Brokers, measured. Spreads, read closely.
We open live accounts, fund them, trade and withdraw, then publish what our statements show.
- Licences checked on FCA, ASIC and CySEC registers
- Spreads and fees from funded live accounts
- No paid placements in the ranking
Why trust us?
Every score comes from an account we paid into ourselves. We record the spread we were actually filled at, every fee on the statement and how long each withdrawal took to land. When a broker changes its terms, we re-test and date the change.
The ranking.
50 reviews, ordered by score. Each score weighs costs, regulation, platforms and the withdrawals we timed.
Pepperstone Group
Razor is the account most active traders should open: spreads from 0.0 pips on majors plus a flat $3.50 per lot per side commission beat Standard's 1.0 pip floor once a trader is placing more than a handful of trades a week. Pepperstone charges nothing for deposits or withdrawals and settled every one of ours within a day.
Best for Active traders who place enough volume that a per lot commission beats a wider all-in spread
- Raw Spread & ECN Brokers
- ASIC
- FCA
- CySEC
- DFSA
- Razor spread, EUR/USD
- From 0.0 pips
- Minimum deposit
- $10 via most methods, none via bank transfer
- Razor commission
- $3.50 per lot per side (margin FX and Spot Gold)
Tradeslide Trading Tech
Darwinex solves the part of copy trading that always felt lopsided: a DARWIN provider earns 15% of the profit their strategy makes for investors, with only 5% going to Darwinex, rather than a copy-trading platform quietly taking a spread markup nobody sees. Investors still pay real money for it, a 20% high-water-mark performance fee plus a 1.2% annual management fee on invested equity, and $569.80 million in third-party capital says enough people accept that price. The FX account underneath is competitively priced on its own; the DARWIN layer on top is where this broker actually earns its reputation.
Best for Verified traders wanting fair pay, and investors wanting audited strategy exposure
- Copy & Social Trading
- FCA
- CNMV
- FSA
- FX spread and commission
- From 0.0 pips + ~$2.50/lot per side
- Minimum deposit (trading account)
- $500, then $100 minimum
- DARWIN performance fee
- 20% total (15% provider, 5% Darwinex), high-water mark
Saxo Bank
Saxo is a licensed bank running a trading platform, not a CFD shop dressed up as one, and that shows in execution: an average 0.012-second fill on market orders and a EUR/USD spread that only reached 4.1 pips once, during a US CPI release, before settling back near 0.9 pips in under a minute. Classic needs no minimum deposit at all, which is generous, but Classic pricing is also the worst Saxo offers. Platinum and VIP cut spreads further, and both require deposits or trading volume most retail traders will never reach. Worth it for a trader who wants forex alongside real stocks, bonds and options in one account; expensive overkill for someone who only ever trades currency pairs.
Best for Traders who want forex, shares, bonds and options in one bank-regulated account and can live with Classic pricing
- Multi-Asset & Premium Brokers
- Danish FSA
- FCA
- MAS
- ASIC
- Classic EUR/USD spread
- ~0.7 to 0.9 pips average
- Minimum deposit
- None (Classic tier)
- Platinum tier threshold
- ~SGD 300,000 deposit or volume; spreads to 0.6 pips
Interactive Brokers LLC
Interactive Brokers prices spot forex cheaper than almost any dedicated broker on this site, and SIPC, SEC and FINRA oversight backs it with real depth. Trader Workstation demands a learning investment that a forex-only beginner should not underestimate before opening an account here.
Best for Traders who move enough volume for basis-point pricing to matter and can tolerate a steep platform learning curve
- Multi-Asset & Premium Brokers
- SEC
- CFTC
- FINRA
- FCA
- Min. deposit
- None (standard cash account)
- Investor protection
- SIPC, up to $500,000 per account
- IDEALPRO commission
- 0.20 bps, $2 min/order (Tier I)
First Prudential Markets
FP Markets holds its own against IC Markets and Pepperstone on the number that matters most, the Raw account's all-in EUR/USD cost, and beats both on platform choice by adding the Iress suite for shares alongside MT4, MT5 and cTrader. It is not the cheapest of the three on every pair, and the AU$100 minimum sits above IC Markets' US$200 only in nominal currency terms. Traders who want raw spreads plus a genuine equities platform have a real reason to pick FP Markets over its two closest rivals.
Best for ECN traders who also want a proper share-trading platform alongside MT4, MT5 or cTrader
- Raw Spread & ECN Brokers
- ASIC
- CySEC
- FSCA
- FSA Seychelles
- Raw account EUR/USD spread (tested)
- 0.1 to 0.3 pips average
- Minimum deposit
- AU$100
- Max leverage
- Up to 500:1 depending on entity and instrument
CMC Markets plc
CMC Markets wins the range argument outright: 330 forex pairs is more than IG lists, and the rebuilt Next Generation platform's charting now holds its own against dedicated platforms rather than trailing them. On price, the standard account's 0.7 pip average EUR/USD spread sits close to IG's, so the real decision is whether the FX Active account's fixed $2.50 per $100,000 commission and 0.0 pip majors beat that once volume justifies switching. FCA regulation and a 37-year, FTSE 250-listed history make this a broker we would trust with a deposit; it is the standard account's spread, not the company, that keeps this out of the raw-spread category.
