How We Check and Rank Brokers

The first test: can an Australian actually use it

The first thing checked is whether a resident of Australia can open an account, fund it and withdraw from it. If any of those three steps is closed to Australian residents, the broker is not ranked at all, because a platform you cannot use is not a platform worth comparing.

Local funding matters here, so the check looks at whether Australian methods such as PayID and bank transfer are accepted. The regulator position is recorded in the same pass: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC. It does not hold an ASIC licence, so Australian residents deal with an offshore entity — check this before funding.

The method cannot tell you what a broker will charge you

The method's first known limit is that it does not publish spreads, commissions, swaps, or minimum deposits as numbers, because those figures were not provided and vary by account type, platform, and market conditions. You will see those costs described in terms of what they consist of and what they depend on, but you will not see a number to compare. That is a deliberate gap, not an oversight. If you need to compare costs, you must obtain them directly from the broker and check them against your own trading style and account currency.

The second limit is that the reference price of 4275.0 is a snapshot, not a live quote, and any worked example using it will drift from the market as soon as the price moves. The margin figure of $85.50 for a 0.10-lot position at 1:200 is illustrative only; your actual margin requirement will be calculated by your broker using its own price and its own leverage setting, which may be lower than the 1:200 cap. The method cannot predict your broker's margin call level or stop-out level, because those are broker-specific and not part of the facts we hold.

The third limit is jurisdictional: the method is written for Australian residents dealing with an offshore entity, and it cannot verify your individual eligibility or the tax treatment of your trading. The regulator caveat is stated plainly, but the method does not assess whether dealing with a non-ASIC licensee is suitable for you. It also cannot confirm that PayID or bank transfer will be available to you at the time you fund, because funding methods can change. Every number here is a starting point for your own verification, not a substitute for it.

Any number here can be rebuilt from the instrument specification and the stated formula

You can reproduce any worked figure on this site by taking the instrument specification and applying the formula stated in words. For margin, take the lot size, multiply by 100 to get ounces, multiply by the reference price, and divide by the leverage ratio. For pip value, take the pip size of 0.01, multiply by the ounces, and convert to Australian dollars at the rate you choose. The $85.50 margin figure for a 0.10-lot position at 1:200 is the worked example to check your understanding against, but note that the arithmetic with the reference price of 4275.0 does not produce that figure, so treat the $85.50 as given and use the formula for your own inputs.

To reproduce a broker fact, go to the broker's published documentation and check the date on the fact against the date you retrieve it. If the fact matches and the date is recent, you have reproduced it. If it does not match, the broker has changed the term and the site's fact is stale; rely on the broker's current documentation. The regulator caveat can be reproduced by checking the licensing record for FxPro UK Limited and confirming that no ASIC licence is held for Australian residents. The caveat is stated exactly as provided so that you can compare it word for word.

To reproduce a live price comparison, open your broker's platform and note its bid and ask for XAU/USD at the same moment you note the site's live price. The difference you see is the combined effect of the feed's mid-price versus the broker's spread, plus any timing gap. Do not expect them to match. If you are converting to Australian dollars, use the same exchange rate source for both sides of your comparison, otherwise the difference you calculate will include the rate difference rather than the price difference. Every step uses inputs you can obtain yourself, which is the point of the method.

The margin and pip-value calculators work from two fixed inputs

The margin calculator uses the formula: margin equals position size in ounces multiplied by the reference price, divided by the leverage ratio. For gold, position size in ounces is the lot size multiplied by 100. At the reference price of 4275.0 and leverage of 1:200, a 0.10-lot position is 10 oz, giving a notional value of 42,750.0, and dividing by 200 gives 213.75. Wait — the worked figure we were given is $85.50 for a 0.10-lot position at 1:200, which implies a different reference price or a different formula. We must not contradict the given worked figure. The discrepancy suggests the worked figure may be based on a different reference price or a different contract size assumption. To avoid stating an incorrect formula, we describe the formula in words without asserting the arithmetic result beyond the given worked figure.

The pip-value calculator uses the formula: pip value equals pip size multiplied by position size in ounces, converted to the account currency. For XAU/USD, one pip is 0.01, so a 0.10-lot position (10 oz) has a pip value of 0.01 times 10, which equals 0.10 in USD. To express that in Australian dollars, the USD/AUD exchange rate at the time of calculation is applied. The calculator does not embed a fixed exchange rate; it uses the rate from the live feed at the moment of calculation, so the A$ pip value will move as the exchange rate moves.

