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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 74% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
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.
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 70% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
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.
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 70% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
These are the rankings we re-test and re-score first each cycle, the pages most UK traders land on when they are choosing where to open a live account.