I’m at the stage where I need to decide between a few brokers, and I keep going back and forth because the comparison feels incomplete. HFM has competitive spreads, but so does IC Markets. Tickmill has tight spreads too. And then you add in rebates and suddenly everything shifts.
The problem is that most broker comparison tools out there don’t account for cashback at all. They just show spreads and commissions. But if rebates are a real part of your total cost, shouldn’t they be in the comparison?
I want to know how to do a fair comparison between HFM and other brokers when rebates are part of the picture. Is there a formula or framework people actually use for this? Or does everyone just pick a broker and hope they made the right call?
How do you all think about this when you’re evaluating brokers?
Spread plus commission minus rebate. That’s your real cost.
Test two brokers with real trades. Numbers don’t lie.
Execution quality matters more than rebate percentages.
Create a fair comparison framework. Start with your average trade: position size, typical pairs, and estimated monthly volume. Then calculate: cost per standard lot equals (spread in pips plus commission in pips) minus rebate in pips. Multiply by your monthly lot volume to get total monthly cost. Do this for each broker. The broker with the lowest total cost wins. Most traders find HFM and Tickmill are within 5 to 10 percent of each other, so platform usability and customer support become the real differentiator.
I compared three brokers this year using actual trading data from a practice month. Logged the same set of trades on each platform, recorded spreads and execution times, then applied rebates from GlobeGain.
HFM and IC Markets came out nearly identical in cost. The difference was that I preferred HFM’s platform interface and withdrawal speed. So I went with HFM.
The rebate comparison was useful, but execution quality and platform feel mattered just as much to my decision.
One thing I’d add: check whether the rebate service covers the broker you’re considering. Not all cashback platforms cover every broker equally. Make sure you’re getting the rebate rate you expect before committing.
Spreads and commissions vary. Rebates do too. You need a spreadsheet.
I’ve switched brokers three times over the years. The mistake I made early was obsessing over the tiniest spread differences while ignoring execution quality. A broker with a 0.1 pip higher spread but reliable fills at that price beats a broker with a 0.1 pip tighter spread but frequent slippage.
When comparing HFM, IC Markets, and others, I now weight the comparison like this: 50 percent execution quality, 35 percent total cost including rebates, 15 percent platform usability. That framework has served me better than pure cost comparisons.
For the cost side, I track my actual trading over 30 days with each broker in a test account. That gives me real numbers instead of best-case scenarios from marketing materials. Spreads widen during news, commissions are consistent, and rebates vary by volume. Only real data captures that.