Broker scoring
Every broker profile carries an overall score out of ten, the average of six category scores held in the shared research database and assessed from regulators' registers and the broker's published terms.
- Regulation and safety: which authorities license the entities, client money segregation, negative balance protection, compensation schemes, and the group's history.
- Trading costs: typical spreads, commissions, swaps, and the fees around funding and inactivity.
- Platforms: the platforms offered, their completeness on desktop, web and mobile, and support for automation.
- Markets: the range of pairs and other instruments and the conditions on them.
- Support: hours, channels, languages and responsiveness.
- Education: the depth and honesty of the broker's own educational material.
Prop-firm scoring
Prop firms are scored on nine factors, each 0 to 100, weighted as follows and combined into a score out of 100. Transparency and payouts carry the most weight because a firm that does not pay makes every other factor irrelevant.
- Company transparency, 20 percent: named entity and people, years in operation, published terms, public payout record.
- Drawdown, 14 percent: static versus trailing, balance versus equity, generosity of limits, consistency between evaluation and funded stages.
- Payouts, 14 percent: frequency, minimums, caps, review time, fee refund, track record.
- Trading rules, 12 percent: clarity and stability of rules on news, weekends, automation, consistency and trading days.
- Challenge cost, 10 percent: fee per 10,000 dollars of account, discounts, resets.
- Profit split, 10 percent: starting split and the path to a higher one.
- Profit targets, 8 percent: the target relative to the maximum loss.
- Platforms, 6 percent: choice and quality of platforms.
- Markets, 6 percent: instruments available.
Rankings and comparisons
Every ranking page states its rule in words, filter and sort, so the order can be checked against the numbers beside it. Comparisons derive their tables from the same records. Neither is influenced by commercial relationships.