Research Methodology

Inputs we use

• Financial research literature and established market-structure principles.
• Publicly available information published by or about the platforms we discuss.
• General industry data on execution models, cost structures and instrument classes.
• Market analysis of conditions such as liquidity, volatility and session behaviour.
• Comparison principles applied consistently across every platform page.
• Risk-awareness education drawn from widely accepted practice.

The six evaluation criteria

1. Execution — order types, routing model and behaviour under stress.
2. Instruments — which markets are described as available, and their specifications.
3. Costs — spreads, commissions, financing, conversion and administrative charges.
4. Tooling — charting depth, analytics, alerts and mobile parity.
5. Risk controls — stop types, margin visibility and exposure reporting.
6. Transparency — how clearly and completely information is published.

These criteria are descriptive. They produce a structured explanation, not a score. You can see them applied in our gmTrade.ai review.

What we deliberately do not do

• We do not assign numeric ratings or star scores to any provider.
• We do not claim to have verified regulatory status, licensing or corporate structure.
• We do not publish user testimonials, review counts or performance results.
• We do not claim direct account experience unless it is explicitly documented.
• We do not rank providers against each other for commercial benefit.

Handling uncertainty

Where public information is incomplete, ambiguous or clearly out of date, we describe the limitation rather than filling the gap. "Unverified" is a legitimate and frequently used research outcome on this site. Readers are consistently directed to confirm current details from primary sources before acting on anything.

Educational framing

Platform research is only useful alongside market understanding, so every research page links into the education library — particularly risk management in trading and how trading platforms work, which supply the vocabulary the research pages assume.

Review cycle

Pages are revisited when public information changes materially or when a reader submits a substantiated correction. Each page displays its last review date. Standards governing that process are described in our editorial policy.