Independent · Reproducible · Disclosed
About Brokaro
Once partner agreements exist, this site earns money when you open a brokerage account. That is exactly why it publishes how the ranking is produced, where every figure comes from and where our limits are — so you can recalculate it instead of taking our word for it.
Every record carries a visible data date and its list of sources.
01
What Brokaro is
An independent broker comparison site. Every provider is recorded as structured data — fees, licences, platforms, product range, funding and withdrawal methods — and scored on the same ten published criteria, from fees (22 %) through safety and regulation (20 %) down to education (3 %).
One record per broker. Structured, not narrated, so two providers can be set side by side line for line — and so a missing value shows up as a gap instead of hiding in prose.
The same yardstick for everyone. No provider is judged by special rules. The weighting is published and every individual score can be recomputed from it.
Categories and countries instead of one master list. An options trader needs a different broker than someone running a monthly ETF plan, and an account in Zurich sits under different rules than one in Berlin. Each category and country page therefore carries its own weighting.
Calculators instead of labels. Whether a broker is cheap for you depends on your order size and trading frequency. Our calculators run that with your numbers rather than handing out “low cost” as a verdict.
02
Why this site exists
Many broker comparison sites are funded by commissions from the providers they compare, and this site is meant to be funded the same way in future. Anyone reading a ranking should therefore be able to check how it is produced, where the figures come from and when they date from. The answer to that is not a better opinion — it is being checkable.
A published formula. The overall score is calculated from editorial sub-scores and fixed weights. Automated data checks verify this arithmetic; they do not replace factual verification of the underlying information.
Visible data dates. Each broker record carries one date for the whole record — not one per figure. If a single field is corrected later, that date still says when the record was compiled, not when that one number was last held against its source. A date per field would be more precise; we do not have it, and we do not pretend otherwise.
Visible sources. Each broker lists the documents its values came from — the provider's own pricing schedule first.
Criticism stays in the review. Drawbacks are named, including for (future) partners. A review with no drawbacks is advertising in a different typeface.
Commission size is not an input. It does not appear in the formula at all. Brokers with no partner programme are listed and can lead a ranking.
03
How we work
The path from a broker's pricing schedule into our database is deliberately boring and fully documented in the methodology. Five rules decide what gets published:
Primary source first. Fees come primarily from the broker's official pricing schedule and legal documents, not from marketing material. Where we also drew on other sources, including other comparison sites, they appear in that broker's list of sources.
Missing values stay empty. Where a fee is not publicly documented we show “n/a”. We do not estimate a number to fill a table cell.
The legal entity is named. The same brand can mean different fees, licences and protection levels in two countries. We record the main retail entity and say which one it is.
Unverified until a human checks it. Every record counts as unverified until someone has reconciled it against the primary source. That status sits visibly on the broker page — even when it looks unfinished.
Corrections before coverage. A substantiated error report is handled before the next new broker. Breadth is replaceable; a wrong fee is not.
04
How we are funded
By partner commissions, once partner agreements are in place — the advertising disclosure states the current status. If you open an account through one of our links we may be paid — at no extra cost to you. Alongside that, brokers can book separately labelled advertising slots; both are disclosed, because an undisclosed conflict of interest is the worse kind.
Every partner link is labelled and runs through our own redirect, so the click is measurable for us and recognisable for you.
No paid placement. A position in the editorial ranking cannot be bought. We decline those requests; a partner programme changes neither sub-scores nor order. The only bookable inventory is the slots marked **Advertisement · Sponsored**, which sit outside the ranking.
Brokers without a partner programme are listed. If the best provider for a use case is not a partner of ours, it still sits at the top.
The conflict does not disappear because we said it out loud. Once partner agreements exist, we earn when you open an account — which is why the formula is public. Being checkable is the only durable substitute for trust.
Advertising disclosure: where a partnership is active, we may earn a commission through broker links. The provider’s terms apply. Commissions do not influence our ratings; paid placements are separately labelled as sponsored.
Full advertising disclosure05
What we are not
Three boundaries that matter more on a financial site than any promise:
Not investment advice
We compare providers, not investment strategies. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, hold or sell a particular security or product — and we will not give one on request either, however the question is phrased.
Not a broker
We hold no accounts, custody no client money and route no orders. Your contract is always directly with the provider you open an account with, never with us. Disputes belong with that broker and its regulator or ombudsman.
Not a regulated financial firm
Brokaro is a publisher and is not supervised by any financial market authority. Every licence, supervision and deposit-protection figure on this site refers to the brokers compared, never to us.
Content on Brokaro is for information purposes only and is not investment, legal or tax advice. All information is provided without guarantee; only the provider's own statements are authoritative.
06
Editorial standards
The rules we hold ourselves to. They are deliberately written as prohibitions — what a site refuses to do is easier to check than what it promises.
No figure without a source. What we cannot substantiate, we do not publish.
No figure without a date. Every record shows its data date on the page.
No ranking without a formula. What is not in the methodology does not enter the score.
No review without drawbacks — at least three, partners included.
No safety guarantees. We describe licences, deposit protection and segregation of client funds; we never call a broker safe.
No bought position in the ranking and no sponsored reviews. Advertising exists only where it is labelled as such and outside the scoring — never as a review, never as a place in a list.
No deleted criticism. User reviews are moderated for spam and abuse, never for tone.
No blending of community and editorial ratings into a single number.
Corrections are made, not negotiated — including when the broker concerned is a partner.
No invented claims about ourselves. What we cannot substantiate appears here as a placeholder, not as a statement.
Check it yourself.
The database is open and so is the weighting. Both are worth more than any statement of intent on this page.