The six scores
Regulation & safety. Is the app regulated by the CFTC in the US, or is it an offshore site you’d have to reach some other way? We also check how customer money is held and whether the app has had trouble with state regulators. A US-regulated exchange with segregated customer funds scores high. An app that’s banned in several states, or that tells US users they can’t sign up, scores low.
Fees. We work out what you pay on a $100 trade at a price of 50¢, because that’s where most fee formulas charge the most. Apps that hide fees in the spread, or charge to deposit or withdraw, lose points.
Markets & liquidity. How many kinds of events you can trade (sports, politics, economics, weather, crypto and so on), and whether there are enough buyers and sellers that you can get in and out near the price you see.
App & experience. The App Store and Google Play ratings, how easy it is to find a market and place a trade, and whether the web version works as well as the phone app.
Deposits & withdrawals. Which payment methods work, what they cost, and how long it takes to get money back to your bank.
Offer & support. Whether there’s a sign-up offer and how hard it is to claim, plus how you reach a person when something goes wrong.
Where our facts come from
We take fees, limits, state rules and offers from the app’s own website, help pages and fee schedules, and from the CFTC for anything about regulation. Each review lists its sources at the bottom and shows the date we last checked them. When an app’s own pages contradict each other, we say so on the review instead of picking the friendlier number.
What we don’t do
We don’t have paid deals with any app, and no app can pay to move up the list. If that changes, we’ll say so in the footer of every page.