Summary
- Four pillars, each scored 0 to 5, combined with fixed weights into one editorial score from 0 to 5.
- Inputs are documented facts: regulator registers, the broker's legal documents and account specification pages, plus live account checks where we have them.
- User reviews are not collected and are not part of the score.
- Affiliate commissions are not an input. Rankings are ordered by score, not by payout.
- Every scored broker is re-verified at least every 90 days, and sooner when we learn of a material change.
The four pillars and their weights
Weights reflect what matters most to a retail trader choosing a broker: whether their money is protected first, what trading costs second, then tools, then service. The weights are fixed across all brokers and all guides. We do not vary them per page.
| Pillar | Weight | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Regulation & Security | 35% | 0 to 5 |
| Fee Transparency | 30% | 0 to 5 |
| Platforms & Execution | 20% | 0 to 5 |
| Support & Services | 15% | 0 to 5 |
| Total | 100% | Editorial score 0 to 5 |
1. Regulation & Security (35%)
Whether the legal entity serving a given market holds a verifiable licence, and what protections that licence actually carries.
What we measure
- Licence status of each legal entity, checked against the regulator's public register (not only the broker's own claim).
- Which entity a client in a given country is onboarded with, and the tier of that regulator.
- Client-money segregation statements in the broker's legal documents.
- Any documented investor-compensation scheme and its stated limits.
- Negative balance protection and whether it is a regulatory requirement or a discretionary policy.
- Public enforcement actions, fines or warnings recorded by regulators against the entity.
A licence lowers counterparty risk; it never removes market risk. A full mark here does not mean trading with that broker is safe.
2. Fee Transparency (30%)
How much it costs to trade and hold positions, and how clearly those costs are disclosed before an account is opened.
What we measure
- Published typical and minimum spreads on major pairs, per account type.
- Commission per lot or per side, and whether it is quoted inclusive of taxes and platform fees.
- Overnight funding (swap) methodology and where it is published.
- Deposit, withdrawal and currency-conversion charges.
- Inactivity fees: trigger period and amount.
- Whether the full fee schedule is reachable from the public site without logging in.
Spreads are variable. We record the broker's published figures and label separately anything Brokeradar has measured on a live account.
3. Platforms & Execution (20%)
The tools available to place and manage trades, and what the broker discloses about how orders are filled.
What we measure
- Supported platforms (MetaTrader 4/5, cTrader, TradingView, proprietary web and mobile apps).
- Order types, partial-close, trailing stops and API access.
- Execution model as disclosed (market maker, STP, ECN/DMA) and any published execution statistics.
- Stated restrictions on scalping, hedging, news trading or expert advisors.
- Instrument range and product availability by entity.
We distinguish broker-published execution figures from any measurement independently taken by Brokeradar; the two are never averaged together.
4. Support & Services (15%)
Documented support channels, account options and the practical limits of the service in each region.
What we measure
- Support channels, published hours and languages.
- Account types, base currencies, minimum deposit and Islamic (swap-free) availability.
- Regional availability and known onboarding restrictions.
- Educational and research material offered to clients.
- Material service limitations disclosed in the terms (for example, withdrawal processing windows).
We record what the broker documents. We do not run mystery-shopper tests at scale, so response-time claims are the broker's own unless labelled otherwise.
How sub-scores become the editorial score
Each pillar receives a sub-score from 0 to 5 in steps of 0.5. The editor assigns it against a written checklist for that pillar; a 5 means every checklist item is documented and verified, a 0 means none is. The four sub-scores are then combined by a fixed weighted sum:
Editorial score = (0.35 × Regulation) + (0.30 × Fees) + (0.20 × Platforms) + (0.15 × Support)
- The result is rounded to one decimal place for display. The unrounded value is used for ordering within a guide, so two brokers showing the same displayed score can still be ranked in a fixed order.
- Where two brokers tie on the unrounded value, the higher Regulation & Security sub-score ranks first.
- Star graphics on broker cards are a visual rendering of the same number; they are not a separate rating.
- A broker whose serving entity for a market has no verifiable licence is capped at a Regulation & Security sub-score of 1.0 regardless of other merits, and is flagged on its review page.
Worked example
The sub-scores below are placeholders chosen to illustrate the arithmetic. They do not describe any real broker.
| Pillar | Sub-score | Weight | Weighted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regulation & Security | 4.5 | 0.35 | 1.575 |
| Fee Transparency | 4.0 | 0.30 | 1.200 |
| Platforms & Execution | 3.5 | 0.20 | 0.700 |
| Support & Services | 4.0 | 0.15 | 0.600 |
| Unrounded total | 4.075 | ||
| Displayed Brokeradar editorial score | 4.1 / 5 | ||
Where the data comes from
Sources are used in the following order of priority. When two sources disagree, the higher-priority source wins and the discrepancy is noted on the review.
- Regulator registers. The public register of each authority named by the broker (for example the FCA, ASIC, CySEC, FSCA, DFSA or CFTC/NFA registers) is checked for the legal entity, licence number and status.
- Official broker legal pages. Client agreements, terms of business, order execution policies, risk disclosures and fee schedules published by the broker.
- Account specification pages. The broker's own published spreads, commissions, leverage, minimum deposits and platform lists, recorded per account type and per entity.
- Live account checks, where available. Where Brokeradar holds an account with a broker, we record observed spreads, funding methods and withdrawal handling. These observations are labelled as Brokeradar-verified and dated; everything else is labelled as broker-published.
- Regulator notices. Public warnings, enforcement notices and fines are recorded against the entity concerned.
Every factual claim about fees or regulation on a review carries a last-checked date. Our citation standard is described in the editorial policy.
How often scores are re-verified
- Scheduled re-verification every 90 days. Every scored broker has its regulator status, fee schedule and account specifications re-checked at least once every 90 days. The review page shows the date of the last check.
- Re-verification on material change. A licence change, enforcement action, fee-schedule change, platform withdrawal or change of serving entity triggers an out-of-cycle review as soon as we become aware of it.
- Score changes are logged. When a re-verification changes any sub-score, the review page carries an "Updated on" note stating what changed.
- Guides inherit review dates. A best-of guide is only as current as the oldest review it ranks; guides display their own last-updated date and are re-ordered when underlying scores change.
What is not part of the score
- User reviews. Brokeradar does not collect, import or display user reviews, and no crowdsourced rating feeds into the editorial score. If first-party user reviews are ever introduced, they will be stored, moderated and labelled separately from editorial scores.
- Affiliate commission. Neither the existence nor the size of a referral arrangement is an input to any sub-score or to guide ordering.
- Marketing claims. Awards, "best broker" badges and promotional bonuses are not scored.
- Trading performance. We do not assess whether clients profit with a given broker. Past performance of any strategy is out of scope.
- Suitability. The score describes the broker, not its fit for a particular person. Nothing on this site is investment advice.
Affiliate relationships and ranking independence
Brokeradar may earn a referral commission when you open an account through some links on this site. Those links are marked rel="sponsored". Commercial terms are negotiated separately from editorial work and are not visible to the scoring checklist. Rankings within a guide are ordered by the unrounded editorial score, and a broker with no affiliate arrangement can and does appear above brokers that have one.
Full details are in the affiliate disclosure and the editorial policy.