What Find Your Best Broker is
A free, source-linked comparison product for self-directed investors. It helps people eliminate ineligible providers, understand costs for defined behavior, compare plausible brokers on the same dimensions, and verify material claims at official sources.
What it is not
We do not provide personalized financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. We do not recommend securities, assess suitability, produce a universal winner, award subjective star ratings, or claim that the cheapest result is the best choice.
Coverage and inclusion criteria
Current scope is the United States and United Kingdom: 20 published brokers in total (10 US and 10 UK). Coverage is not the whole market and does not imply endorsement. Exclusion does not imply wrongdoing or unsuitability.
A broker is published only when it serves a country in scope, its identity and official site are verified, a primary official source supports availability, required fee categories are modeled or explicitly marked missing, material limitations can be stated responsibly, and validation passes.
We archive a record when a provider closes to relevant new customers, leaves a jurisdiction, merges into another product, or no longer meets the evidence threshold. The public update history is preserved.
Research and source hierarchy
- Official pricing schedule or legally operative provider document.
- Official product, account, or support page.
- Official regulator, government, or protection-scheme page.
- Official app-store listing for platform availability.
- Provider press release for a dated announced change, followed by operative-source verification.
Third-party reviews, search snippets, forum posts, and user reports are leads only. They are never the sole evidence for a published broker fact. When official sources conflict, we prefer the more specific jurisdiction and product document, check effective dates, and mark the fact as needing review or unknown until resolved. We do not default to the more attractive value.
Data normalization
Provider account names map to a closed US or UK taxonomy. Investments are grouped as stocks/shares, ETFs, funds, options, and bonds, while provider-specific limits remain beside the value. Money stays in its stated currency and is never converted implicitly. Charges retain their basis: per trade, contract, month, year, account, or transfer.
Percentage rates retain their exact modeled rate plus tiers, minimums, maximums, and waiver conditions. Recurring monthly charges are annualized only when a scenario explicitly requires it, using 12 months. A full transfer means moving the entire relevant account; per-asset, partial, closure, and receiving-provider costs remain separate where applicable.
Comparison column glossary
- Minimum investment
- A funding or order threshold, not a fee.
- Trading / share dealing
- The headline online self-directed trade charge for the named market and product.
- Options
- Contract charge; exchange, regulatory, exercise, and assignment costs may be separate.
- Funds
- Provider transaction charge; ongoing fund expenses are excluded.
- Account
- Platform, custody, subscription, or service charge with its waiver conditions.
- Currency exchange
- Provider conversion charge; market movement and spread are not assumed.
- Transfer out
- The published charge for a full outbound transfer under the stated conditions.
Headline columns support initial comparison. Detailed or scenario-only categories remain visible in limitations and calculation disclosures rather than being forced into an unlike column.
Eligibility before cost
Country, residency, account type, investment access, and material provider conditions are checked before cost. A low price cannot make an ineligible or incapable provider a plausible choice. Missing capability data is unknown, never inferred as “not supported.”
Fee calculation method
Fee rules are typed and deterministic. Money accumulates in integer minor units; rates use integer parts per million. Each calculated line retains its rule, arithmetic, assumptions, sources, and warnings. We apply provider-specified rounding at the charge boundary; otherwise we retain precision and round the displayed total at the end.
There is no implicit currency conversion. Unknown costs are excluded and named. When any modeled category is excluded, the result is called a calculable total, not an unqualified total annual cost.
Unknown, not published, not applicable, and excluded data
- Zero
- An official source explicitly states no charge for the defined case.
- Not applicable
- The category does not apply to the product or scenario.
- Not published
- The provider does not publish a value we can responsibly model.
- Unknown
- Evidence is missing, ambiguous, conflicting, or insufficient.
- Excluded
- A real potential cost is outside the calculation or cannot be calculated from the stated inputs; the reason and likely effect are shown.
Review frequency and freshness labels
| State | Age | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Current | 0–30 days | The source content and modeled fact were checked within 30 days. |
| Review due | 31–60 days | A routine recheck is due; this does not prove a change. |
| Stale | 61+ days | Comparative highlighting must not rely on it; verify at the official source. |
| Source unavailable | Any age | The official source could not be confirmed. |
Unavailable-source rule: the last verified value may remain for at most 14 days, with an unavailable label, while a replacement is sought. On day 15 it becomes unknown or not published unless another official source confirms it. An HTTP status check alone never advances the verification date.
Broker pricing uses these defaults. A documented category may use a shorter period for high-volatility facts or a longer period for lower-volatility regulatory explanation.
Material changes and corrections
Every material user-visible fact change, correction, important source loss, broker addition, or archive action creates a public record. Confirmed errors are labeled Correction and show before and after text when concise. Minor copy edits may be grouped or omitted. User reports are verification leads and never change product data automatically.
Commercial relationships and comparison independence
The repository does not establish a revenue model or list any current paid relationship. No paid placement changes comparison order. Commercial state is structurally separate from broker facts, filters, ordering, fee formulas, and conclusions.
If commercial or affiliate links are introduced later, relationships will be listed publicly, commercial outbound links will be marked distinctly with appropriate link attributes, and official evidence links will remain separate. This is not a promise that the business model can never change; it is a rule that commercial state cannot change the comparison.
Limitations
Coverage is limited to the published US and UK records. Public fee documents can change without notice and may omit circumstances. The first normalized migration does not model live spreads, execution quality, tax, regulatory levies, fund expense ratios, margin interest, or interest on cash. We have not performed first-hand product testing unless a future record explicitly says so.
Protection depends on the legal entity, asset, claim type, and circumstances. A protection amount is not a statement that a broker is safe or that every loss is covered.
How to verify information
Use the descriptive official-source link next to the material fact, confirm the jurisdiction and product, read conditions and effective dates, and check the provider’s complete current schedule before opening, funding, trading, or transferring an account. The source ledger shows the last content-check date and operational status.
Report a data issue
Read the correction policy for what can be reviewed and what sensitive information must never be submitted. A monitored email channel is available at hello@findyourbestbroker.com. A public submission form is not currently offered because form storage, abuse controls, and retention automation have not been configured.
Methodology version history
Current version: 1.0, effective . Material rule changes receive a new semantic editorial version; historical summaries are retained.
Version 1.0
: Initial public methodology, freshness policy, source ledger, correction policy, and change-history rules.
Sections: coverage, sources, normalization, freshness, corrections, commercial relationships.