IC Markets offers 2,250+ markets on MT4 and MT5 with FSCS protection up to £85,000. Best for: Algorithmic traders and high-volume scalpers.
60 days, live capital, every broker
Every broker on Amazing Reviews has been opened with our own money, funded, and traded across 60+ days of live market conditions before publication. Rankings are earned on the charts, not in marketing decks.
How the Amazing Reviews scoring process actually works
Every broker on Amazing Reviews is scored using the same 100+ criteria rolled up into four editorial pillars: Regulation & Safety (30%), Pricing & Execution (30%), Platforms & Tools (20%), and Service & Support (20%). Each pillar is scored on a 0,5 scale from live-account evidence collected by the editorial desk in Canary Wharf. The same weights are applied in the head-to-head comparison grid so scores are directly comparable across the site.
Testing runs for a minimum of 60 days per broker. The desk opens a live UK retail account with our own money, funds it via debit card and bank transfer, places 1,000+ live market and pending orders across GBP/USD, EUR/USD, EUR/GBP and USD/JPY across London hours, triggers a partial withdrawal at day 30 and a full closure at day 60. Every friction point, every filled spread, every support ticket is logged in a shared testing spreadsheet before scores are agreed.
Commercial arrangements have zero influence on scoring. Rankings are decided before any commercial conversation opens, and we routinely publish critical verdicts on brokers we hold commercial arrangements with. Scores are refreshed after every 60-day cycle, and any material change from a broker, a new fee schedule, a change of legal entity, an FCA enforcement action, triggers a mid-cycle re-score published as a dated correction note.
The four scoring pillars
Each broker is scored across 100+ individual criteria that roll up into four pillars. Commercial arrangements never move a broker up or down the leaderboard.
- Regulation & Safety (30%)FCA authorisation verified against the register, FSCS coverage, ownership and audited financials.
- Pricing & Execution (30%)Live spread capture across London hours, slippage on 1,000+ market orders, commission structure.
- Platforms & Tools (20%)Platform depth, mobile experience, order types, charting, API access and third-party integrations.
- Service & Support (20%)Onboarding speed, withdrawal times, quality of research and responsiveness of support.
The testing timeline
- Day 1Register with the broker using UK KYC. Time the onboarding flow.
- Day 3Fund a live account by debit card and bank transfer, record clearing time.
- Day 5,45Place 1,000+ live market and pending orders across GBP/USD, EUR/USD, EUR/GBP and USD/JPY across London hours.
- Day 30Trigger a partial withdrawal by both original funding method and bank transfer.
- Day 60Full account closure. Record final withdrawal time, communications and any friction.
- Post-testScore all 100+ criteria and cross-check against the current FCA Register entry before publication.
Scoring safeguards
- Every score is signed off by two analysts; disagreements are escalated to the editor-in-chief and recorded in the audit log.
- Commercial team is walled off from scoring; commercial staff cannot see draft ratings or verdicts before publication.
- FCA Register entry is re-checked at publication and again at every 60-day refresh cycle.
- Any material broker change, fee schedule, legal entity, enforcement action, triggers a mid-cycle re-score.
- All test data is retained for two years to support corrections and challenges from covered brokers.
- Brokers get right of reply on any factual inaccuracy before the final review is published.
More on the Amazing Reviews testing methodology and FCA-regulated UK brokers
The Amazing Reviews desk covers every FCA-authorised broker available to UK retail traders, from spread-betting incumbents like IG and CMC Markets through to raw-spread ECN specialists such as Pepperstone and IC Markets. Every firm we list holds current FCA authorisation, offers FSCS protection up to £85,000 on eligible claims, and has been tested live by our editorial desk in Canary Wharf with real capital before we publish a verdict.
the Amazing Reviews testing methodology is one slice of that coverage. The pages below extend the analysis into related categories, side-by-side comparisons and the methodology behind our scoring. If you are opening your first live account, start with the beginner ranking; if you are moving broker to reduce costs, jump straight into the comparison tool and pull the tightest spreads by session.
None of the brokers on Amazing Reviews are offshore or unauthorised. If a firm cannot be located on the FCA Register we do not cover it, regardless of commercial incentive. Every ranking is decided before any commercial conversation opens, and we routinely publish critical verdicts on brokers we hold commercial arrangements with.
The directory itself is refreshed after every 60-day evaluation cycle. That cadence matters, spreads move, platforms change, and FCA permissions get amended. When a broker on our list changes materially between cycles, we publish an interim update rather than wait for the next full pass. That is the same standard we apply whether the firm has a commercial relationship with Amazing Reviews or not.
City Index offers 13,500+ markets on Web Trader and MT4 with FSCS protection up to £85,000. Best for: UK spread betting and intermediate CFD traders.
IG offers 17,000+ markets on IG Web and MT4 with FSCS protection up to £85,000. Best for: All-round FCA-regulated trading with deep market access.