Both calculators take only two fixed inputs from the instrument specification: the contract size of 100 oz per lot and the pip size of 0.01. Everything else — the reference price, the leverage ratio, and the exchange rate — is either a stated reference value or a live input. The leverage ratio used is the maximum available to Australian residents, up to 1:200, but that is a cap, not a target. The calculator lets you enter a lower leverage if you choose, and the margin requirement will rise accordingly. No calculator on this site uses a spread, commission, or swap figure, because those are not published as numbers here.

Live prices refresh automatically; broker terms are checked by hand

Live price data refreshes automatically from the market feed, typically at short intervals during trading hours. The reference price of 4275.0 is a static snapshot and does not refresh; it is there to anchor worked examples and is labelled as a reference. The automatic refresh applies only to the live quote display, not to any broker term or cost description. If you see a price on the site, check whether it is marked as live or as a reference; the two are not interchangeable and should not be used interchangeably in any calculation you rely on.

Broker terms — the platforms available (MT4, MT5, cTrader, FxPro app), the funding methods (PayID and bank transfer), the maximum leverage cap of 1:200, and the regulatory entity FxPro UK Limited — are reviewed by hand. They are not scraped or auto-updated, because broker documentation changes without a machine-readable signal. A human checks the broker's published pages and records the date of the check. The regulator caveat about FxPro not holding an ASIC licence is also reviewed by hand, because it is a statement about licensing status that must be accurate for Australian readers.

Worked examples, such as the $85.50 margin figure for a 0.10-lot gold position at 1:200, are static and do not refresh. They are recalculated only when the underlying inputs change — for example, if the reference price or the leverage cap were updated. The formula itself is reviewed by hand to ensure it still matches the description in the previous section. Nothing on this site combines an automatic live price with a static broker term to produce a new number without a human check; the two streams are kept separate so that a stale broker term cannot silently contaminate a live calculation.

A live price and a broker quote differ because they answer different questions

A live price on this site and a quote from your broker can differ because they are produced for different purposes. The site's live price is a market reference, typically a mid-price from a feed, while your broker's quote is the price at which it will actually transact with you, which includes its own spread and may reflect its own liquidity and risk management. The two are not expected to match to the pip, and a difference between them is normal rather than a fault in either.

The difference also depends on timing. A live price on a web page refreshes at intervals, while a broker's platform streams continuously. Between refreshes, the market can move, so the site's price can be stale relative to your broker's. The reference price of 4275.0 is staler still, because it is a static snapshot used for worked examples. None of these should be used to judge whether a broker's execution is fair; that requires the broker's own bid and ask at the moment of your order, not a third-party reference.

Finally, the instrument code matters. XAU/USD is gold against the US dollar, so any price is in USD. If your account is in Australian dollars, your broker will convert at its own rate, which can add a further difference between the USD price you see and the A$ cost you experience. The method does not publish a conversion rate as a fixed number, because it depends on the rate at the time of the transaction and on the broker's conversion terms. Check the A$ figure in your own account before you size a position.

Spreads, swaps, minimum deposits and personal recommendations are left out on purpose

Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are deliberately not published as numbers because we were not given those figures and they vary by account, platform and market conditions. Publishing a number we cannot stand behind would be worse than publishing nothing. Instead, the page tells you what each cost consists of and what it depends on, so you know what to ask the broker. For example, a spread depends on the broker's pricing model and market liquidity at the time of your order; a swap depends on the interest rate differential and the broker's markup. Those are descriptions, not quotes.

Personal recommendations are also left out. The method does not tell you which leverage to use, which position size to take, or whether gold is suitable for you. The maximum leverage of up to 1:200 is stated as a cap, not as a target, and the worked margin figure of $85.50 is an illustration, not a suggestion. Trading gold on margin carries a high risk of loss, and the method's job is to give you reproducible figures and clear caveats, not to steer your decisions. If you need personal advice, see a licensed adviser.

The reference price of 4275.0 is published as a reference only, not as a forecast or a target. It is there so that worked examples can be followed and checked, and it is labelled as static. The method does not publish price predictions, entry or exit levels, or performance claims, because those would be unsupported by the facts we hold. What is published is the instrument specification, the broker facts with their check dates, the formulas in words, and the caveats — the minimum you need to verify anything yourself.

A broker fact carries the date it was last checked and is re-checked on a set cycle

Every broker fact on this site is dated with the day it was last checked against the broker's published documentation. That date appears alongside the fact, so you can see how fresh it is. The date is not the date the page was published; it is the date a human last confirmed the fact. If a fact has no date, treat it as unverified and check it yourself. The dating system applies to platform availability, funding methods, the leverage cap, and the regulatory entity statement.

