The rubric behind every score we publish

Evidence hierarchy

1. Regulator registers and official public notices.
2. Binding platform documents: client agreement, execution policy, fee schedule.
3. Platform product pages and published swap or margin tables.
4. Observable platform behaviour recorded by us with timestamps.
5. Third-party reporting, used only for context and always attributed.

Marketing copy sits outside this hierarchy. It tells us what a platform wishes to emphasise, which is a useful signal about priorities and never a source of fact.

Five scored categories

• Fee documentation clarity — is total round-trip cost derivable from published material without contacting support?
• Platform usability — order-ticket design, cross-device parity, risk-tool availability.
• Educational resources — depth, independence from promotion, presence of risk framing.
• Regulatory transparency — entity names, licence numbers, jurisdictional differences stated plainly.
• Withdrawal information detail — timelines in days, fees, and verification requirements published up front.

The cost-logging protocol

Advertised spreads are minimums. To convert them into something usable we log quoted spreads on three instruments at four fixed times per day — Asian session, London open, London/New York overlap, and post-New-York — for ten trading days. The median, not the minimum, enters our analysis. The arithmetic behind this is explained in how spreads and commissions really work.

Bias controls

• The rubric is written before a platform is examined, never adjusted to fit findings.
• Two contributors score independently; differences greater than one point are re-examined.
• No score is changed after publication without a dated correction note.
• No commercial relationship exists with any platform we cover.

Update triggers

A platform page is re-examined when its fee schedule changes, when a regulator publishes a notice about a named entity, when leverage or margin terms change, or quarterly by default — whichever comes first.

Limitations statement

Our findings describe documentation, not outcomes. Nothing in this methodology can predict whether an individual trader profits, and the published evidence remains clear that most retail accounts trading leveraged products lose money. Read risk management and position sizing before drawing conclusions from any platform score, ours included.