Review Process

FXEmpire Broker Review Process

At FXEmpire, we’ve been at the forefront of reviewing forex and CFD brokers since 2011, bringing you unparalleled expertise and insights. Over the years, we’ve reviewed more than 300 brokers worldwide, cementing our reputation as a comprehensive and reliable source in the industry.

📊 Data-Driven Reviews: By analyzing brokers across 250 variables, we minimize bias and deliver more reliable evaluations—anchored in measurable metrics across key areas.

🙌 Hands-On Testing: We don’t just analyze numbers—we trade, test, and explore brokers from the inside. Our team actively uses each platform, placing trades and interacting with broker services to experience what real users do.

🤼 Real Benchmarks: With years of industry experience and a massive broker database, we know the forex and CFD space inside out. This allows us to benchmark brokers against both their competitors and industry standards.

🧑‍🏫For Traders, By Traders: Our team is made up of seasoned forex and CFD experts who’ve learned from real trading—both wins and losses. Their hands-on experience fuels practical tips, helping you trade with greater confidence.

⚖️ Editorial Integrity: We uphold complete editorial independence, ensuring our expert reviews remain unbiased, fact-checked, and free from external influence—so you get honest, trustworthy insights every time.

As FXEmpire is free for everyone, you can learn more about how we make money.

Our Team

The FXEmpire team of forex and CFD broker analysts is made up of trading professionals and seasoned financial journalists with extensive experience in both trading and broker reviews. Our experts have been featured on top financial outlets, including Investopedia, Forbes, and Nasdaq.

Meet the experts behind FXEmpire broker reviews and guides.

Dan Blystone

Dan began his career in the trading industry in 1998 on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Later Dan gained insight into the forex industry during his time as a Series 3 licenced futures and forex broker. He also traded at a couple of different prop trading firms in Chicago. Dan is well-equipped to recommend the best forex brokers due to his extensive experience and understanding of the brokerage industry.

Jitan Solanki

Jitan is a professional trader, market analyst, and educator. He day trades major currency and index markets and focuses on swing trading US equities and commodities. A qualified Market Technician, Jitan also works with trader education and brokerage companies on various projects. These include market analysis, live trading events, and broker reviews. As a seasoned trader and educator, Jitan brings all his experience into action when reviewing and recommending brokers.

Plamen Stoyanov

Having been a retail trader since 2013, Plamen has gained an in-depth understanding of the challenges that novice traders face today. His expertise is swing trading and day trading with a heavy emphasis on psychological and fundamental analysis. Plamen’s favorite trading instruments include FX majors and gold. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and International Relations. Plamen’s broad experience has equipped him with the expertise to review and recommend forex brokers.

Vladimir Zernov

In more than 15 years of trading in the financial markets, Vladimir dealt with a wide range of brokers and financial instruments. His career as a day trader at a proprietary trading firm goes back to 2007. Later, Vladimir turned to longer time frames and became an independent trader and analyst managing his portfolio. Using his experience, he helps traders find the best broker in his reviews.

Review Methodology

How We Test Brokers

The table below breaks down the criteria we assess in our broker reviews and their weight in our final ratings:

FXEmpire Best Brokers Guides

FXEmpire’s broker guides are expert-curated selections of the best forex brokers for each year, built on in-depth, transparent testing and comprehensive data analysis. 

These guides are designed to help traders quickly identify brokers that best match their specific trading goals, preferences, and experience level.

Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses

Using our vast knowledge and data, we define each broker’s strengths and weaknesses and create the best broker guides following traders’ needs and requirements.

Expert Selection Process

Our team of experts carefully selects the brokers that stand out in the specific categories and offer the most convenient trading conditions in specific regions or for various types and levels of traders. Rest assured that all the brokers listed on our best pages are among the top performers in our tests.

Organized by Region, Features, Experience, and More

To ensure accuracy and relevance, we arrange the best brokers’ guides by countries, trading features, and traders’ experience, wrapping up our findings and conducting additional research when needed.

Transparent and Reliable Recommendations

Our guides not only recommend the best brokers but also explain why we chose them for the specific best list and how they became the winner in a particular category. We strive to provide you with the most comprehensive and reliable information and help you make informed decisions about your trading.

See all our best brokers guides.

FXEmpire Online Stock Brokers Reviews

Choosing a stock broker is a big deal. At FXEmpire, we understand that you are rightfully concerned with who you trust to hold your money and investments. The fees and expenses charged by your broker could make-or-break a profitable trade or investment. That’s why we take editorial reviews seriously. We know you count on them.

Here are the most important criteria we look at when reviewing an online stock broker and some of the steps we take to ensure reviews are objective and helpful to our readers.

Editorial Independence

Editorial independence is critical in an objective review process and remains a key element in ensuring you get a positive, well-rounded experience. To ensure you get an honest opinion, the reviewers are completely independent of the FXEmpire team responsible for sponsor relationships and sales.

Review Process

In order to provide you with the most critical information, FXEmpire reviewers and editors created a list of core evaluation categories relevant to the majority of traders and investors.

