Our Methodology

How we test, score and rank every ASIC-regulated forex broker on this site. 100+ data points per broker, 8 weighted criteria, live AUD accounts.

At a glance. 30 brokers in the testing pool. 100+ data points per broker. 8 weighted criteria. Live-account funding in AUD on the broker’s Australian ASIC entity. Reviewed by David Levy, Head of Content.

Summary

Every broker we cover gets the same treatment. Open a live account at the broker’s Australian ASIC-regulated entity. Fund it with AUD. Trade it with our own money. Record 100+ data points across spreads, execution, platforms, costs, customer service, market range, education and funding flow. Run the numbers through a fixed weighting model. Publish the rating with a date stamp.

The model has not changed materially since 2018, when we last rebalanced the weights. We change the inputs (spread tests, execution tests, customer service ping checks) every cycle. We do not change the weights mid-year because doing so would let us tilt the rankings, which is the thing this page exists to prevent.

The 8 weighted criteria

Each broker is scored 0 to 10 against eight criteria. The score is multiplied by the criterion weight. The weighted scores are summed and normalised to a 5-star rating for the front-end display.

Why these weights

Trading costs lead because they are the largest controllable variable in a retail trader’s P&L. Over a year of regular trading, the difference between a 1.0 pip and a 0.2 pip total cost on EUR/USD is the difference between profit and loss for many strategies.

Trust and regulation come second because the largest unrecoverable loss is broker insolvency, not trading loss. Twenty per cent of the score going to AFSL standing, AFCA membership, parent backing and enforcement history is deliberately heavy.

Trading experience and platforms each get 15% because they capture the day-to-day reality of trading. Slow execution and unreliable platforms cost real money on slippage and missed entries.

Customer service and the smaller-weight criteria (markets, education, funding) round out the score. They matter, but not as much as the top four.

Live-account testing process

Every broker gets a fresh AUD account opened from scratch by a member of the research team. We complete the application using real ID. We answer the appropriateness questions truthfully (which means we are categorised as retail clients, not wholesale, on every test account). We fund with AUD via bank transfer or PayID. We trade.

The testing window is 30 calendar days for the initial review, with monthly re-tests on the top 10 brokers and quarterly re-tests on the rest. Each test account is closed at the end of the cycle and the funds withdrawn back to our AU bank account. The withdrawal process is itself part of the test (see Funding criterion).

Inside the testing window, the account is used for:

• 24-hour spread monitoring on six major pairs (see the spread-testing section below)
• Execution-speed tests with two purpose-built MT4 EAs
• 30 manual trades across forex, indices, commodities and (where offered) share CFDs
• Three customer service queries during AU business hours, with response time logged
• One deposit and one withdrawal, with timing and fees recorded

Spread testing with IceFX SpreadMonitor

Spreads are the headline cost on most retail forex trades and the most comparable metric across brokers, so we measure them carefully.

Tool

We use IceFX SpreadMonitor running on MT4. SpreadMonitor records the live bid-ask spread tick-by-tick for the symbols you specify. The output is a CSV of every tick, from which we calculate minimum, maximum, mean and median spread for the testing window.

Symbols

Six majors: AUDUSD, EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, USDJPY. The Australian dollar pair leads because that’s the part of the curve our readers care about most. Some global brokers price AUDUSD competitively for their AU clients. Others widen it because it’s not their core flow. The test catches that.

Window

24 hours starting at 2 PM Brisbane time (AEST). That captures:

• The end of the New York session (low-liquidity drift)
• The Sydney open and Sydney session (the AU-relevant window)
• The Tokyo session (AUD/JPY-relevant)
• The London open and full London session (peak liquidity)
• The London/New York overlap (peak volume)

By covering all four major sessions we get a representative spread profile rather than a snapshot from one quiet hour.

Account types tested

For brokers offering multiple account types, we test both:

• Standard / commission-free account (e.g. Pepperstone Standard, IC Markets Standard, FP Markets Standard)
• RAW / ECN account (e.g. Pepperstone Razor, IC Markets Raw Spread, FP Markets Raw, Fusion Markets Zero)

The score combines spread and commission to produce a “true cost” metric. A 0.1 pip spread plus AUD 7 round-turn commission per standard lot converts to roughly 0.55 pips equivalent on a 0.65 AUDUSD rate. A 1.0 pip standard-account spread is, simply, 1.0 pip. RAW typically wins for active traders. Standard typically wins for occasional traders.

Execution-speed testing with MT4 EAs

Spread is half the picture. Execution speed is the other half. A 0.1 pip spread doesn’t help you if every market order slips 0.5 pips on fill.

We use two MT4 expert advisors:

ExTest_ForExpat

Open-source EA that fires a fixed sequence of market and limit orders at randomised intervals. Records:

• Order placement to fill time (ms)
• Slippage in pips between requested price and fill price
• Rejection rate
• Requote frequency (where the broker still uses requotes)

We run it on EURUSD and AUDUSD during peak London/NY overlap and during Sydney/Tokyo (lower volume) to capture both ends of the liquidity curve.

