How We Check a Broker Before Ranking It

The first check: can a Kenyan reader actually use it

The first thing we check is whether a resident of Kenya can open an account, fund it and withdraw from it. That means confirming which entity serves this country, whether M-Pesa is accepted as a funding route, and whether the withdrawal path back out is described in the broker's own documents rather than assumed.

A broker that scores well on everything else but fails this first check is not ranked. There is no point comparing costs or platforms for an account a Kenyan reader cannot open, and no point describing M-Pesa funding for an entity that does not offer it.

What happens when two sources disagree

When two sources disagree, the source that governs the entity serving Kenya wins for any fact about that entity. A global page, a regional page and a support reply may all state different leverage caps; only the cap that applies to the entity serving this country is used in our calculations. If the disagreement cannot be resolved from published terms, the fact is marked as unconfirmed and is not used as an input. We do not average the two values or pick the one that looks more favourable.

For market data, disagreement between two price feeds is normal and is not resolved by choosing a winner. The site uses one feed for live prices and shows its timestamp, so you can see the moment the price was taken. The reference price of 4275.0 is a separate fixed snapshot and is never blended with the live feed. If the live feed and the reference price differ, that is expected: one is current, the other is an illustration used for worked examples. Neither is presented as a broker quote.

For calculated figures, a disagreement usually means an input changed between the time the page was built and the time you loaded it. The calculator re-runs on load with the inputs current at that moment, so the result you see reflects those inputs, not an older set. If a result looks inconsistent with the text around it, the text is the older layer and the calculator output is the newer one; the inputs shown with the result tell you which. We would rather show you the inputs and let the arithmetic be checked than hide the disagreement.

How you can reproduce any number on this site

You can reproduce any calculated number by taking the inputs shown with it and applying the stated formula. For margin, multiply lots by 100 oz, multiply by the gold price, and divide by the leverage cap that applies to the entity serving Kenya. For a 0.10-lot position at 4275.0, that is 0.10 × 100 × 4275.0 = 42,750 USD notional, and dividing by the applicable cap gives about $85.50. If your result differs, check which cap and which price you used; the inputs are printed next to the result for this purpose.

For pip value, multiply the pip size of 0.01 by the position size in ounces. One standard lot is 100 oz, so one pip is 1.00 USD on a standard lot and 0.10 USD on a 0.10-lot position. To convert to Kenya shillings, apply the USD/KSh rate shown with the result; if you use a different rate, your shilling figure will differ and that is expected. The site shows the rate it used so the conversion can be checked rather than taken on trust.

For any broker fact, the date shown tells you when it was last confirmed, and the source is the broker's published terms for the entity serving Kenya. You can read the same terms and compare. If your reading differs from ours, the disagreement is resolvable by pointing to the page you read, which is why the fact is dated rather than presented as timeless. Nothing on this site requires you to trust a number you cannot rebuild from its inputs, and no number here depends on a figure we were not given.

The formula each calculator uses, stated in words

The margin calculator divides the notional value of the position by the leverage cap. Notional value is the number of lots multiplied by 100 oz and then multiplied by the current gold price in US dollars. For a 0.10-lot position at a gold price of 4275.0, notional value is 0.10 × 100 × 4275.0 = 42,750 USD. Dividing that by the applicable cap produces the margin requirement; at the cap that gives the worked figure, the result is about $85.50. The calculator does not add spread, commission or swap to that number.

The pip-value calculator multiplies the pip size by the position size in ounces. For gold, one pip is 0.01, and one standard lot is 100 oz, so one pip on one standard lot is 0.01 × 100 = 1.00 in the quote currency, which is USD. For a 0.10-lot position, one pip is 0.10 × 100 × 0.01 = 0.10 USD. To express that in Kenya shillings, the calculator applies the USD/KSh rate in effect at the time of the calculation. That rate is not fixed and is shown alongside the result so you can see which rate was used.

