How we score
CFD brokers

Laverlane is a review-and-education site, not a broker and not an introducing partner. We do our assessment by desk research: we read the broker’s own pricing pages, fee schedules and full Client Agreement, we confirm each licence on the regulator’s public register, and we cross-check third-party and community reports. We do not open live accounts or measure spreads and execution ourselves.

That shapes what we can claim. Anything about regulation, the legal entity, account terms and client-fund safety is verified from primary documents. Anything about cost and execution is reported: we treat it as a risk signal, require it from at least two independent sources within the last twelve months, and label it as reported rather than presenting it as a measured fact.

All figures are shown in US dollars ($) for comparability, even when a broker quotes in another currency.

Every broker is scored on the same ten categories. The weights reflect what protects a trader most: regulation, cost and the safety of your money carry the most, and are deliberately weighted above features and support.

Total   100%

On a review page we don’t show ten raw numbers; we group the ten categories into five headline scores, each shown out of 5. Each headline is the weighted average of the categories inside it.

Some findings are serious enough that a good average shouldn’t hide them. When we verify one of these, it sets a maximum overall score. If more than one applies, the lowest ceiling wins.

Entity routing matters most. If a broker advertises a tier-1 licence but the contract actually places you with an offshore entity, that fails our Regulation category outright and triggers these caps, because the licence on the homepage isn’t the one holding your money.

And one badly failed category caps the score on its own. If any single category scores below 2.5, the overall score cannot exceed 3.9; below 2.0, it cannot exceed 3.4, whatever the average says.

Published pricing and documents

Spread and fee pages, fee schedules and the full Client Agreement: the broker’s own words, cited with the date we checked them.

Regulator registers

Licences and entity details are confirmed on the regulator’s own register (FCA, ASIC, CySEC and others), not from the broker’s claims.

Third-party and community reports

Independent data providers and trader communities help us flag cost and execution issues. We use these as signals, require at least two independent sources within twelve months, and always label them “reported”.

The rules we apply to every source

1. Every finding carries a source link and the date we verified it.

2. Cost and execution figures are marked “published” or “reported”, never blended into one number.

3. Any finding that trips a cap, or removes 25+ points, is archived (screenshot + web archive), because broker pages change.

4. We don’t embed third-party review widgets, logos or star ratings; we describe and link instead.

Because every category starts at 100, a lazy review would hand almost everyone a top score. We guard against that on purpose. Across a set of brokers we expect a real spread of results, we watch the median so it can’t drift upward, and if no broker in a set trips a cap we take it as a sign we haven’t checked entity routing hard enough, and go back to the Client Agreements.

What this is not

A high score is a statement about transparency and verifiable risk, not a prediction that you’ll make money. CFDs are high-risk leveraged products and most retail traders lose money. A strong score never changes that.

Markets and broker terms change, so a Laverlane Score reflects the information available at the time of our most recent review. We re-check fast-moving details such as spreads, swaps and overnight financing more often than slower-moving ones like regulation and account terms, and we revisit a review whenever something material changes. Every review shows the date it was last updated, so you can always see how recent our assessment is, and you should confirm current terms with the broker before you act.

1. We don’t give personal investment advice, and a score is not a recommendation to trade.

2. We don’t take payment to raise a score, and commercial arrangements never change how a broker is rated.

3. We don’t deduct for concerns we can’t verify, and we don’t reward a broker for being hard to check.

4. We don’t measure spreads or execution ourselves; those figures are reported, and we say so.

Brokers change their terms, and despite our verification process we can make mistakes. If you spot an error in a licence, a fee, a term, or a score you believe is unfair, email official@laverlane.com with a link to your evidence. We check every report, correct verified errors, and note material corrections on the affected review.