Is IC Markets a Good Broker for You?

IC Markets is a good broker for active traders, scalpers and algorithmic traders, and an unnecessary one for casual beginners. It is built around a true ECN model with raw spreads and a fixed $7 round-turn commission, holds ASIC and CySEC authorisations alongside a Seychelles entity, and offers cTrader as well as MetaTrader. The entry price is roughly $200 rather than $5, and that is deliberate — this is a broker aimed at people who trade seriously. Open an IC Markets account and check the live raw spreads before you deposit anything.

IC Markets is a strong fit if: you scalp, run expert advisors, trade meaningful volume, or want depth of market through cTrader — open an IC Markets Raw Spread account and measure your own fills.

Look elsewhere if: you are starting with under $200 or want bonus promotions — XM starts around $5 and runs promotional offers.

Worth comparing: if commission is the dominant cost in your model, RoboForex charges $2 round turn on Prime, with a weaker regulatory position — compare RoboForex Prime against IC Markets Raw Spread.

Yes. The group operates through several entities and, as always, the one that matters is the one on your client agreement.

The group has been operating since 2007 and is one of the larger retail ECN brokers by volume. Two Tier-1 licences plus that operating history is a stronger regulatory position than most of the market, and materially stronger than brokers running on offshore licences alone.

One claim worth treating carefully: IC Markets and several review sites reference additional client-money insurance. We have not been able to verify the current terms of any such policy, so do not factor it into your decision. Segregation and the entity's regulator are the protections you can actually rely on.

The pricing model is the whole proposition, so it is worth understanding precisely. IC Markets offers raw interbank spreads and charges a separate, published commission — rather than marking up the spread and calling it free.

To compare that against a spread-only broker, convert the commission into pips-equivalent: divide the round-turn figure by $10 for a standard lot on a USD-quoted major. A $7 round turn is 0.7 pips of cost. So Raw Spread at a genuine 0.1-pip spread costs about 0.8 pips all-in, or roughly $8 per round-turn lot.

Against the market that is competitive rather than cheapest. RoboForex Prime at $2 round turn undercuts it substantially; XM Ultra Low at around $6 per lot is comparable on a spread-only basis. What IC Markets offers instead of the lowest headline number is a cost you can model exactly, on a genuinely raw feed, at a broker with two Tier-1 licences.

Raw Spread in almost every case. The Standard account exists for traders who dislike commission arithmetic, but at roughly 0.8 pips it costs about the same as Raw Spread all-in while hiding where the money goes. If you are choosing between them, take Raw Spread on cTrader for the $6 commission unless you specifically need MetaTrader for an existing expert advisor.

👉 None of that a dealbreaker? Open an IC Markets Raw Spread account and log a week of real fills at minimum size

The honest answer is that nobody can tell you, including IC Markets. No independent body continuously audits retail broker execution, so published latency and slippage figures are self-reported or unverified. What is structurally true is that a raw ECN feed with a separate commission has no incentive to widen your spread, because the broker's revenue comes from the commission line rather than from the markup. That alignment is worth something even without a number attached.

What you can do is measure it. Open the account, trade 0.01 lots for a week, and log intended price against fill price on every order. Track the median slippage and the 95th percentile separately — the tail is what kills strategies, and averages hide it. Do the same at a second broker with identical logic and you have the only execution comparison that actually applies to your trading.

cTrader helps here in a way MetaTrader does not: level II depth lets you see the liquidity behind your fill rather than inferring it afterwards. For a trader evaluating execution quality seriously, that visibility is worth more than any review's assertion.

IC Markets covers forex, share CFDs, indices, commodities, metals, energies, bonds and cryptocurrencies, with a forex list running well past sixty pairs and a share CFD book that is one of the broader ones in retail. That equity range is a quiet advantage — several competitors carry a hundred names or fewer, which is thin if stock CFDs are more than an occasional trade for you.

On platforms you get three genuine options rather than two versions of one:

That third option is what separates IC Markets from most of its peer group. Exness offers MetaTrader and its own web terminal but no cTrader and no external API, and XM is MetaTrader-only. If you expect to outgrow MetaTrader, choosing a broker that already offers the next step avoids a migration later.

IC Markets does not charge its own fee on most deposit and withdrawal methods, and supports cards, bank transfer and a range of e-wallets, with availability varying by country and entity. Processing is generally same-day for e-wallets and slower for cards and wires, which is ordinary for the industry — Exness is the notable outlier on payout speed if that is a priority.

Two rules apply here as everywhere. Funds return by the route they arrived, up to the amount deposited, so fund with the method you want to be paid through. And complete verification before you have profit waiting, because withdrawal complaints across this entire industry are overwhelmingly document delays rather than payment delays.