The position-size calculator works backwards from the risk amount you enter. It takes your risk in account currency, converts it to USD if needed, and divides by the distance in pips multiplied by the pip value per lot. The output is a lot size, which the calculator then rounds down to the nearest step the platform accepts. No calculator on this site forecasts profit, projects returns or assumes a win rate. Each one returns a single arithmetic result from the inputs you supply and the instrument specification, and each result is labelled with the inputs used.

Where each class of figure on this site comes from

Every figure on this site falls into one of three source classes: broker-published terms, instrument specifications, or live market data. Broker terms such as leverage caps and funding methods come from the FxPro entity that serves Kenya. Instrument specifications for gold (XAU/USD) are fixed: one standard lot equals 100 oz and one pip equals 0.01. Live prices are taken from a market feed at the moment a page is generated. The reference price of 4275.0 is a snapshot, not a broker quote, and is labelled as such wherever it appears.

Margin figures are not sourced from a broker table; they are calculated from the leverage cap that applies to the entity serving Kenya and the instrument specification. The worked example of a 0.10-lot gold position needing about $85.50 margin is produced by that formula, not copied from a statement. Any other margin figure you see on the site is generated the same way from the same cap. If the cap changes, every margin figure on the site changes with it, which is why we date the cap rather than the individual examples.

Spread, commission, swap and minimum deposit figures are deliberately absent as numbers because we were not given them. Where those costs are discussed, the text says what the cost consists of and what it depends on, such as the account type, the time of day, and the liquidity available at execution. No cost is described as competitive, tight, low or best, because those words would be a claim we cannot support with a sourced number. This is a methodology choice, not an omission.

How a broker fact is dated and re-checked

Every broker fact on the site carries the date it was last confirmed against the broker's published terms for the entity serving Kenya. The date is the day a person read the source, not the day the page was built. When you see a leverage cap, a platform list, a funding method or the regulator caveat, the date tells you how fresh that confirmation is. A fact without a date is treated as unconfirmed and is not used in any calculation until it is dated.

Re-checking happens on a schedule and also when something signals a possible change. The scheduled review re-reads the same source and either re-dates the fact or updates it. A signal could be a change notice from the broker, a reader pointing out a discrepancy, or a broader regulatory change affecting the entity that serves Kenya. The regulator caveat is re-checked with particular care because it is a statement about who does not regulate the entity: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK), CySEC and FSCA, not by the CMA of Kenya.

When a fact is updated, the old value is not silently overwritten in the explanation. The page shows the current value with its new date, and any worked example that depended on the old value is recalculated so the arithmetic still holds. If a fact cannot be re-confirmed at review, the site says so and stops presenting it as current, rather than leaving a stale number in place. This is slower than scraping, but it means a dated fact on the page has been read by a person who can be asked what they read.

Why the live price here can differ from a broker quote

The live price on this site comes from a market feed, while your broker quote comes from the broker's own liquidity and pricing engine. Those are different sources, sampled at different moments, so they will differ. Gold (XAU/USD) is quoted to 0.01, and a difference of a few pips between two sources is ordinary. The difference is not a malfunction and does not mean either price is wrong; it means you are looking at two snapshots taken at slightly different times from slightly different places.

A broker quote also reflects the price at which that broker is willing to trade with you, which can include its own markup and can move with the size of your order and the liquidity available at that instant. A market feed shows a reference price, not an executable one. This is why the site never presents its live price as a quote you can trade at, and why the reference price of 4275.0 is labelled as an illustration. Use the site price to understand the arithmetic; use your platform for the price you will actually deal on.

Timing widens the gap. If your connection is slow, or you load the page and then place an order minutes later, the market may have moved and the two prices will diverge further. The timestamp on the site price tells you when it was taken, so you can judge how stale it is. For a 0.10-lot gold position, one pip is 0.10 USD, so a small price difference translates into a small dollar difference in margin and pip value, but the direction of the market matters far more than the gap between feeds.

What refreshes automatically and what a person reviews

Live gold prices refresh automatically from the market feed, and the timestamp on each price shows when the last update was received. The USD/KSh rate used for shilling conversions also refreshes automatically, because it moves continuously and a stale rate would misstate every converted figure. The reference price of 4275.0 is not refreshed; it is a fixed snapshot used for worked examples so that the arithmetic in those examples stays reproducible. When you see 4275.0, treat it as an illustration, not as the current market.

