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Stockbrokers2026

Methodology

How we rate brokers

Tracked byUpdated

A scoring rubric is the difference between an opinion and an argument. Here is ours, explicit, so you can agree or disagree with specific weights rather than the whole ranking.

Scope of coverage

Brokers tracked
14
Regulators indexed
55
Regulator actions logged
2
Latest pricing verification
Jun 1, 2026

Pricing and licensing status refresh weekly; the ranking is reviewed quarterly.

Editorial team & oversight

We aggregate broker-published pricing and verify regulator registrations weekly against FCA, ASIC, and CySEC registries. No placement is paid.

Independent review team

Stockbrokers Editorial →

Rating weights

The editorial score is a weighted average across these four categories. Each broker is scored 1–10 in each category; the weighted sum is scaled to 1–5 for the public number.

Cost of trading
35%
Per-lot round-turn cost on EUR/USD at 1-lot size, using each broker's published typical spread plus round-turn commission. Marketing "from X pip" figures are ignored in favour of typical/average figures.
Regulation & fund safety
30%
Tier of the primary licensing regulator and number of tier-1 licenses, whether the license-holding entity is the one actually onboarding retail clients, segregation and compensation rules in the applicable jurisdiction, and enforcement actions independently verified against the issuing regulator's public record.
Operating history
20%
Years operating and the scale of the external reputation signal (Trustpilot, ForexPeaceArmy review count). A broker with 20 years and 10,000 public reviews is a different risk than one with 3 years and 200.
Accessibility
15%
Minimum deposit, platform breadth (MT4/MT5/proprietary), and whether retail leverage is sensibly tiered or pushed to the jurisdictional maximum.

What we don't measure

Other broker-review sites claim measurements that require opening live accounts. We do not open accounts, so we do not claim them:

  • — Live execution quality (slippage distribution, rejection rate, last-look, latency).
  • — Realised withdrawal timing. We do not deposit or withdraw funds.
  • — Support responsiveness. We do not open tickets.
  • — Platform reliability under load. We do not load-test trading platforms.

Treat the pricing and regulator information here as a starting point for your own shortlist, not a substitute for live diligence with your own capital.

Data sources & cadence

  • Regulator status — FCA Financial Services Register, ASIC Connect, CySEC regulated entities list, and equivalents for the other listed authorities. Checked weekly.
  • Pricing — broker-published typical spread and commission copied from each broker's specification page. Refreshed weekly. Your realised spread will differ, especially around news events.
  • External reviews — Trustpilot and ForexPeaceArmy review counts pulled monthly; the score is reported as-is and is not re-weighted into the editorial rating.
  • Regulator actions — fines, consumer warnings, licence suspensions, restitution orders. Each entry is independently verified against the issuing regulator's public record before it appears on a broker page. Absence does not certify a clean history — it means nothing has been logged from the sources we check. Coverage grows as research is added.
  • Ranking — reviewed quarterly. Positions can move when licensing, pricing, or enforcement profile changes materially.

How we represent spread figures

Forex brokers disclose EUR/USD spread in three different ways. To keep per-lot cost comparable across the ranking, each is converted into a single figure and the source is labelled explicitly on the broker card:

  • Broker-published typical — the broker discloses an explicit typical or average. The figure is used unchanged.
  • Midpoint of broker range — the broker publishes a range (e.g. "0.1–0.4 pip"). The midpoint is used and the range is noted in the broker's cons.
  • Editorial estimate — the broker publishes only a "from X pip" minimum and no typical. An editorial estimate is used and labelled on the broker card so you can discount it accordingly.

Your realised spread will differ from any of these figures, especially around news events. Cost calculator output is directional guidance, not an execution guarantee.

Worked scoring example

Take a hypothetical broker scored across the four dimensions. Cost of trading 7.5/10 — round-turn cost ~$8.50 on EUR/USD at 1 lot, mid-pack relative to the cost cohort. Regulation 9.5/10 — three tier-1 regulators (FCA, ASIC, CySEC) and the UK-onboarded entity is the FCA-licensed one. Operating history 9.0/10 — 18 years of continuous operation and ~50,000 third-party reviews. Accessibility 7.5/10 — $100 minimum deposit, MT4/MT5/cTrader/proprietary platforms, retail leverage capped at the local regulator's standard. Weighted: 7.5×0.35 + 9.5×0.30 + 9.0×0.20 + 7.5×0.15 = 8.4. The 1–10 weighted average is then scaled to a 0–100 editorial rating displayed on the broker card. Numbers refresh weekly; the example here is illustrative, not a current quote.

Things broker-listicles do that we don't

Many "best broker" sites are affiliate-marketing vehicles first, editorial second. To be explicit about what is excluded here:

  • — Paid ranking placement. Ordering reflects the editorial rating, set before commercial terms are negotiated.
  • — Fabricated execution tests. Claims like "our slippage measurements show X" without an actual live account are common in this industry. Nothing is simulated that cannot be measured.
  • — Rating inflation for high-payout affiliates. A broker paying 3× CPA gets the same editorial rating as one paying 1×.
  • — Hidden affiliate disclosure. "How we are paid" is linked from the methodology, not footnoted in grey at the bottom of a broker card.
  • — Padded supported-country lists. Per-broker restricted-country data is collected from each broker's own documents; when a broker won't accept you, they are filtered out of your matches instead of shown — letting you discover the restriction at signup is a worse experience.

If you spot any of the above, call it out.

Corrections & disputes

If you believe a fact on this site is wrong — a regulator status, a license number, a published spread, a regulator-action entry — write to editorial [at] brokerlist.top with the broker name, the page URL, the disputed claim, and a primary source (regulator register, broker disclosure, dated court document). We aim to acknowledge within 3 business days. Verifiable factual errors are corrected in the next refresh cycle (weekly for licensing and pricing, monthly for review-count and external-rating fields). Editorial-judgement disagreements ("you weighted X too low") are answered but not actioned in-cycle; weight changes go through the methodology versioning process. A correction note is appended to the broker page when material data changes after first publication.