Broker Latency Tester EA

Our internal EA that pings the broker’s MT4 server every 30 seconds for 24 hours and records latency in ms. We strip out our test machine’s network latency to the broker’s data centre to make the results comparable across brokers (most ASIC brokers route to LD4 London or NY4 New York; some route to Equinix HK; CMC and IG operate proprietary infrastructure).

The output is a normalised execution-speed score that feeds the Trading Experience criterion.

Trust and regulation scoring

This criterion captures the hardest part of broker selection: the bit you can’t see in normal operation. The score breakdown:

• AFSL status (40%): Current AFSL with ASIC, no current suspension, conditions or enforceable undertakings. Verified on ASIC Connect at every test cycle.
• Years in operation under the current AFSL (20%): Brokers with 10+ years on the same AFSL score full marks. New entrants score lower until they build a track record.
• AFCA membership (10%): Confirmed current member of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority.
• Parent backing (15%): Listed parent (ASX, LSE, NASDAQ) or large privately held parent with audited financials scores higher than thinly-capitalised standalone entity.
• Enforcement history (15%): ASIC enforcement actions, surveillance warnings, court enforceable undertakings or fines in the last 36 months reduce the score.

Brokers with current ASIC enforcement actions are flagged in the review intro and may be removed from the comparison shortlist depending on severity.

Platform scoring

15% of the score, broken down across each platform a broker offers:

• MT4 (Pepperstone, IC Markets, FP Markets, Eightcap, Fusion Markets, Blueberry, ThinkMarkets, Axi, Vantage, Global Prime, ACY, GO Markets, Mitrade, FXCM, MultiBank, AvaTrade)
• MT5 (most of the above plus a handful of MT5-only brokers)
• cTrader (Pepperstone, IC Markets, FP Markets, Eightcap, Fusion Markets, Axi, Vantage, ACY)
• TradingView native integration (Pepperstone, OANDA, FP Markets, Eightcap, Vantage, Capital.com, Global Prime)
• Proprietary platforms (CMC Next Generation, IG web platform, Plus500 WebTrader, eToro app, Capital.com platform, easyMarkets, Trade Nation, Mitrade)

Each platform is scored on charting depth, order types, automation support, mobile parity and stability. The broker’s overall platform score is a weighted average of the platforms they offer, with extra credit for offering multiple platforms.

Customer service testing

Three test queries per testing cycle, sent during AU business hours (9 AM to 5 PM Melbourne time):

1. A simple admin query (e.g. “what’s the deadline for funding to qualify for tonight’s swap?”): measures response time and language quality
2. A technical platform query (e.g. “how do I set a guaranteed stop on Next Generation?”): measures technical accuracy
3. A regulatory query (e.g. “what’s your AFCA membership number?”): measures compliance literacy

Channels tested: live chat, email, phone where offered. Response time is the median across the three queries.

Range of markets

A flat count is misleading. A broker offering 10,000 micro-cap US stock CFDs is not “more diverse” than a broker offering 80 forex pairs and 200 well-chosen index/commodity CFDs.

We score the breadth across categories:

• Forex pairs (majors, minors, exotics)
• Indices (major and minor)
• Commodities (energy, metals, softs)
• Share CFDs (ASX, US, UK, EU, Asia)
• ETFs
• Treasuries / bonds
• Cryptocurrency CFDs

Brokers covering all seven categories with reasonable depth in each score full marks. Specialists score lower on this criterion but may make up the points on platform or trading costs.

Education and funding

Smaller-weight criteria but they matter for specific reader segments.

Education (5%): Demo account quality, in-platform training, webinars, written guides, and YouTube/video output. Beginner brokers (Plus500, eToro, easyMarkets, CMC) tend to score highest here.

Funding (5%): AUD deposit methods (bank transfer, PayID, BPay, Osko, debit card, Skrill, Neteller, PayPal where offered), withdrawal speed (same-day vs 1-3 business days), fees, and base currency support (AUD as a base currency is non-trivial for cost reasons).

Update cadence

Static facts are updated when they change. Live trading data follows a rolling schedule:

• Spreads: Monthly snapshot for the top 10 brokers. Quarterly for the long tail.
• Execution speed: Quarterly for all brokers in the shortlist.
• Customer service: Quarterly.
• Platform features: Within 30 days of a broker’s release.
• Pricing changes: Within 7 days of a broker’s PDS amendment.
• Full broker rating: Annual cycle, every broker re-rated from scratch.

The “Last updated” date at the top of each review is the actual date of the most recent edit. Reviews older than 12 months are flagged in the page header until the next full re-rate.

What we don’t do

A few methodological constraints worth being explicit about:

We don’t accept payment for placement. No “premium listing” tier exists.

We don’t rely on broker-supplied data. Spreads come from our SpreadMonitor logs. Execution comes from our EAs. AFSL details come from ASIC Connect. We use a broker’s PDS for pricing structure but verify the live numbers ourselves.

We don’t review brokers that don’t hold a current AFSL. Offshore-only brokers (Vanuatu, Seychelles, Saint Vincent) are excluded by design.

We don’t run a “best broker” award based on user voting. Reader testimonials are useful for sentiment but not for scoring. The rankings come from the methodology.

We don’t issue financial advice. Information on this site is general in nature and does not take your personal circumstances into account.