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Alison Heyerdahl is the Head of Content at FxScouts and a financial writer with extensive experience 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 to help traders make informed, safe decisions.
In the fast-paced world of forex trading, choosing the right broker is crucial. Tickmill and HFM 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 Tickmill and HFM 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 Tickmill and HFM, 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, Tickmill earned a higher trust rating than HFM.
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 Tickmill has overall lower trading costs than HFM.
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 HFM and Tickmill offer copy trading.
A broader range of CFD instruments provides more trading opportunities. Tickmill offers a greater variety of instruments compared to HFM:
For those interested in trading cryptocurrencies, HFM offers 40 cryptocurrencies, while Tickmill offers 9 cryptocurrencies. Therefore, HFM 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 neither HFM nor Tickmill charges a withdrawal fee. Overall, HFM has better deposit and withdrawal processes than Tickmill.Â
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.Â
HFM and Tickmill both have very good educational support. Both HFM and Tickmill offer educational support for more experienced traders.Access to frequent and high-quality market research and analysis is crucial.
We found that Tickmill offers better research analysis than HFM and that both HFM and Tickmill offer frequent webinars.
A trustworthy broker with MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 support and one of the lowest-cost trading accounts in the industry, Tickmill provides a perfect trading environment for serious beginners and more experienced traders. However, traders from the Philippines will be onboarded through Tickmill’s Seychelles-based entity, which provides less protection than regulators in the EU or Australia.
With two account types on offer, the Raw has market-leading trading conditions, leaving the fixed-fee Classic Account feeling out of place. The Raw account has a spread from 0 pips on the EUR/USD, a 100 USD minimum deposit, and a commission of 6 USD (round turn) per 1 lot traded. The commission-free Classic Account, also with a 100 USD minimum deposit, has a spread of 1.6 pips (EUR/USD), which is higher than the industry average.
Education and market analysis are excellent and experienced traders will appreciate the wide range of currency pairs.
Overall, while Tickmill’s Classic account is more expensive than other similar brokers, the low-cost commission account makes it an excellent choice of broker for MetaTrader users looking for a new broker.
HFM (formerly known as HotForex) is a well-known international broker.
It offers four standard accounts and one specialised copy trading account. Three of its four standard accounts have no minimum deposit requirements and have extremely competitive trading fees. All accounts are available as Islamic accounts. We were also pleased to find that HFM has recently reintroduced cryptocurrency trading, no doubt because of the popularity of the asset. This is alongside an excellent range of trading instruments, including 950 international stocks.
HFM supports the MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 platforms in addition to its own mobile HF App, which allows clients to trade from charts and make deposits and withdrawals. It also has several excellent trading tools to assist traders further. Unfortunately, access to tools such as Autochartist, which other brokers offer as a free service, requires an account balance of 100 USD.
For more detailed reviews, please read our comprehensive assessments of Tickmill and HFM.
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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 pips | AUD 0 | USD 4.50 | |||
 |   | 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 | |||
 |    | 0.90 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 |
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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.
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