The Pledge
- Yes: We will never accept money from a broker — for placement, scoring, content, or anything else. Ever.
- Yes: No payment-provider, exchange, bank, or regulator money for editorial placement or scoring. Any sponsorship from these categories is disclosed by name and never moves a Trust Score, ranking, or Featured tag.
- Yes: No affiliate links. No referral codes. No CPA. On any broker, payment rail, or exchange.
- Yes: Sponsorships, where they exist, are clearly labelled and listed in full on the Sponsors page.
- No: If we ever break any of the above, we'll archive the violation publicly here.
Five signals. Weighted. Public.
Every score on this site is a weighted average of five public signals. Regulation carries the most weight — a Tier-1 license from FCA, ASIC, or MAS does more for a broker's score than any amount of polish. Here is exactly how much each signal moves the number.
- Regulation
- Price
- Accessibility
- Sentiment
- Transparency
Tier-1 licenses (FCA, ASIC, CySEC, MAS) carry the most weight — a Tier-1 license does more for a score than a glossy homepage ever could. Brokers are scored at the highest tier they actually hold for SEA clients, and sanctions decrement the score.
Average EUR/USD spread plus commission, normalized against the market median. Wider than median lowers the score; tighter raises it. Uses each broker's published typical spread.
SEA country availability, count of supported local payment rails (PromptPay, GCash, FPX, DuitNow, USDT), and minimum-deposit accessibility. Lower minimums score better, capped.
Embedded Trustpilot and WikiFX scores, weighted by recency and review count. When sources disagree by more than 2 points, we flag it on the broker page rather than averaging through it.
Frequency of license cross-checks, freshness of spread data, and time since the last regulator action. Brokers we can't easily verify get penalized; brokers with rich public data get rewarded.
Typical, live, 30-day: what each spread label means.
A broker's EUR/USD spread is not a single number. BrokerMap labels each value with the metric it represents. Today every spread figure on the site is a typical spread; live quotes are not captured yet and the 30-day charts are illustrative.
A broker's current quoted spread. We do not capture live quotes yet. When direct price feeds are added, figures from them will carry this label.
The broker's published average spread on its primary account type, checked by our editors when we refresh that broker. This is the figure on the spreads board, broker cards and profiles.
The sparklines and per-pair history charts are modelled around the typical spread to show how the comparison reads. They are not recorded prices, and will switch to recorded history once we store daily samples.
Real spreads move: they widen around news and outside peak hours, so what you see in your platform can differ from the typical figure here. If a typical spread on BrokerMap no longer matches the broker's own published figure, that's a data bug; please flag it via the submit-a-tip flow on any broker profile.
How often we re-verify each thing.
| Data | Cadence | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Typical spreads | On each broker data refresh | Broker sources, editor-reviewed |
| Spread history | Not recorded yet (charts illustrative) | On the roadmap |
| Regulator filings | On regulator publication | Watcher cron + manual |
| Country availability | Monthly | Manual + broker page scraper |
| Payment methods | On change | Manual + broker page scraper |
| Composite Trust Score | Daily | Materialized view |
What the “Featured” tag means.
Some brokers carry a small Featured tag next to their name. Here's exactly what that is and what it isn't.
- An editorial selection by the BrokerMap team — brokers we've reviewed in depth and called out as solid choices for our SEA audience.
- Refreshed when our review queue moves. We re-evaluate at least once per quarter.
- Signaled inline with a
(?)tip on the leaderboard that links back to this section.
- Not paid. No broker can buy a Featured tag. See the pledge above.
- Not a ranking. For ranking, look at Trust Score — the weighted formula in this page's formula section.
- Not a recommendation. “Featured” means we've looked at it. Whether it's right for you depends on your country, payment method, and risk tolerance.
How we'll eventually make money.
None of these affect rankings. None involve money from brokers. Where sponsorships from adjacent financial categories exist, they're disclosed in full on the Sponsors page. We'd rather close the site than break that.
Audience build. Free newsletter as lead magnet.
Free tier scales. Paid tier piloted (~$15-25/mo).
Banks, exchanges, payment providers, regulators. Each disclosed by name on /sponsors. Never broker money. Never tied to scoring or ranking.
B2B tiers ($99-1k/mo) for fintechs and researchers.