Eightcap is an STP broker with spreads from 0 pips plus $3.50 commissions. easyMarkets have fixed spreads with 0.8 pips for EUR/USD. This Eightcap vs easyMarkets comparison found both brokers have MT4 and MT5 trading platforms.
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Eightcap vs easyMarkets: What we say
Eightcap and easyMarkets are wildly different forex brokers in nearly every respect, from pricing to platforms to products. Eightcap is a no-dealing desk broker, so prioritise low spreads, easyMarkets is a market maker focused on risk management and fixed spread. We gave Eightcap an overall score of 66/100 while easyMarkets scored an acceptable 46/100.
We have analysed Eightcap and easyMarkets using our testing methodology to give a full, unbiased comparison below.
Ross Collins, our Chief Technology Researcher and one most experienced Forex trader explains our testing methodology such as the categories we compare and our scoring system.
Comparing the trading costs of Eightcap and easyMarkets is a little tricky, given easyMarkets offers fixed spreads while Eightcap offers variable spreads. Using a variable spread typically means you will pay less than with fixed spreads (though there are exceptions which we discuss below) however there are times a variable spread will be wider, but this usually only happens when major and unexpected economic events occur and isn’t common.
4 of the major factors in our scoring rely on spreads, and Eightcap offers more reliable spreads, with the broker promoting an average 0.6 pips for its commission-based account. We tested the spreads with Eightcap using an expert advisor through the MetaTrader 4 trading platform and our test results for Standard account spreads suggest you are more likely to see spreads from 1 pips (not 0.6 pips) for the EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/CAD pairs and 1.2 pips for AUD/USD currency pair. Overall, our tests show that Eightcap averages 1.16 pips for the EUR/USD and 1.34 pips for AUD/USD.
We also tested spreads with the RAW account with Eightcap, this account uses STP execution to deliver ECN-like pricing. As shown in our tests, spreads can be as low 0 pips for the EUR/USD pair but on average are higher. We found that spreads average 0.20 pips for the EUR/USD, 0.48 for AUD/USD and 0.44 pips for GBP/USD for each of these currency pairs. This is the only account in this review that comes with commissions as a trading cost for which you will page $7.00 per lot round-turn.
When it came to easyMarkets, there was no point in testing since the spreads are fixed. In other words, you will know exactly what spread you are getting when you execute your trading order. Since it is easyMarkets that are taking the risk should markets become volatile, it makes sense that spreads with easyMarkets will be wider than with Eightcap. For the EUR/USD forex pair, easyMarkets promote fixed spreads of 1.8 pips with their own easyMarkets platform if you deposit 200 AUD, 1.5 pips if you deposit 3000 AUD and 0.8 pips if you deposit a huge 10,000 AUD. Alternatively, you can use the MT4 trading platform and have spreads of 0.7 pips along with a 200 AUD deposit.
The only time we can truly compare Eightcap and easyMarkets in like-for-like circumstances is with the easyMarkets MT5 accounts and Eightcaps standard account. This account has variable spreads with no commissions and has spreads from 0.5 pips. Which if true, would be lower than with Eightcap.
| Eightcap | easyMarkets | |
|---|---|---|
| Average Spread | Standard - Avg 1.0 pips Raw - Avg 0.6 pips |
VIP - 0.8 pips (fixed) Premium - 1.5 pips (fixed) Standard - 1.8 pips (fixed) MT4 - 0.7 pips (fixed) MT5 - min 0.5 pips |
| Commission (round-turn) 100,000 |
$7 | none |
| Inactivity fees | None | none |
| Active Trader Discount | No | Yes |
| Minimum deposit | Standard -$500 Australia, $100 Outside Australia Raw - $250 Australia, $100 Outside Australia |
VIP = $10,000 Premium - $3,000 Standard/MT4/MT5 - $200 |
| Withdrawal fees | none | none |
| Our Cost Score | 6 | 4 |
As far as fixed spreads go, the spreads easyMarkets offers are quite good but only if you use MT4 or are prepared to make a large deposit. If you do this, easyMarkets can be a better option than Eightcap. Generally speaking, we think the Eightcap RAW account is the better option so we gave Eightcap a 6/10 and easyMarkets a 4/10.
Although the two brokers are excellent choices in their own right, we think to save on trading fees such as spreads, you are better to look at similar brokers to Eightcap such as IC Markets, FP Markets and CMC Markets.
When judging your trading experience with both brokers, we mostly look at trading account factors and execution speeds.