Best for Traders who want the widest forex pair list on one platform and are willing to compare two pricing tiers to get there
- Standard account spread
- EUR/USD averaging around 0.7 pips in independent live testing
- Minimum deposit
- None stated
- Forex pairs
- 330+ on Next Generation, ~175 on MT4/MT5
Tickmill Group
Tickmill's Raw account remains one of the cheapest ways to run volume on MT4 or MT5, at roughly $6 round turn per standard lot plus a spread that regularly touches the low tenths of a pip. It is a better account today for a $500 to $50,000 trader than it was for the trader who used to qualify for the discontinued VIP tier, since that group lost its $1-per-side pricing when Tickmill folded VIP into Raw during 2025.
Best for MT4 and MT5 traders running enough volume to make a fixed per-lot commission cheaper than a wider all-in spread
- Raw Spread & ECN Brokers
- FCA
- CySEC
- DFSA
- FSCA
- Raw account spread
- From 0.0 pips, averaging close to 0.1 pips on EUR/USD
- Minimum deposit (Raw)
- $100
- Leverage
- Up to 1:1000, entity dependent
Global Prime
Global Prime's trade receipts are the real differentiator, not a marketing phrase. Every filled order generated a receipt naming the liquidity provider, latency and slippage, detail most brokers on this list do not hand a retail client. Raw pricing came in at 0.0 pips plus a $3.5 commission per side, in line with the ECN mid-market rather than the cheapest available. The AFCA-backed ASIC entity covers Australian clients properly, but the Vanuatu entity carries no compensation scheme by Global Prime's own disclosure, so a non-Australian client trades the transparency upgrade for a lighter regulatory net.
Best for Traders who want to verify exactly how each order was filled, and who accept Vanuatu-tier oversight outside Australia
- Raw Spread & ECN Brokers
- ASIC
- VFSC
- Minimum deposit
- $0
- Raw account pricing
- 0.0 pips plus $3.5 commission per side
- Standard account pricing
- Spreads from 0.9 pips, no separate commission
XTB S.A.
XTB removes the two biggest first-account frictions, a deposit hurdle and a platform learning curve, and backs it with FCA and KNF licences. A 2026 KNF fine over CFD investor-protection rules is a real mark against it, not a reason to avoid the broker outright.
Best for New European forex traders who want a low-friction, regulated first account
- Brokers for Beginners
- FCA
- KNF
- CySEC
- Standard account spread
- From 0.5 pips EUR/USD, no commission
- Min. deposit
- None (individual accounts)
- Max retail leverage
- 1:30
IG Group
IG earns its reputation on regulation and market range rather than on price. Traders who value eight licences including the FCA and CFTC, plus a huge instrument list, get that for a EUR/USD spread of around 1 pip on average. Traders chasing the lowest possible cost per lot should look at a raw account broker instead.
Best for Traders who want one broker across forex, shares and indices under strong regulation
- Multi-Asset & Premium Brokers
- FCA
- ASIC
- MAS
- FINMA
- EUR/USD spread (IG data)
- 0.6 pips minimum, 0.86 to 1.13 pips average
- Minimum deposit
- None on bank transfer
- GBP/USD spread (IG data)
- 0.9 pips minimum, 1.84 to 2.38 pips average
What the scores add up to.
Scores run from 0 to 10. A broker earns a high one through low all-in costs, strong regulation and money that comes back quickly, not through features.
Highest score right nowPepperstone Group- 50brokers reviewed
- 7.1average score out of 10
- 8scored 8.0 or higher
Side by side.
| Broker | Type | Score | EUR/USD spread | Min deposit | Max leverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pepperstone Group | Raw Spread & ECN Brokers | 8.4 | From 0.0 pips | $10 via most methods, none via bank transfer | Not listed |
| Tradeslide Trading Tech | Copy & Social Trading | 8.3 | From 0.0 pips + ~$2.50/lot per side | $500, then $100 minimum | Not listed |
| Saxo Bank | Multi-Asset & Premium Brokers | 8.2 | ~0.7 to 0.9 pips average | None (Classic tier) | Not listed |
| Interactive Brokers LLC | Multi-Asset & Premium Brokers | 8.1 | Not listed | None (standard cash account) | Not listed |
| First Prudential Markets | Raw Spread & ECN Brokers | 8.1 | 0.1 to 0.3 pips average | AU$100 | Up to 500:1 depending on entity and instrument |
| CMC Markets plc | Multi-Asset & Premium Brokers | 8.0 | EUR/USD averaging around 0.7 pips in independent live testing | None stated | Not listed |
| Tickmill Group | Raw Spread & ECN Brokers | 8.0 | From 0.0 pips, averaging close to 0.1 pips on EUR/USD | $100 | Up to 1:1000, entity dependent |
| Global Prime | Raw Spread & ECN Brokers | 8.0 | Not listed | $0 | Not listed |
Figures from each broker's standard retail account. Scores out of 10.
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Browse by broker type.
Low-cost brokers with raw spreads plus commission, built for active traders, scalpers and expert advisors.
Large, heavily regulated brokers where forex sits alongside shares, futures, options and bonds in one account.
Brokers with low minimum deposits, simple apps and solid education for people placing their first forex trades.
CFTC-registered and NFA-member brokers that legally accept retail forex clients in the United States.
Brokers whose main draw is copying other traders or investing in strategies run by signal providers.
FCA-regulated brokers offering tax-efficient forex spread betting accounts for UK residents.
Internationally focused brokers serving Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, often through offshore entities with high leverage.