Broker facts are reviewed by hand. The leverage cap that applies to the entity serving Kenya, the list of platforms (MT4, MT5, cTrader and the FxPro app), the funding method M-Pesa, and the regulator caveat are all checked against the broker's own published terms by a person before they go on the page and again on a scheduled review date. They are not scraped, because a scraper can pick up a page for a different country or a different entity and silently change a fact that should not change for a Kenyan reader.

Calculated figures sit between the two: the formula is fixed by hand, but each result is produced automatically from whatever inputs are current. That means a margin figure can change without anyone editing the page, because the cap or the price moved. To keep this honest, every calculated output is displayed with its inputs and the date the formula was last reviewed. If an input is missing, the calculator returns no result rather than substituting a default, because a default would look like a sourced number when it is not.

The known limits of this method

The method cannot tell you what your broker will actually charge or require at the moment you trade. Margin requirements can change intraday if volatility rises, and the cap we describe is the maximum available to the entity serving Kenya, not a setting you should aim at. A calculator result is an estimate based on the inputs at the time of calculation. It is not a quote, not a confirmation, and not a promise that your platform will show the same figure when you place the order.

The method also cannot verify execution quality. We do not measure slippage, requotes, or the difference between the price shown on the site and the price filled on your account, because those depend on your connection, your order type and the liquidity at that instant. The live price on this site can differ from a broker quote for exactly that reason, and the difference is not evidence of error on either side. We describe the cost structure in words rather than numbers because we were not given numeric spreads, commissions, swaps or minimum deposits.

Finally, the method is limited to what a Kenyan reader can use. It does not cover account opening, verification or withdrawal timelines, because those depend on the broker's processes and on M-Pesa availability at the time. It does not compare brokers, because a comparison would require numeric costs we do not have. And it does not model tax, because tax treatment depends on your personal circumstances and on rules we are not equipped to state. Every limit here is a boundary of the method, not a gap we intend to fill with estimates.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure on this site comes from the broker's own documents, and each one is recorded with the date it was read. That includes leverage caps, contract specifications such as 1 lot = 100 oz and a pip of 0.01 for gold (XAU/USD), and the margin example we use, where a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 at the applicable cap.

We do not fill gaps with numbers we were not given. Where a cost exists but we have no figure for it, we say what the cost consists of and what it depends on, and we date the page so you can see how old the reading is.

What our testing cannot prove

Our testing cannot prove that a broker will treat you well after you deposit, and it cannot reproduce the experience of trading a live account with your own money. We read documents, we compare them against each other, and we record what we found and when — that is the limit of it.

We also cannot promise that a condition we recorded still holds today. Leverage caps, funding routes and platform availability change, and a page that was accurate when read can go stale. Treat every figure here as a starting point to verify with the broker, not as a substitute for their current terms.

What is deliberately not published, and the reason for each omission

Numeric spreads, commissions, swaps and minimum deposits are not published because we were not given them. Publishing an estimate would look like a sourced figure and would be quoted as one, so the site describes what each cost consists of and what it depends on instead. Words such as competitive, tight, low or best are not applied to any cost, because without a number those words are unsupported claims. This is a deliberate limit, and it is the same limit on every page, not a gap on this one.

Specific leverage ratios other than the cap that applies to the entity serving Kenya are not published. The cap is a maximum, not a target, and naming other ratios would invite readers to treat them as available when they are not. The worked margin figure of about $85.50 for a 0.10-lot gold position is published because it follows from the applicable cap and the instrument specification, and it can be recalculated by anyone who knows both. No bonus, promotion or date is published, because none was supplied and an invented one would be a false statement.

No author name, no performance record and no forecast are published. A performance record would require verified account data we do not hold, and a forecast would be a prediction presented as information. The site also does not publish a broker comparison table, because a comparison without numeric costs would rank brokers on something other than cost and would mislead. What is published is the arithmetic, the inputs, the dates and the regulator caveat: FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK), CySEC and FSCA, not by the CMA of Kenya.