What are the five scoring factors?
Regulation & Safety
35%- Which regulators license the broker, and which entity a client in the UAE, UK or Australia is actually onboarded to
- Tier-1 licences (FCA, ASIC, DFSA, ADGM FSRA, CySEC and similar) score higher than offshore-only licences
- Segregation of client money, negative balance protection and access to a compensation scheme
- Public enforcement history on regulator registers
Trading Costs
25%- Typical published EUR/USD spread on the standard account
- Commission per round-turn lot on raw-spread accounts
- Overnight financing, inactivity, deposit and withdrawal fees
Platforms & Tools
15%- Availability of MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView
- Quality of the broker's own web and mobile platform
- Support for automated trading and copy trading
Asset Selection
15%- Number of tradeable instruments across forex, indices, shares, commodities, crypto and ETFs
- Whether instruments are offered as CFDs only or also as real assets
Account Opening
10%- Minimum deposit and the range of account types
- How long verification takes and what documents are needed
- Payment methods and support availability during onboarding
How is the overall score calculated?
Each factor is scored from 1 to 5 in steps of 0.1. The overall rating is the weighted sum of the five sub-scores, rounded to one decimal place:
Overall = 0.35 × Regulation + 0.25 × Costs + 0.15 × Platforms + 0.15 × Assets + 0.10 × Account
The sub-scores are shown on every review, so you can re-weight them yourself. A beginner may care more about account opening; an active trader may care more about costs.
Where does our data come from?
- Regulator registers. We check licences directly on the FCA Financial Services Register, ASIC Professional Register, DFSA Public Register, ADGM FSRA register, the UAE Capital Market Authority (CMA, which replaced the SCA in January 2026), and CySEC. A licence badge on a broker's website is not enough.
- Broker legal documents. Client agreements, fee schedules, product disclosure statements and key information documents.
- Broker risk disclosures. The percentage of retail accounts that lose money is taken from each broker's own published disclosure. We never use a generic industry figure.
- Hands-on testing. Where a review includes results from our own account testing (for example, verification time or withdrawal speed), it is labelled as tested and dated.
How often are ratings updated?
Broker fees, licences and platforms change. We re-check the key facts behind every review on a rolling schedule, and immediately when a broker announces a material change or a regulator takes action. The "Last Updated" date on a review changes only when the content changes, not when a page is simply rebuilt.
Does a broker's commercial relationship affect its score?
No. Scores are calculated from the factors above. Commission rates are not an input. BrokrRank earns money when readers open accounts through our links, and we explain exactly how on our How We Make Money page.
What are the limits of our ratings?
- A rating compares brokers against each other. It is not a recommendation to trade or a guarantee of safety.
- Spreads are variable. Published typical spreads can differ from what you see during volatile markets.
- Conditions depend on which entity you are onboarded to. A broker can be well regulated in one country and offer weaker protection in another, so check the entity named in your own client agreement.
Spotted something out of date? Our corrections process explains how to report it.