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Alison Heyerdahl is the Head of Content at FxScouts, a Chartered Market Technician (CMT), and an experienced trader, as well as a financial writer with extensive expertise in Forex trading, broker analysis, and market research. She has reviewed 100+ brokers, publishes weekly YouTube trading videos, and co-hosts the “Let’s Talk Forex” podcast.
In the fast-paced world of forex trading, choosing the right broker is crucial. ActivTrades and IFC Markets are two popular options, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. This comparison will dive into the key features of both platforms,helping you decide which one best suits your trading style and goals.
The radar chart above illustrates the comparison between ActivTrades and IFC Markets across several key metrics, with the highest possible score being 100 in each category.
At FxScouts, our mission is to assist traders in finding the broker that best suits their needs. Comparing brokers side-by-side is an effective method to achieve this goal. We evaluated ActivTrades and IFC Markets, using our standard criteria: trust and regulation, trading platforms, costs and trading conditions, and educational and market analysis resources.
Trust and regulation are crucial when selecting a Forex broker. A broker’s credibility is largely built on its regulatory status. We spend considerable time verifying the safety of each broker by examining their regulatory licenses. We also consider numerous factors when deciding which tier a regulator belongs to. Regulators that we rank as the world’s top regulators, gets a tier 1 rank, while regulators who only scores a tier 5-rank, provide virtually no regulatory oversight. The more top-tier authorities regulating a broker, the higher its trust rating. Read more about regulation and our tier system here.
In our comparison:
Based on these findings, ActivTrades earned a higher trust rating than IFC Markets.
When comparing brokers, trading costs are a significant factor. We consider the minimum deposit required to open an account and ongoing costs, including spreads and commissions. We measure the cost to trade one lot of EUR/USD using the broker’s account with the lowest minimum deposit, including both the spread and any commission charged.
We found that ActivTrades and IFC Markets have the same trading costs.
Trading Platforms Offered Traders prefer brokers that offer a variety of trading platforms. We rate brokers higher if they support multiple platforms like MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5, cTrader, and proprietary platforms.
Copy trading is beneficial for beginner traders or those unable to trade full-time. In this case both ActivTrades and IFC Markets offer copy trading.
A broader range of CFD instruments provides more trading opportunities. IFC Markets offers a greater variety of instruments compared to ActivTrades:
For those interested in trading cryptocurrencies, IFC Markets offers 15 cryptocurrencies, while ActivTrades offers 0 cryptocurrencies. Therefore, IFC Markets is the better choice for cryptocurrency trading.
Traders prefer brokers with quick and cost-effective deposit and withdrawal processes. We favor brokers that process withdrawals within 24 hours using multiple methods without charging fees.We found that IFC Markets charges a withdrawal fee and ActivTrades does not. Overall, ActivTrades has better deposit and withdrawal processes than IFC Markets.
We often find that brokers offer very little in the way of educational materials, forcing traders to use other third-party sites or self-educate elsewhere. Beginner traders need well-structured, well-presented materials in multiple formats to get a good start at trading. More experienced traders also benefit from webinars led by experts in the field and advanced trading strategy sections with new trading ideas.
IFC Markets has better educational support than ActivTrades. Both ActivTrades and IFC Markets offer educational support for more experienced traders.Access to frequent and high-quality market research and analysis is crucial.
We found that ActivTrades offers better research analysis than IFC Markets and that both ActivTrades and IFC Markets offer frequent webinars.
IFC Markets caters well to beginner traders with four low-cost Micro accounts, a well-structured education section, and support for its proprietary platform, which is easier to use and set up than other third-party platforms. IFC Markets also stands out for its innovative Portfolio Quoting Method, which allows for the creation of personalized trading instruments.
IFC Markets offers a low-cost trading environment for traders willing to try its proprietary NetTradeX platform. Support is also provided for the MetaTrader platforms, but trading costs remain uncompetitive. However, clients can choose to trade on over 600 financial assets, including synthetic CFDs, and even create their instruments.
It is clear that IFC Markets focuses on providing a welcoming environment for new traders, with minimum deposits of 5 USD on its beginner-friendly Micro accounts and a host of learning materials covering trading basics.
Alongside the high trading fees on the MetaTrader platforms, IFC Markets' non-trading fees are high, including charges for deposits and withdrawals. In addition, it has a limited number of base currencies, which means that Filipino traders will have to pay currency conversion fees.
For more detailed reviews, please read our comprehensive assessments of ActivTrades and IFC Markets.
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Broker | Countries Regulated | Minimum Spread EUR/USD | Minimum Deposit | Trading cost/lot EURUSD Total trading cost at the time of last update, for 1 lot of EUR/USD using the account with the lowest minimum deposit. Includes spread and commission. | Broker Score | Broker Website | Select and Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |     | 0.10 pips | USD 3 | USD 7 | |||
 |    | 0 pips | USD 0 | USD 10 | |||
 | | 0.10 pips | USD 200 | USD 8 | |||
 |  | 0.70 pips | USD 10 | USD 17 | |||
 |  | 0 pips | AUD 0 | USD 4.50 | |||
 |    | 0.90 pips | USD 100 | USD 9 | |||
|  | 0.60 pips | USD 5 | USD 6 | |||
 | | 0 pips | USD 0 | USD 10 | |||
 |   | 0.70 pips | USD 5 | USD 7 | |||
 | | 0 pips | USD 100 | USD 6 |
Select another broker to another broker to compare features, fees, and platforms side by side.
Alison and Chris cover a range of topics, including how to choose a Forex broker, safety and regulation, how to reduce your risk, trading psychology, trading platforms, and trading strategies, among others.
The FxScouts podcast helps beginner Forex traders get the best start to their trading careers.
