Methodology · v3 · Updated September 2026
How We Rank Brokers
Our scoring, data sources, update cadence and limitations — in one place. Every weight and point rule is published, and every licence we count can be looked up on a public register.
On this page
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Editor: Kyrylo Vasyliev
BrokerFit is a data-driven comparison service. We do not provide investment advice and we are not a broker. Our job is to aggregate publicly available data about online brokers, normalize it, and present it so a retail investor can compare like-for-like.
This page documents exactly how we score brokers, which sources we use, how often the data is refreshed, and where our methodology has limitations. If you spot an error, please contact us — corrections are published publicly.
Our scoring methodology is structurally independent of our business model. We earn affiliate commission on some brokers — see our affiliate disclosure. The rubric below is applied identically to all brokers in our database. You can verify this yourself: read the rubric, look up any broker's filings, score them, compare to our score. Same inputs → same output.
Scoring Framework#
Each broker gets one number: the Trust Score, from 0 to 100. It adds up five checks on how well client money is protected, and each check has a fixed maximum — the bar shows how the 100 points are split.
Fees, deposits and withdrawals, instruments, platforms and country availability are not part of the score. Broker pages show them in full, and comparison pages put two brokers side by side and count who comes out ahead in each category — the rules for both are in the table below.
Trust Score (0-100) — see the detailed scoring methodology →Update Cadence#
Data Sources#
Every data point is traceable. We prefer primary public registers over broker marketing pages.
Limitations#
We do not have insider access to brokers. Some data (execution quality, support response time) comes from documented public reports and cannot cover every scenario. Scores are a decision-support tool, not financial advice. Regulation can change without notice — always verify a broker's current license on the regulator's website before depositing.
Affiliate Disclosure#
Affiliate Disclosure
Corrections & Feedback#
Found an outdated fee, a wrong license number, or a broker restriction that's changed? Email us and we will investigate. Verified corrections are rolled out within 7 days and the change log is visible in the page's footer.
How points and wins are counted
The same rules apply to every broker, partner or not. First the Trust Score: the maximum for each check and how its points are earned. Then comparison pages: how a side-by-side decides who wins each category.
Trust Score points
| Check | Maximum | How points are earned |
|---|---|---|
| Regulation & Licensing | 40 | 15 points for each licence from FCA, SEC, CySEC, MiFID, BaFin, ASIC, KNF, NFA, up to the maximum. Licences from other regulators add nothing, and sanctions or fines take nothing away. |
| Investor Compensation Scheme | 15 | All of it if clients are covered by a statutory investor-compensation scheme, whatever the limit; nothing otherwise. |
| Client Fund Segregation | 15 | All of it if client money is held in segregated accounts; nothing otherwise. |
| Years in Business | 20 | 2 points for each year since the company was founded, so the maximum is reached after 10 years. |
| Transparency | 10 | All of it if the broker or its parent company is listed on a stock exchange; 3 points otherwise. |
Comparison pages: who wins each category
A comparison counts category wins — it is not a second score, and the Trust Score is not one of its categories.
- Minimum deposit: the lower minimum wins, and no minimum beats any. Minimums in two different currencies count as a tie.
- Fees: each fee line is compared, and the broker that is cheaper on more lines wins. Deposit and withdrawal fees are compared only when both are flat, unconditional and in the same currency.
- Instruments: more instrument types wins.
- Platforms: more trading platforms wins.
- Regulation: more regulators in the top tier wins. The tiers are listed below.
- Trustpilot: the higher rating wins only when the gap is at least 0.4 and both brokers have 50 or more reviews. Otherwise — or if Trustpilot has removed a rating — it is a tie.
- Demo account: an unlimited demo beats a time-limited one; between two time limits, the longer wins.
- Withdrawal speed: the faster typical bank withdrawal wins.
- Base currencies: more account base currencies wins.
Regulator tiers. Tier 1: FCA, SEC, NFA, ASIC, BaFin, CIRO, SFC, MAS. Tier 2: CySEC, KNF, CBI, MiFID II. Tier 3: AIFC, FSA Seychelles. A regulator not listed here has no tier. Tiers only decide the regulation category on comparison pages; they do not change the Trust Score.
Where our data comes from and when we last checked
Independence requires fresh data. We refresh each source on a schedule. If you see something outdated, email us — we update faster on reader feedback.
| Source | Refresh frequency | Last refreshed | Next planned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regulator filings (CySEC, FCA, BaFin) | Quarterly | 2026-09-17 | 2026-12-18 |
| Broker fee schedules | Quarterly | 2026-10-10 | 2027-01-10 |
| Trustpilot ratings | Quarterly | 2026-10-19 | 2027-01-19 |
| Country access matrix (availability status) | Quarterly (manual broker-support verification) | 2026-04-20 | 2026-07-21 |
What we don't measure
Trust requires us to be clear about our limits. We don't measure these things:
- —Order execution quality — we don't have access to Level 2 market data to verify slippage in real time.
- —Local-language support quality — we don't run mystery-shopper tests across 7 languages.
- —Tax outcomes for your specific situation — we summarise treaty rates, but personal tax planning needs a CPA.
- —Whether you'll like the trading platform UI subjectively — that's a free-trial decision.
Read this methodology applied
We score brokers identically — here's how it looks in practice:
How this methodology has evolved
- 2026-09Rewrote this page to describe the score we actually calculate. The six weighted criteria and the 1–5 rubric shown here before were never used to calculate any number on the site, so they are gone; the Trust Score weights, point rules and regulator tiers are now printed straight from the scoring code. An earlier entry dated February 2026, which said regulator tiers were weighted in the score, is withdrawn: tiers only decide the regulation category on comparison pages. The fixed line at 72 on comparison pages is now called a reference line — it had been labelled an industry median, which it never was.
- 2026-05Added explicit scoring rubric per criterion (1/3/5 examples).
- 2026-04Added Trustpilot ratings, copied by hand from Trustpilot with the date of the check and re-checked quarterly.