How brokers are checked before ranking

The first gate: can a South African actually use it

The first check is practical: can a resident of South Africa open an account, fund it and withdraw from it. A broker that cannot pass that gate is not ranked at all, however good its platform looks. Account opening is tested against the entity that actually accepts South African clients, since a group can serve other regions through different entities.

Funding is checked against what is listed for South Africa: local cards and bank transfers in ZAR, and e-wallets. A broker that only takes funding in another currency or through a method that is awkward from South Africa is marked down for that reason. Withdrawal is checked on the same terms as deposit, because a broker that accepts rand easily but pays out slowly is a different proposition from one that does both.

How to rebuild any number on this site from the inputs shown

To rebuild any margin figure, take the lot size, multiply by 100 oz per standard lot, multiply by the gold price in US dollars, and divide by the leverage cap as a number. The site shows each of those inputs next to the result, so the arithmetic can be repeated with a calculator or a spreadsheet. For the 0.10-lot example, the notional at a gold price of 4275.0 is $42,750, and dividing by the relevant cap reproduces the margin shown.

To rebuild a pip value, multiply 0.01 by 100 oz to get $1.00 per pip on a standard lot, then multiply by your lot size. For rand, multiply the dollar figure by the USD/ZAR rate shown on the page. To rebuild a position size, convert your risk amount from rand to dollars at that same rate, then divide by the stop distance in pips multiplied by the per-lot pip value. Each step uses only numbers visible on the page.

The one input you cannot copy exactly is the live price, because it moves. Use the price shown at the moment you read the page and accept that a recalculation a minute later will differ. The formulas themselves do not change, so a result that differs from the site's is almost always a difference in the price or exchange rate used, not in the method. If your rebuilt figure differs for any other reason, the working is shown step by step so the point of divergence is visible.

The formula behind each calculator, written out in words

The margin calculator multiplies the number of lots by the contract size of 100 oz to get the ounces controlled, multiplies that by the gold price in US dollars to get the notional value, and then divides by the leverage ratio expressed as a number. For a 0.10-lot position at a gold price of 4275.0, the notional is 0.10 times 100 times 4275.0, which equals $42,750, and dividing by 200 gives $213.75; the site's reference figure of about $85.50 corresponds to the same notional divided by the higher cap available to eligible clients.

The pip value calculator starts from the pip size of 0.01 and the contract size of 100 oz, so one pip on a standard lot is worth 0.01 times 100, which equals $1.00. That dollar figure is then multiplied by the number of lots held, so a 0.10-lot position carries a pip value of $0.10. To express it in rand, the dollar pip value is multiplied by the current USD/ZAR exchange rate from the public currency feed, which means the rand pip value changes whenever either the lot size or the exchange rate changes.

The position size calculator works backwards from the risk amount. It takes the rand amount the trader is prepared to lose, converts it to US dollars at the current exchange rate, and divides by the distance in pips between entry and stop loss multiplied by the per-pip value of one lot. The result is the number of lots that keeps the loss at the chosen amount if the stop is hit. Every step uses the inputs as entered, with no rounding hidden inside the formula.

The known limits of this method, stated plainly

The method cannot tell you what your own account will charge. Spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are set by the broker and vary by account type, entity and market conditions, so this site describes what those costs consist of and what they depend on rather than publishing a figure. Any number you see here about cost is therefore structural, not a quote. The only way to know your actual cost is to check the contract specifications and fee schedule attached to the account you open.

The margin figures assume the leverage cap stated in the broker facts and do not model margin changes. Brokers can raise margin requirements on gold around volatile periods or for large positions, and the cap of 1:200 for retail and 1:500 for eligible or professional clients is a ceiling rather than a setting to aim at. A position that fits inside the calculated margin at one moment can require more later. The calculator shows the requirement under the stated cap, not a guarantee that the requirement will stay there.

The rand conversions depend on a public exchange rate that may differ from the rate your bank or card provider applies when you fund an account in ZAR. The site converts at the mid rate from its currency feed, while a card or bank transfer carries its own handling and timing. That gap is not an error in the arithmetic; it is a boundary of what a public feed can represent. Treat every rand figure here as an illustration of the calculation, not as the amount that will leave your account.

The limits of the testing

The testing is documentary and practical, not a live trading trial with real money over months. The desk does not run a funded account at every broker, so execution quality in fast markets, slippage and the behaviour of the platform under stress are outside what can be verified here. A reader should treat platform speed and fill quality as things to test on a demo account first.

Rankings also age. A cost schedule, a leverage cap or the entity serving South Africa can change after the date a page was checked, and when that happens the page is re-checked rather than treated as an error. The date on the figure is the honest boundary of what the desk knows.

How a broker fact is dated and when it is checked again

Each broker fact carries the date on which it was last confirmed against the broker's published documents, and that date is shown alongside the fact rather than buried in a page footer. A fact is re-checked when the broker publishes a change to its contract specifications, when the entity serving South Africa changes, or when a scheduled review falls due. The date tells you how fresh the confirmation is; it does not tell you that nothing has changed since, which is why the source document is always the final authority.

The re-check is a comparison, not a rewrite. The reviewer opens the relevant broker document, confirms the wording on the site still matches it, and updates the date if it does. If the document has changed, the site text is amended to match and the date is reset. Leverage caps, contract size, pip size, platform availability and funding methods are all treated this way, and the regulator caveat is re-read in full because a licensing change can alter which entity a South African client is actually dealing with.

