NinjaTrader vs ThinkMarkets — which broker is better?

Pros

• USD 0.09 per side on micro futures and USD 0.59 on standard contracts under the USD 1,499 lifetime licence — among the lowest retail futures commissions available
• Intraday day-trading margins of USD 50 per Micro E-mini and USD 500 per E-mini contract make small-account futures trading viable
• Market Replay plays back a full session tick by tick, synchronised across charts and the ladder — the best execution-rehearsal tool in retail futures
• NinjaScript is a real C# development framework, not a scripting toy, with an ecosystem of thousands of third-party indicators, strategies and add-ons
• Free simulated trading with the full platform, strategy backtesting and no funding requirement
• Support runs 24/5 plus weekends with a dedicated 24-hour trade desk, and the site is localised into seven languages
• No deposit minimum to open a futures account; ACH and debit card funding from USD 5

Cons

• Futures, options on futures, single stock futures and event contracts only — no shares, ETFs, bonds, funds, spot crypto or spot forex
• The headline commissions require paying for the platform: USD 1.29 per side on the free plan is ordinary, and the cheap rates cost USD 99 a month or USD 1,499 up front
• Customer funds are CFTC-segregated but carry no SIPC cover and no compensation scheme — segregation ring-fences money, it does not insure it
• Exchange, clearing and NFA fees are charged on top of every commission, and market depth or professional data feeds are billed separately
• The desktop platform is Windows-only and has a steep learning curve; the web and mobile builds are materially lighter
• A USD 35 Minimum Account Activity Fee hits free-plan accounts that log in but place no live trade within 30 days — USD 25 on plans held since before 20 June 2025
• NinjaTrader does not publish an eligible-country list on its public pages, so international applicants have to confirm their jurisdiction during onboarding

Pros

• ThinkZero all-in EUR/USD cost of about 0.8 pips - raw spreads from 0.0 pips plus USD 3.50 per lot per side on forex and metals
• Three top-tier licences - FCA 629628, ASIC AFSL 424700 and JFSA registration 0250 - alongside CySEC 215/13 and FSCA FSP 49835
• Roughly 3,260 instruments on ThinkMarkets' own contract table, including 2,796 share CFDs and 324 ETF CFDs, which is unusually broad for a CFD-only broker
• ThinkTrader mobile is a full trading client with proper charting, drawing tools and server-side alerts, and is consistently rated among the best mobile apps in the category
• No minimum deposit on the Standard account and no broker fee on deposits or withdrawals on the published methods
• Seven base currencies including CHF, AUD, SGD and NZD, which removes a conversion layer for clients outside the euro and dollar
• Copy trading through both the in-house ThinkCopy layer and the ZuluTrade network, plus MT4, MT5 and TradingView on the same account

Cons

• 75 percent of ThinkMarkets UK retail accounts lose money trading CFDs, and disclosures across the group's entities have ranged from roughly 68 percent to 89 percent
• Withdrawals are the recurring complaint in public reviews: repeated document requests on already-verified accounts, multi-week delays, and disputed payments marked as successful. A USD 100 minimum withdrawal adds friction on top
• Dormancy is charged on the UK entity: GBP 10 per month from day 181 without a trade, for as long as the balance is positive. The CySEC, ASIC and offshore entities publish no comparable figure we could verify
• No published currency conversion rate, so the true cost of trading a US share CFD from a EUR or GBP account cannot be modelled before you trade
• The FG Acquisition Corp SPAC merger that would have listed the group in Toronto never completed, so there are no public accounts and no listed-company disclosure
• No listed options, no exchange-traded futures, no bonds, no funds and no share ownership - the entire book is contracts for difference