Our Broker Review Methodology

What we check first

The first test is practical: can a resident of Australia open an account with this broker, fund it in Australian dollars, and withdraw money back to an Australian bank account? If the broker blocks Australian clients or has no local funding path such as PayID or bank transfer, it does not get ranked.

We then check the trading conditions for gold (XAU/USD). That includes the platforms offered, the spread description, the leverage available, and the margin required for a standard lot of 100 ounces. All numbers are taken from the broker's own documents, and we note the date we read them.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure on this site comes from the broker's own published documents: contract specifications, fee schedules, and legal terms. We do not use third-party aggregators or hearsay. For example, the worked figure that a 0.10-lot gold position at 1:500 leverage needs about $85.50 margin is calculated from the broker's margin formula and the reference price of $4275.0.

Because broker conditions change, we record the date each document was read. A figure is only as good as that date, and we say so on every page where a number appears. We never copy an old spread or swap rate from a cached page without checking the live document first.

Honest limits of our testing

We do not run a live account with every broker, and we cannot test every withdrawal speed or support interaction. Our checks are based on published documents and standard platform behaviour, not on privileged access. If a broker changes a fee after our check, that is a re-check, not an error.

We also cannot verify every claim a broker makes about execution speed or slippage. Those are marketing statements until proven in a live account, so we either leave them out or describe them as unverified. Our ranking is a document-based snapshot, not a guarantee of future performance.