation of client funds
- •Compensation scheme coverage
- •Withdrawal track record from our test accounts
- •Restricted-country list cross-referenced against KYC
Fees & spreads (60 criteria)
- •Live spread sampling on EUR/USD across 3 sessions
- •Commission structure per account type
- •Overnight swap fees on 8 major pairs
- •Inactivity fees and dormant-account policies
- •Deposit and withdrawal fees, including crypto rails where supported
- •Effective cost per round-turn at typical retail size
Platforms & execution (40 criteria)
- •MT4, MT5, cTrader, and proprietary platform availability
- •Mobile app feature parity
- •Average execution latency from US, EU, and Asian endpoints
- •Slippage during NFP and similar news events
- •Order types: market, limit, stop, OCO, trailing stop
- •TradingView and copy-trading integrations
Accounts, deposits & withdrawals (30 criteria)
- •Account types and their declared characteristics
- •Minimum deposit and how it's verified vs. marketing
- •Available funding methods including regional rails
- •Withdrawal time measured from request to bank-cleared
- •Required documents for full verification
- •Customer-support response times
Education, research & support (30 criteria)
- •Quality and depth of original educational content
- •Research desk publications and analyst commentary
- •Demo account features and time limits
- •Live chat availability hours and language coverage
- •Knowledge base searchability
- •Community and social-trading features
The team
Reviews are authored and edited by Hurad (Director of Broker Research) and Alex (Senior Editor), both with deep experience in the forex and CFD industry.