Given easyMarkets is a market maker with fixed spreads, while Eightcap offers ECN pricing with variable spreads, our trading experience results vary significantly.
Having said that, Eightcap ticks the boxes in largely every category compared to easyMarkets.
While execution speeds are roughly the same based on our testing, Eightcap offers a better account opening experience and the choice of a commission or no commission account (which easyMarkets doesn’t).
Although Eightcap doesn’t set the world on fire with its account opening or execution speeds, we found it a better overall trading experience than easyMarkets.
| Eightcap | easyMarkets | |
|---|---|---|
| Execution Type | No dealing desk, ECN | Market Maker (with Market Execution) |
| Demo Account | Yes | Yes |
| Standard Account | Standard - MT4, MT5, | MT4, MT5, easyMarkets (with Standard, Premium and VIP options) |
| Commission Account | Yes | No |
| Fixed-spread Account | No | Yes (MT4 and easyMarkets accounts only) |
| Swap-free Account | No | On request |
| # of Base Currencies | 7 | 19 |
| Maximum Forex Leverage | 1:30 to 1:500 | 1:30 or 1:500 |
| Execution Speed | Limit Order 143 Market Order 139 |
Limit Order 155 Market Order 155 |
| Our Ease Of Account Opening Score (out of 15) | 12 | 9 |
| Our Overall Trading Experience Score | 6 | 4 |
Again, we scored Eightcap a 6/10 and easyMarkets a 4/10 for trading experience. This is mainly down to Eightcap’s easier account opening process and offering a Raw Account, while easyMarkets only offers a Standard account.
In our analysis of both brokers’ trading instruments, Eightcap narrowly edges out easyMarkets, but not by much
easyMarkets scores points with its unique range of forex products, which includes CFDs, forwards and options, while Eightcap has a better range of share CFDs.
Everywhere else, Eightcap and easyMarkets are relatively evenly matched, across commodities, indices and cryptocurrencies.
However, all in all, neither broker offers a particularly diverse range of products for your portfolio.
| Eightcap | easyMarkets | |
|---|---|---|
| Forex trading | 42 | 136 CFD, 48 Forwards, 58 Vanilla options |
| Cryptocurrency trading | 5 | 3 |
| Share CFD trading | 400+ | 60 (US, EU, AU, JA, HK exchanges) |
| Commodities CFD trading | 2 Metals (vs USD, AUD, EUR) 2 Energies |
5 Metals 5 Energies 7 Softs |
| ETF CFD trading | 0 | 0 |
| Indices CFD trading | 10 | 14 |
| Bonds/Treasuries CFD trading | 0 | 0 |
| Real Stocks | 0 | 0 |
| Other Products | 0 | 0 |
| Our Product Score | 5 | 4 |
We gave Eightcap a 5/10 and easyMarkets a 4/10 for their product range, which all came down to Eightcap’s larger range of shares, however Easymarketsdoes offer a unique mix of forex products.
Both Eightcap and easyMarkets are MetaTrader brokers (thoughteasyMarkets do push their own easyMarkets trading platform hard), meaning they offer MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5.
This isn’t a bad thing since you can automate (using expert advisors EAs) and social trade (using Signals) so that all your bases are covered as far as your trading needs should be concerned.
Given MT4 and MT5 are the two most popular third-party platforms, they feature heavily in our scoring of Eightcap and easyMarkets.
Eightcap offers slightly better algorithmic trading, with one of our favourite algorithmic tools, Capitalise.ai, for code-free trading that can be integrated with MT4.
easyMarkets does, however, have its own proprietary software, which is a good alternative to its MetaTrader suite. We think this is worth a mention since it has some really cool features. The easyMarkets trading platform is built with some of the best risk management trading tools in mind. These include a guaranteed stop loss order, dealCancellation and Freeze Rate. The latter 2 are features no other broker offers.
Overall, we found it hard to split Eightcap and easyMarkets, with both offering solid platform options. We suggest trialling the brokers using a Forex demo account.
| Eightcap | easyMarkets | |
|---|---|---|
| MetaTrader 4 | Yes | Yes |
| MetaTrader 5 | Yes | Yes |
| cTrader | No | No |
| TradingView | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop | Yes | Yes |
| Web app | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes |
| Other trading plarforms | Yes | easyMarkets |
| Social trading | MetaTrader signals | Yes with MT4, MT5 |
| Copy trading | MetaTrader signals | MetaTrader signals |
| Automated trading | Yes MT4, MT5, Capitalise.ai (with MT4) |
EAs |
| Our Trading Platform Score | 8 | 6 |
If you primarily use the MetaTrader platforms (MT4 + MT5), Eightcap and easyMarkets have both got you covered. While easyMarkets has its own proprietary app, which Eightcap doesn’t, Eightcap does offer more automated trading options, particularly Capitalise.ai. This is why we scored Eightcap 8/10, marginally higher than easyMarket’s 6/10.
