Guides

Every guide here explains one mechanism a decision depends on, written so it can be checked rather than taken on trust: how a broker is licensed and how to confirm that on a regulator's own register, what a trade really costs once commission is converted into pips, how a prop firm measures drawdown, and how an exchange fee changes with the order type.

They are written to sit beside the review pages rather than to replace them. A review tells you what one platform does; a guide tells you which of those facts actually matter and why two numbers that look comparable are not. If you are choosing a first broker, start with how to choose one and how to verify its licence. If you are comparing costs, start with spreads and commissions. If you are considering a funded account, start with the drawdown rules, because that is what ends most attempts.

What you will not find is a signal, a prediction or a ranking that changes when a commission does. Each guide is updated when the facts move rather than rewritten for the season, and where something could not be verified it says so instead of filling the gap with something plausible.

Every guide carries the date its facts were last checked, and corrections are the fastest thing this site publishes. If a figure in one of them is wrong — a licence number that has moved, a fee that has changed, a rule a firm has rewritten — send the page and the source and it gets fixed, whether the correction flatters the platform or not.

Three questions shape all of them, because they are the three that decide whether a platform is right for you rather than merely popular: who is legally responsible for your money, what the whole thing costs once every component is converted into the same unit, and what happens on the day you want to take your money out.