On swaps, IC Markets charges standard overnight financing on positions held through rollover, with one day each week carrying triple swap to cover the weekend. Swap-free Islamic accounts are available on request under qualifying entities. If your strategy holds positions for days at a time, model the financing cost explicitly — on high-carry pairs and on gold it can quietly exceed what you pay in spread and commission combined, and it is the cost traders most often ignore entirely.

Headline commission figures are easy to compare and easy to misread. What matters is your total cost across the volume you actually trade, and the ranking changes depending on where you sit.

Read that table carefully, because the obvious conclusion is the wrong one. The commission column is only half the cost — the raw spread sits on top, and it differs between brokers. A $2 commission on a raw spread averaging 0.4 pips costs 0.6 pips all-in; a $7 commission on a raw spread averaging 0.1 pips costs 0.8 pips. The commission gap looked like 250%; the real cost gap is closer to 33%.

There is also a second column nobody puts in a table: counterparty risk. The cheapest commission in that row belongs to a broker holding no Tier-1 licence. Whether that trade is worth making depends on your balance and your tolerance, and it is a decision to take deliberately rather than by drifting toward the lowest number.

The practical method is unglamorous. Estimate your realistic monthly lot count, multiply by each broker's all-in cost per lot, and compare the annual figures against what you would pay for the stronger regulatory position. For most traders under 50 lots a month the difference is small enough that regulation should win; above 200 lots a month it becomes large enough to justify a serious conversation with yourself about risk.

👉 Open your IC Markets account and run the test with a minimum deposit

Yes. It has operated since 2007, holds ASIC and CySEC authorisations alongside a Seychelles entity, segregates client funds and is one of the larger retail ECN brokers by volume. Two Tier-1 licences plus that operating history places it above most of the market on regulatory strength. Confirm which entity holds your account, since protections follow the entity rather than the group.

Around $200, which is high relative to brokers starting at $5 or $10. The figure reflects the audience: this is a broker for people trading meaningful size, where a $200 entry is trivial. If $200 is a large share of your intended capital, that itself is the signal that a lower-entry broker suits you better right now. XM's roughly $5 entry is the usual alternative.

Raw Spread on cTrader, at $6 round turn against $7 on MetaTrader — a saving of $1 per lot, which at 100 lots a month is $100. The Standard account at roughly 0.8 pips costs about the same all-in as Raw Spread while hiding the breakdown, so there is little reason to choose it unless you actively dislike seeing a commission line. Compare both on a demo before funding.

Yes, explicitly, with no minimum holding time on standard retail accounts. This is one of the broker's clearer strengths — some competitors permit scalping in principle while pricing it out of existence, whereas raw spreads plus a fixed commission is a structure built for exactly this kind of trading. cTrader's depth of market adds visibility most retail platforms do not offer.

It is not bad for beginners, but it is unnecessary. The pricing advantage only matters at volume, the $200 entry ties up capital a small account cannot spare, and there is less hand-holding than at beginner-focused brokers. Start somewhere cheaper to enter, learn on micro lots, and move here when your volume justifies raw pricing. HFM's low-entry tiers are one route in.

No. IC Markets does not run deposit-match or no-deposit promotions, which is consistent with its positioning — bonus programmes are generally aimed at acquiring small accounts, not at traders comparing commission per lot. If promotional credit matters to you, brokers like XM and HFM run them under their non-EU entities, with conditions worth reading carefully before accepting.

Different structures for different traders. IC Markets gives you a true ECN feed with a fixed, published commission and cTrader depth; Exness gives you tighter tested spreads, faster withdrawals, swap-free across the range and a much lower entry point. IC Markets has the stronger regulatory position for international clients; Exness does not accept new EU or UK retail clients at all. Compare Exness account types directly.

Yes, and it is one of the main reasons to choose this broker. cTrader offers full level II depth of market, cleaner partial-fill handling, cBots for automation and a documented Open API for programmatic access outside any terminal. The commission is also $1 per lot lower than on MetaTrader. If depth of market matters to your strategy, this is the account to open.

Yes, for qualifying clients, typically subject to a monthly volume or balance condition that changes over time — confirm the current threshold with support rather than relying on a published figure. A VPS matters mainly for uptime if you run expert advisors unattended, since a dropped home connection can leave a position unmanaged through a data release. Latency benefits only materialise if the server sits near the broker's trade server, so ask which data centre hosts yours.

Under the CySEC entity, yes — it is a regulatory requirement. Under ASIC, retail clients also receive it. Under the Seychelles entity, which serves most international clients, public documentation is not consistent, so confirm it in writing with support before funding. It is a genuinely important protection and not one to assume, since it determines whether a gap through your stop can leave you owing money.

This page contains affiliate links. If you open an account through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This does not affect the assessments above. Nothing here is financial advice and the author is not a financial adviser. CFDs and leveraged forex carry a high risk of rapid loss, and most retail accounts lose money. Spreads, commissions, minimum deposits, leverage caps and entity protections change frequently — confirm all current details on the broker's own website before depositing.