Our Methodology

Our goal is to help you find the right online broker by bringing clarity to the process. Everything you find on BrokerChooser is based on reliable data and unbiased information. We are proud to share with you how our 10+ years of experience in finance, combined with readers’ feedback, create the foundation of your BrokerChooser experience. We revise our methodology regularly, fine-tuning all our criteria to be able to perfectly evaluate any broker service.

Close to 500 criteria per broker

We evaluate the same 9 key areas and criteria for all brokers. Every year, we fine-tune our methodology based on our own and our users’ experiences. At the moment, we check 497 criteria for each broker, as detailed in the following table:

**BrokerChooser methodology – number of criteria**
Area	Criteria
Fees	289
Security	33
Deposit and withdrawal	11
Trading platforms	43
Account opening	15
Product portfolio	62
Customer service	12
Education	6
Research	9
+1 General information*	17

*Covers areas like country of origin, which is not included in the scoring.

During the course of 2021, we added new reviews to BrokerChooser while also keeping our older ones up to date. This means that we edited close to 100 brokers and more than 40,000 data points overall.

In addition to the above criteria, we also have a database that collects which countries each broker accepts clients from. We capture this data for 227 countries and territories.

We also started to experiment with automation and scraping, adding thousands of new data points to our ever-expanding methodology.

Anonymous checks with live account

Everything in our reviews is based on first-hand experience: we open a live account at each broker and deposit real money. The broker does not know we are testing. During the test, we check the broker’s services along the criteria laid down in our methodology and note our experiences.

Final scores

After we checked the criteria for the brokers, we convert the findings into scores, using different weights. The weighting of these criteria is based on our professional experience and our readers’ preferences, to make sure that the final score truly reflects what clients are looking for or what areas matter to them.

At the end of each year, we update the scoring weights. In the table below, you can see how the ranking of weights changed for 2022, which areas moved up or down in importance.

BrokerChooser methodology – ranking of weights*
Area	Ranking – 2022	Ranking – 2021
Fees	#1	#1
Security	#2	#2
Deposit and withdrawal	#3	#3
Trading platforms	#3	#4
Account opening	#4	#3
Product portfolio	#5	#5
Customer service	#6	#7
Education	#7	#8
Research	#7	#6

The 9 key areas

1. Fees

We gather information on fees straight from the brokers’ sites. We check all fees that occur for every asset class, that is, for stocks, forex, funds and so on. We uncover hidden costs and dig deep into both trading and non-trading fees. To find your real costs we calculate fees for buying a position, holding it for one week, and selling it. Also, we collect data automatically for certain fee data points, to be up to date.

2. Security

This is about mapping the brokers’ legal landscape, making sure who regulates which entity, the investor protection you get, and the history and background of the broker. This is vital for the security of your investment, therefore this area is weighted properly.

3. Deposit and withdrawal

We deposit and withdraw real funds to test how the process works. The methods, costs, and time required to deposit and withdraw money are of special interest to readers. All of these aspects are weighted. For example, a broker that allows the use of credit cards for free is scored higher than one where only wire transfer is available, which usually carries a charge.

4. Trading platforms

Your trading comfort is affected significantly by the type of platform you use. This can be a mobile platform, a platform dedicated to PC-s (this is what we call desktop platforms), or a browser-based web platform. Each trading platform is tested by us, focusing on general user experience, as well as on specific features like placing orders, authentication options, and customizability.

5. Account opening

We dedicate the time to open real accounts at brokers. There are times when the list of required documents can be unclear for an everyday user. Apart from this, we compile information on several aspects of account opening, like the ease of the process itself, what account types are offered and the minimum deposit required.

6. Product portfolio

Brokers are scored based on the number of markets they have available for you and the product selection they provide. A broker that has more product types will get a higher score than a broker that only offers CFDs, for example.

7. Customer service

Each customer support channel is tested personally by BrokerChooser team members. The customer service scores of each broker are based on 8 meaningful interactions with their support staff, trying all their available channels, be it live chat, email or phone.

8. Education

Well-structured and quality educational content can help you to be more comfortable with the brokers’ platform, or trading itself. Brokers with useful, information-packed education tools earn higher ratings. These tools include webinars, videos, podcasts, articles, you name it.

9. Research

Higher costs can be justified by a range of in-depth, unique and useful research tools. These allow you to get information on market sentiment, trends, tickers and companies. We look at all of the research tools the broker provides.

We are eager to hear your feedback! Let us know if you have questions or remarks about our methodology. Thanks!

Frequently Asked Questions

How much time is spent on each broker?

Even though we have a sophisticated methodology and we know exactly what we want to check, it takes one to one-and-a-half weeks to research and write each of the reviews you see on BrokerChooser. Imagine the amount of work and time we save you! If you were to spend just two hours on each broker it would still take you a full week just to collect all the raw information on all the brokers we cover.

How many people are working on this?

Our team includes 29 full-time and 17 part-time members.

How often do you refresh the data?

We update our content throughout the year continuously. We keep tabs on all of the brokers during the year, so we can incorporate any changes as soon as possible. If needed, we hold annual sessions to focus on improving our content in any way that comes to mind.

Do you treat brokers who pay more differently?

No, and we never did. Actually, we don’t get any revenue from about half of our reviewed brokers. And the brokers we do get revenue from are not necessarily the ones we recommend to our readers most of the time. This is because we focus on our customers and provide an unbiased opinion on which is the best broker for their specific preferences.