CapTrader vs Tickmill — which broker is better?

Pros

• BaFin-supervised German investment firm (institution number 10156708) with a Düsseldorf address, German contract law and a free German hotline until 20:00
• Eurex options and futures at EUR 2.00 per contract, Mini-DAX futures at EUR 1.00 and CME Micro E-minis at USD 1.25 — competitive with anything available to German retail traders
• Access to over 160 market destinations, more than 1.2 million instruments, one million-plus bonds and 37,000 funds from a single multi-currency account
• No account fee, no custody fee, no inactivity fee, and free real accounts on TWS, CapTrader Desktop, AgenaTrader Andromeda and the TraderFox Trading-Desk
• German shares on Tradegate, gettex, Chi-X and Turquoise DE from a EUR 2.00 minimum — noticeably cheaper than the EUR 4.00 Xetra minimum for small orders
• Trustpilot rating of 4.9 from more than 800 reviews, with support consistently named as the reason
• Interactive Brokers' execution stack underneath: SmartRouting, real-time margining, more than 60 order types and a mature API

Cons

• No Abgeltungsteuer is withheld. German investors gain a compounding advantage but must declare everything themselves via Anlage KAP, and a Freistellungsauftrag is not possible — for many people that alone rules CapTrader out
• Commissions are a visible markup on Interactive Brokers' own schedule: 0.10% with a EUR 4.00 Xetra minimum against IBKR's 0.05% and EUR 1.25, and USD 0.01 per share against IBKR's USD 0.0035
• Currency conversion costs 0.3 basis points with a EUR 3.75 minimum — one and a half times what IBKR charges direct, and the minimum bites on every small conversion
• Investor compensation for EEA clients is the Irish scheme's 90% of EUR 20,000, thin against the German EUR 100,000 deposit guarantee investors are used to
• EUR 2,000 minimum deposit and per-order minimums make small, regular ETF purchases uneconomic; there are no free savings plans
• No spot crypto — only Bitcoin futures and exchange-traded products — and real-time market data is a paid monthly subscription per exchange

Pros

• Raw account priced at USD 3 per lot per side with EUR/USD spreads measured at 0.1 pips — roughly USD 7 all-in per standard-lot round turn
• No deposit fee, no withdrawal fee, and a currency conversion mark-up measured at about 0.01%, an order of magnitude below typical retail brokers
• Real exchange-traded futures and options on CME, NYMEX, COMEX, CBOT and EUREX from USD 0.85 per micro contract with a USD 0.00 minimum ticket fee
• IBKR Multi-Asset Account added in July 2026 brings genuine share, ETF, bond and fund ownership at USD 0.35 per US order, with fractional trading
• FCA authorisation (register number 717270) with GBP 85,000 FSCS cover on the UK entity, plus CySEC 278/15 for EEA clients
• Fully digital onboarding that clears in about a day, a 100 minimum deposit, and five base currencies including CHF and PLN
• Pays 1.8% interest on idle USD and GBP cash for accounts that stay active — rare among CFD brokers
• Every strategy allowed on both accounts: scalping, hedging and Expert Advisors, with FIX connectivity and VPS for automated systems

Cons

• The entire retail offering runs on MetaTrader 4 and 5 — dated design, a thin news feed, and no two-step or biometric login on the mobile app
• Research is licensed in rather than produced: Acuity, Signal Centre and calendar widgets, with no house analyst view of any substance
• Protection varies enormously by entity, and clients booked with Tickmill Ltd in the Seychelles get no investor compensation scheme at all
• Privately held with no public financials and no banking licence, so the capital position behind your account is not independently visible
• Aggregated public sentiment through mid-2026 repeatedly flags withdrawal delays, extra verification demands and slippage around news events
• No German or Austrian tax withholding: Tickmill is not an Abgeltungsteuer or KESt agent, so DACH clients must declare every gain themselves