Types of Forex Trading Accounts

A broker’s account tiers are its own product names, not an industry standard. Across eleven broker entities checked, the same word covers different pricing. Exness and IC Markets both sell a tier called Raw Spread, but the commission-bearing tier at FXTM is called Advantage and at Tickmill it is called Raw. Read what the tier does, not what it is named.

The account tiers eleven broker entities publish

Each row holds one legal entity and the tier names that entity publishes on its own site. Where two entities of the same brand publish different menus, both appear as separate rows, because that difference is the point. A cell the broker does not publish reads Not disclosed rather than an estimate taken from somewhere else.

What a tier costs to trade once you are in it is a separate question, and the spread and commission side of it sits in what brokers publish about spreads and commission; the money needed to open each one is in the published minimum deposit range.

Figures verified against each broker’s own published terms on 2026-07-26, with the IC Markets Raw Spread commission re-verified on 2026-08-18. Tier menus change without notice, so treat the date as the claim.

The same entities are compared on a different axis in our guide to the app each broker ships, which sets each branded app against the platform apps the same account also runs on.

Why the same tier name means different things

Tier names are marketing, and the pricing structure underneath them is not. There are only two structures in the table. Either the cost is inside the quote and no commission is charged, or the quote is narrower and a commission is charged per lot.

The trouble is that the word attached to each structure moves from broker to broker. Exness puts commission on Raw Spread and none on Pro, so a tier that sounds more advanced is the one without a commission. FXTM puts commission on Advantage and none on Advantage Plus, so the tier with the longer name is the cheaper one to enter and the plainer one carries the per-lot charge.

Tickmill charges 3 USD per side on Raw and 3.50 USD per side on TradingView Raw, two tiers that differ by platform rather than by pricing model.

IC Markets shows the same effect at the top of its range, where the commission falls as the tier rises: 3.50 USD per side on Raw Spread, 1.50 USD on Raw Pro and 1 USD on Raw Pro +. Reading across brokers by tier name compares labels; reading down the commission column compares prices.

The menu changes with the entity, not the brand

A broker is a brand over several licensed companies, and the account menu belongs to the company, not the brand.

XM Global Limited publishes Standard, Ultra Low and Shares. Trading Point MENA Limited publishes Ultra Low and Professional. Standard and Shares do not appear on the MENA entity at all, and Professional does not appear on the Global one.

Equiti splits the same way: the UAE entity publishes Classic, Standard, Premier, Micro and Swap Free Mini, while the Seychelles entity publishes Standard and Premier, and its pages disclose neither commission figures nor a swap-free arrangement.

So a tier name on a comparison page is not enough to act on. The entity you sign up to depends on where you registered, and a review naming a tier without naming the company behind it has not told you whether that tier is open to you. The entity is printed in the footer of the account-opening page and in the client agreement.

Swap-free is built four different ways

Swap-free is not one feature that brokers either have or do not have. In this set it is built as four different mechanisms, and the mechanism decides whether it reaches you.

Exness grants it automatically to accounts registered from Islamic countries, and it covers the whole account. FXTM makes it a property of the tier: Advantage and Advantage Plus carry it and Edge does not, so the choice of tier decides the outcome before any application is made.

Tickmill converts an existing Classic or Raw account, then applies handling fees on selected instruments after a grace period and a 10% annual fee on long crypto positions held past five days. Equiti creates a separate tier for it, Swap Free Mini, and holds the exemption only while deposits stay at or below 25,000 USD.

Admirals adds a restriction the others do not: swap-free runs on Trade.MT5 only and is not available to anyone already holding a non-Islamic account. Amana publishes no swap-free account at all, and tags sharia-compliant assets inside its app while overnight fees continue to apply on leveraged products. What the exemption removes, what it charges instead, and who qualifies are covered in the guide to swap-free accounts.

What a tier name does not tell you

A tier commits a broker to a commission and to very little else. It does not commit it to a spread on any particular pair. Most account-type comparisons print a pair-level spread figure for each tier as though it came from the broker. For the entities above it did not: what they publish is an account-level floor phrased as “from” a value, and several publish no pair-level figure at all.

Platform is the other thing the name hides. IC Markets sells Raw Spread twice, once for MetaTrader and once for cTrader, and the two are priced on different units: 3.50 USD per side per lot on MetaTrader against 3 USD per 100,000 USD traded on cTrader. Same tier name, same broker, two different bills.

Charges that fall due when nothing is traded sit outside the tier as well. The tier sets what a trade costs; the entity sets what a dormant account is charged, and that differs between the entities of one brand.

When choosing by account type is the wrong move

Sorting brokers by tier is the wrong first step in three situations, each for a specific reason.

If you trade a few lots a month, the commission saving on a commission-bearing tier is small in absolute terms and the tier may carry a deposit requirement many times your intended balance. IC Markets Raw Pro asks 5,000 USD and Raw Pro + asks 100,000 USD, so the cheaper per-lot rate is unreachable at a balance that cannot fund it.

If you need a swap-free account, the tier decision is made for you and the ordering reverses. At FXTM the exemption rules Edge out entirely; at Admirals it rules out everything except Trade.MT5. Picking a tier on cost first and then discovering the exemption does not attach to it means opening a second account.

And if you registered under an entity whose pages disclose no commission figure, no tier comparison is possible at all, because the number the comparison turns on is not published. Two entities in the table are in that position. Establishing which company holds your account comes before any of this.

Frequently asked questions

Disclosure: EasyTradeWeb may be compensated if you open an account through a link on this page. It costs you nothing and does not change what is written above.

How to check your own broker’s tier menu

Five steps settle what is on offer to you, all of them using the broker’s own pages.

Where a broker publishes none of this, the absence is itself an answer. The broker reviews here record what each one discloses.

Risk warning

Related articles

• The published minimum deposit range at each broker
• What brokers publish about spreads and commission
• Swap-free account guide