For each category, the independent reviewer finds information on broker websites and publications. Brokers are asked to complete a form listing important details about platform, pricing, product offerings and additional features which is used in completing reviews when available.

Each broker is given a numeric score based on the evaluation categories as well as a written review focusing on the most important factors for beginner, intermediate, and expert investors and traders. Reviews assume you are familiar with basic investing terms and the risks involved.

Evaluation Categories

The numeric scores that brokers receive in this category is based on how well the broker compares to others in its peer group. Editorial content is focused on the widest range of needs with comments aimed at both beginners and experts.

Costs and Fees

Costs and fees are one of the most important parts of your broker experience. With a growing group of brokers that charge no fees, as well as market-leading discount brokers, consumers have shown with their dollars that this is what they care about most.

We agree and factor in the costs of stock, ETF, bond, mutual fund, and options trades, as well as other securities,  offered. Brokers that offer flexible pricing catering to different needs earned extra credit.

Types of Accounts

The winners here serve users an array of account types including individual, joint, retirement, and business accounts. Some brokers do well in other categories but only offer a few types of accounts. In that case, they wouldn’t score well here.

You may not need all types of accounts, but we like it when a brokerage gives you the ability to handle all of your investment accounts under one roof with one online login and one place to call for help.

Tradable Securities

Investing doesn’t mean just stocks. The best brokers in this category offer more than the typical stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, and options. Those are all expected, and brokers that offer less than this list don’t score as well. Adding things like futures, cryptocurrencies, and of course, foreign exchange, help a broker earn top marks.

Account Opening

Opening a new investment account should be less painful than a trip to the dentist – sorry dentists. We looked into the account opening process and tested many of them ourselves. If you can easily and quickly open an account yourself online without jumping through additional hoops, a brokerage earns the best score. Offering in-person locations also helps. Requiring additional paperwork or forms in the mail, on the other hand, is a negative factor.

Trading Platforms

Active traders should look here first. Trading platforms are an important part of the experience for expert and active traders, while passive investors may not care at all about what a brokerage offers here. The best brokerages in this category offer desktop platforms with fast in-app trading, flexible windowed environments, lots of chart options, and the information you need at your fingertips. A lack of desktop or mobile app hurts scores here, as does a lack of support for popular operating systems like the Mac.

When possible, the reviewer downloads and tests both desktop and online platforms during the review process.

Order Types

Every brokerage should offer market, limit, and stop orders. That’s the baseline for “average” brokerages. A small group offers a shorter list than this and earned low scores. The ability to offer complex trades and multi-leg options trades leads to the highest scores.

Banking

Not all brokers offer bank accounts, but it is a growing trend and for good reason. Having your bank at the same place as your broker is convenient and makes transferring funds lightning fast. If a brokerage offers banking, high scores are earned by accounts with low fees and competitive interest rates. If no bank accounts are offered, the broker earns a score of zero here.

Customer Support

Hopefully, your account hums along without any hiccups. On occasion, however, even investors with simple needs may need to call customer service. To get the best score, brokerages should offer 24/7 customer support online and by phone. A footprint of physical branches in large cities helps earn a perfect 10.

Limited hours or weekday-only hours customer service is negative for scores. Difficulty finding a customer service phone number, contact form, or online chat is poor for customer experiences and scores in this category.

Bonus and Promotions

Not all brokers offer a bonus or promotion, but it sweetens the deal when one is available. The best scores came from brokerages that offered something useful to the majority of people signing up. If only ultra-wealthy customers would qualify, the bonus gets a low score. No bonus or promotion leads to a zero score.

Regulations, Reputation, and Security

We expect financial institutions to uphold a high level of security and ethics while adhering to government regulations. Most brokers earn a 10 here. A history of security incidents, conflicts with regulators, or major fines lowers scores.

Research and Education

Both new and expert traders and investors can level up their skills. The best scores in this category come from a suite of education and research resources. For education, we look for courses, webinars, live events, videos, and articles that help users learn more about earning more and losing less.

For research, the most important factors are access to a wide breadth of timely information. That can include streaming prices, live charting, and news streams inside of trading platforms. Access to more reports from more sources helps scores while less information pulls scores lower.

Trading Experience

We don’t give brokers a score in this category, as there is no right or wrong. In the editorial reviews, we use this section to explain why a brokerage is good for beginners, experts, or both.

See all our stock broker reviews.

Review Team and Updates

Reviews are compiled by a team of writers and editors spread around the world. The primary reviewers for each US brokerage is located in the United States and have tried many of these brokerages themselves for personal use in addition to review purposes.

Reviewers include Eric Rosenberg, a former bank manager with two finance degrees and more than ten years of writing about money online. The main office for FXEmpire is located in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Reviews are dated based on the time they were created. We work to ensure reviews stay up-to-date and note the last update date on the review’s page on FXEmpire.

We Are Investors Like You

The entire FXEmpire team is passionate about finance. Our reviewers, editors, and production team are all investors ourselves with our own accounts. We apply this passion, experience, and insight into every single review to bring you the best possible experience.

We hope every trader and investor that passes by FXEmpire goes on to reach success in the financial markets. We are honored to be a part of your journey.