A dated fact is not a promise about the future. Brokers can change terms with notice, and a fact confirmed on one date may be superseded on another. The site's approach is to show the confirmation date so a reader can judge freshness and to point to the broker's own documents as the live source. Where a fact is central to a decision, such as which entity holds your account, confirm it directly with the broker before funding.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure on the site comes from the broker's own documents, not from memory or from a comparison feed. Each number is recorded with the date it was read, so a reader can see how old the check is. Where a broker publishes costs in a schedule or a contract specification, that document is the source.

Costs are described by what they consist of, not by an adjective. For gold (XAU/USD), one standard lot is 100 oz and one pip is 0.01, and the cost of a position depends on the spread the broker quotes at the time, any commission on the account type, and any swap if the position is held overnight. Margin depends on the leverage cap, which is up to 1:200 for retail and up to 1:500 for eligible or professional clients depending on the instrument; at 1:200, a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 margin. Those are the mechanics; the actual spread and commission are read from the broker's documents and dated.

What updates on its own and what a person checks before it goes live

The gold price and the USD/ZAR exchange rate update automatically from their public feeds, and every calculator recalculates from those live values each time a page loads or an input changes. Nothing about the live price is stored as a fixed number for calculation purposes; the reference price of approximately 4275.0 exists only to anchor worked examples in the text. If a feed is delayed or unavailable, the site shows the last received value rather than substituting an estimate.

Broker facts are reviewed by hand. Contract specifications, leverage caps, funding methods, platform names and the entity that serves South Africa are checked against the broker's published documents before publication and after any change is flagged. A person confirms that the wording on the page matches the source document, because a machine cannot reliably tell whether a contract specification has been reworded rather than replaced. The regulator caveat naming the FCA, CySEC and the FSCA licence is part of that manual check.

Our own formulas and worked examples are also reviewed by hand whenever an input changes. If the contract size, pip size or a leverage cap is amended, the affected examples are recalculated and re-read rather than left to update silently. The division of labour is deliberate: market data moves continuously and is automated, while the facts that define what a trade costs and who holds the account are stable enough to be verified by a person and dated.

Where each class of figure comes from: broker terms, live market data, and our own arithmetic

Broker facts on this site come from the broker's own published contract specifications and account documents for the entity that serves South Africa, FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL, and are limited to what those documents state. Platform names, the instrument code XAU/USD, the contract size of 100 oz per standard lot, the pip size of 0.01, the maximum leverage caps of 1:200 for retail and 1:500 for eligible or professional clients, and the funding methods of local cards, bank transfers in ZAR, and e-wallets are all taken from that source rather than estimated.

Live price figures come from a market data feed for spot gold quoted in US dollars, not from any single broker's screen. The reference price of approximately 4275.0 is a snapshot used to anchor worked examples, and every calculator on the site recalculates from the current feed value rather than from that stored number. When a page shows a rand amount, it is converted from the US dollar figure using an exchange rate from a public currency feed, so the rand value moves with both the gold price and the rand exchange rate.

Our own arithmetic covers everything the site derives rather than receives: the margin requirement for a given lot size, the pip value in US dollars and in rand, and the position size implied by a chosen risk amount. These are calculated by formula from the inputs above, with no broker-specific adjustment layered on top. The worked example of a 0.10-lot gold position requiring about $85.50 in margin at the stated leverage cap is produced by that same formula, so a reader can rebuild it from the inputs alone.

What happens when two sources disagree, and why the live price can differ from a broker quote

When two sources disagree, the broker's own published document wins for any fact about the broker, and the public market feed wins for any fact about price. If a third-party summary conflicts with the broker's contract specifications on leverage, contract size or funding methods, the broker document is treated as correct and the summary is not used. If two price feeds differ, the site uses the one designated for that figure and does not blend them, because mixing sources produces a number that matches neither.

The live price on this site can differ from a broker quote because they are measuring different things. The site's feed is a spot gold reference in US dollars, while a broker quote reflects the bid and ask actually available on that broker's platform, including the spread and any markup attached to your account type. The two can diverge further around news releases, at market open, and during thin liquidity, when quotes widen and update at different speeds. A difference between them is expected, not a fault.

That gap matters most when you are checking a stop or a margin call. A calculator using the site's reference price shows the arithmetic under one set of inputs; your platform shows the price at which your order will actually be filled. Use the site to understand the formula and the broker's platform to see the live quote you will trade on. Neither replaces the other, and the broker's execution price is the one that determines your result.

What is deliberately left out of this site, and the reason for each omission

This site does not publish spreads, commissions, swaps or minimum deposits as numbers. Those figures are set by the broker, differ by account type and entity, and change with market conditions, so a published number would be out of date or wrong for most readers. Instead the site explains what each cost consists of and what it depends on, and directs you to the broker's own fee schedule for the account you are considering. That is a deliberate limit, not an oversight.

The site does not publish bonus or promotion terms, because they are time-limited, conditional and specific to the entity holding the account. It also does not publish signals, trade recommendations or expected returns. Gold trading is high-risk and leveraged, and a recommendation would imply a confidence the method cannot support. The site's purpose is to show how the numbers are built so you can apply them to your own decisions, not to tell you which way the price will go.

The site does not publish a single leverage ratio as a target. The caps of 1:200 for retail and 1:500 for eligible or professional clients are stated as ceilings because that is what they are. It also does not publish an author name or personal credentials, because the method should stand on its sources and formulas rather than on a personality. Every omission above exists to keep the page accurate and to avoid presenting a variable as a fixed fact.