Our Methodology

At CryptoMercury.net we use a criterion to make the classifications and rankings of the brokers.

This is more complicated than it may seem at first glance.

The reason for this is that we analyze not only quantitative but qualitative issues, which greatly complicates the matter.

If everything were as easy as seeing which broker has the lowest spread or commission on the DAX30 then the difficulty would be minimal. What’s more, many operators fall into the trap of choosing a broker because they have the lowest commissions, but in the end, it turns out that those “low” commissions were because the issue was tricky.

Like any self-respecting company, brokers, exchanges, digital banks, and similar companies have common characteristics that are what make us determine the quality of the services of said companies.

Methodology to rank brokers

In this case, we study the following variables:

These variables, moreover, bring together quite a few sub-variables and innumerable details, but we have grouped them like this for simplicity. In addition, there is another point to take into account and that is that they do not have the same weight in the importance that we should give when ranking a service.

We are going to comment on the different variables.

1. Security and regulation of brokers

As we should know by now, the online world is full of scam scenarios, withdrawal issues, account verification issues, and many more. This means that the most important group of variables, in my opinion, is security and regulation. It is of no use to me if a broker offers me the best conditions in the world if it turns out that it is not regulated and is also in Cochinchina. In such a case, at most, we would deposit a very small amount of money, but we would never trust large amounts. That is, the greater the amount of money to invest, the more important this variable becomes.

Another important detail of this variable is the “security” aspect that not only concerns the regulation in which the broker is, but also aspects such as history and reputation, and even better is if it is listed on the stock exchange, in which case it is already difficult to increase the security that we can find.

Therefore, this is the most important variable, and although all the brokers that we analyze in CryptoMercury.net are registered or regulated, it varies with respect to one or the other.

2. Commissions and costs

We are not going to fool ourselves, commissions are one of the most important points when choosing a broker or any other service or product. A broker that charges 1 USD is not the same as another that charges 10, especially if we are going to do that operation 1,000 times a year.

Now, we don’t have to obsess over this either, because by doing so we can end up choosing an unsuitable broker that offers good commissions but at the same time poor execution and disastrous customer service. That is why I emphasize that we should not get carried away by the greed of saving a few dollars, because in the end what is cheap can be expensive.

Another problem with this issue of commissions is that the most expensive brokers are usually the safest, making this variable compete directly with the previous one, and putting many traders in difficulty when choosing.

What do I choose, the cheapest or the safest?

What is clear is that all things being equal, it is better to choose a cheaper broker than a more expensive one.

3. Customer service

This variable is very important and everyone is aware of it. There is nothing worse than hiring a service, having problems, and seeing how it takes days or weeks to respond to our requirements or complaints.

The first thing to look at here is the number and quality of contact methods that the broker itself has. The more you have the better. For example, a broker that offers live chat, email address, phone number, contact form, and social networks would be a perfect candidate.

Now, in addition to providing these contact methods, what ultimately counts is that once we contact the broker, they respond to us as soon as possible. Some take a long time to do so, in which case we would do well to avoid those brokers.

At CryptoMercury.net we are monitoring the contact methods of most of these brokers and we use that experience to qualify their position in this area.

4. Account opening

In this case, we are reviewing features such as deposit and withdrawal methods, as well as the speed when processing an opening as well as a withdrawal of funds.

Although at first glance it seems like a trivial variable, nothing is further from the truth. Some brokers leave a lot to be desired when it comes to processing money withdrawals and the money sometimes takes a long time to reach our account.

Another important detail is that of validations, which in some cases can take days.

An important detail here is the issue of deposit and withdrawal fees, as well as those that may be due to account inactivity, and other similar ones. That is why it is good that we read the fine print of the broker before opening an account so as not to be surprised.

5. Platforms and tools

These criteria are quite important as well, and they are certainly on par with the previous one, and could even be above it, were it not for the fact that the same is not as important for most traders.

There are many clients who base their decision on the fact that the broker has a particular tool, for example, that the broker uses TradingView as a platform. Others prefer a broker that offers Android applications and others that the broker uses complex PC software to program strategies.

But there is also the case of clients who do not pay attention to this point and decide to open accounts with brokers that only have one platform or tool and who do so simply because they do not think about making rare or complicated strategies and it is enough for them to do manual trading of lifetime. Therefore, I repeat, this depends on the vision of each operator.

However, it is clear that under equal conditions, a broker that has more platforms and tools has more tradition than one that has less.

6. Markets and products

Not because it is in position 6 we think that it is an unimportant variable. On the contrary, the more products a broker has, the more complete it is and the less need we go to others.

Moreover, in some cases it is the case that the best brokers in certain markets are specialists in them. For example, the best futures or cryptocurrency brokers focus on offering trading on those markets exclusively. But even so, we will always prefer a broker that has a wide range of assets in which to operate or invest.

In this sense, it is best to find a balance between a broker that offers many products, and that does so in good operating conditions, both in terms of execution and costs.

It should also be borne in mind that the product does not have to be just trading assets, but functionalities such as social trading or copy trading, for example, in which case the broker does improve quite a few positions in the ranking, because in cases like that we are facing real improvements in the global service.

7. Research and development

Here we include everything related to the analysis, training, news and other sections that brokers have and that are aimed at providing those extra services that many clients ask for.

There are many traders who highly value these services and who base part of their decision on them. This will depend on each operator. For example, at CryptoMercury.net we are more in favor of studying the markets on our own, but we understand that there are many people who like to be given information from the same broker, either for daily news or for webinar-type training or similar.

Conclusion

The ranking method requires constant work and continuous monitoring.

The work is constant and we are updating the website on a daily basis, committing ourselves to an even greater effort from 2022 onwards to have the latest news and improvements in the service of each of the brokers participating in the rankings.

We hope this information has been helpful.