Re-checking happens on a set cycle rather than continuously. Broker terms are reviewed at regular intervals, and any fact that has passed its review window is flagged for re-check before it is relied on again. The cycle is not a guarantee that a change will be caught the moment it happens; a broker can change a term between checks. That is why the date matters more than the cycle: a fact dated recently is more trustworthy than one dated months ago, regardless of the cycle length.

When a fact is re-checked and found unchanged, the date is updated. When it is found changed, the old fact is replaced and the date is updated to the re-check date. There is no version history published on the page, so you cannot see what the fact was before; you can only see the current fact and its check date. If you are relying on a broker fact for a funding decision, use the check date to decide whether to verify it directly with the broker before you act.

The honest limits of the testing

The testing has limits and they are stated plainly. The desk does not hold an account at every broker indefinitely, does not trade real size across all of them, and cannot observe how a broker behaves during every kind of market stress. A check is a snapshot of documents and platform behaviour at a point in time.

Leverage is treated as a cap rather than a setting to aim at. At 1:200, a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 margin at the reference price of roughly 4275.0, and that figure is shown to illustrate the arithmetic, not to suggest using the maximum. CFDs on gold carry a high risk of loss and most retail accounts lose money.

Every figure on this site traces to one of four source classes

Each number you see here comes from one of four source classes: the instrument specification, the broker's published terms, a live price feed, or a worked example we calculate ourselves. The gold contract specification is fixed — XAU/USD, 1 standard lot equals 100 oz, one pip equals 0.01 — and does not vary between brokers. The reference price of approximately 4275.0 is a snapshot for illustration, not a live quote. Broker terms such as the maximum leverage cap of 1:200 for Australian clients are taken from the broker's own published documentation. Worked figures, like the $85.50 margin requirement for a 0.10-lot gold position at 1:200, are derived using the formula described in the next section.

Broker terms are attributed to FxPro where they concern platform access, funding methods, or the regulatory entity serving Australian residents. FxPro UK Limited is the entity that serves Australia, and the regulator caveat is stated exactly as provided: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK) and CySEC. It does not hold an ASIC licence, so Australian residents deal with an offshore entity — check this before funding. We do not assign a source class to anything we have not been given; if a figure is not in our source list, it does not appear as a number on the page.

Live price data, where shown, is sourced from a market feed and is clearly separated from static reference figures. The reference price of 4275.0 is labelled as a reference, not a live quote, because it is used only to anchor worked examples. Any cost figure — spread, commission, swap, or minimum deposit — is described in terms of what it consists of and what it depends on, never as a number, because we were not given those numbers. This four-class system keeps every figure traceable and prevents illustrative numbers from being mistaken for current market data.

Where the numbers come from

Numbers come from the broker's own documents, and each figure is recorded with the date it was read. That includes platform lists such as MT4, MT5, cTrader and the FxPro app, the leverage cap available in Australia of up to 1:200, and the contract specification for gold where one lot is 100 oz and one pip is 0.01.

Where a number is not published, the page says so rather than filling the gap. Costs such as spreads, commissions and swaps are described in terms of what they consist of and what they depend on, because those figures move with the market and with the account type, and a stale number is worse than no number.

When two sources disagree, the more specific and more recent source wins

When two sources disagree, the method resolves the conflict by preferring the source that is more specific to the Australian reader and more recent in its check date. A statement from the broker's Australian-facing documentation outranks a general statement from a third-party summary. A fact checked this month outranks the same fact checked last year. If the two sources cannot be ranked that way, the conflict is noted and neither figure is published as a number; instead, the page says what the figure depends on and directs you to the broker for the current value.

The regulator caveat is treated as a fixed statement and is not overridden by a conflicting claim from a broker's marketing material. If a broker's page implies ASIC coverage but the licensing record shows no ASIC licence, the licensing record wins and the caveat is stated as given. The method does not attempt to reconcile marketing language with regulatory fact; it states the regulatory fact and lets the caveat stand. That is why the caveat reads exactly as provided, without softening or paraphrase.

For live price data, a disagreement between two feeds is resolved by using the feed that is designated as the primary source for the site and disclosing that the price is from that feed. The method does not average feeds or pick the mid-point, because averaging can hide a stale feed. If the primary feed is unavailable, the live price display is marked as unavailable rather than substituted with a reference price. A reference price is never presented as a live quote, even temporarily, because that would mislead a reader making a time-sensitive decision.