Engaging with an online broker presents two types of risks: market risk, inherent to trading CFDs, stocks, or forex, can lead to substantial gains or losses based on market movement predictions. The second risk, related to the broker’s trustworthiness and regulatory oversight, can be significantly mitigated by choosing a broker licensed by a Tier 1 regulator.
Regulatory bodies such as the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) enforce strict requirements to protect customer funds and prevent fraud.
In our comparison, though it’s very marginal, easyMarkets offers slightly more regulators than Eightcap, thereby can claim to be more trusted in more jurisdictions around the world.
| Eightcap | easyMarkets | |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 regulators* | ASIC (Australia) | ASIC |
| Tier 2 regulators | CySEC | |
| Tier 3 regulators | VFSC | FSC (BVI) FSA (Seychelles |
| Negative Balance Protection | ||
| Guaranteed Stop Loss | ||
| Scalping Allowed | ||
| Trust Score | 5 | 5 |
Although we gave Eightcap and easyMarkets the exact same overall score of 5/10 for trust, regulations and risk management, this is purely due to rounding up. Eightcap scored 4.6, while easyMarkets score 5.4. With more Tier 2 and Tier 3 regulators, easyMarkets slightly edges out Eightcap in terms of trust, albeit marginally.
We value a straightforward, hassle-free process when opening a new trading account. The availability and quality of educational resources, customer service responsiveness, and funding methods also play a significant role in shaping the overall customer experience for our testing team.
In our comparison, again, it was hard to split either Eightcap or easyMarkets.
Eightcap offers 24/7 customer support, showing a strong commitment to ensuring a positive user experience at all hours, while easyMarkets only offers support on weekdays (with no live chat bot).
easyMarkets does, however, offer slightly better educational resources than Eightcap. This is because easyMarkets offers beginner and intermediate resources such as free eBooks and a Trading Course while Eightcap offers very little other than some articles and basic market research tools.
In every other area: funding methods and customer service, we scored both brokers equally.
| Eightcap | easyMarkets | |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 regulators* | ASIC (Australia) | ASIC |
| Tier 2 regulators | CySEC | |
| Tier 3 regulators | VFSC | FSC (BVI) FSA (Seychelles |
| Negative Balance Protection | ||
| Guaranteed Stop Loss | ||
| Scalping Allowed | ||
| Trust Score | 5 | 5 |
When combining all factors, we can’t split either Eightcap or easyMarkets, but each broker stood out in one particular area.
In terms of education, we scored easyMarkets 5/10 compared to Eightcap’s 3/10 due to its better range of educational resources.
For customer support, Eightcap nudges easyMarkets slightly with both Bot and Human customer service, meaning the broker could offer 24/7 support.
Both brokers scored a high 9/10 for excellent customer service and 6/10 for a slightly above average range of funding methods.
Yes, both Eightcap and easyMarkets have negative balance protection. This is because it is required by the financial markets regulators in Australia where both brokers are regulated and in Europe where easyMarkets is regulated. Both brokers have negative balance protection outside these jurisdictions but you need to request it and it can be refused in the rare event the broker feels you are not trading in the right spirit.
This depends on what kind of a trader you are but if you are new to trading, it helps to have some good risk management tools to protect yourself from rookie errors. For this reason, risk management tools easyMarkets offer via the easyMarkets Trading Platform) such as guaranteed stop loss, dealCancellation and Freeze rate can be very useful. If you are more confident in your trading ability, the lower spreads Eigthcap offer may be preferable.
Yes, Eigthcap offer 100 cryptocurrency CFD products for trade making them one of the best choices for this type of trading. easyMarkets by contrast only have 6 cryptocurrency pairs for trade – Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Stellar. With such a small range, you may prefer to look Eightcap.
Headquarters: Auckland
Global Offices: Auckland, Seychelles
Year founded: 2014
Headquarters: London, UK
Global Offices: London, Melbourne, Tokyo, Cyprus, Johannesburg, Cayman Islands, Seychelles, Mauritius
Year founded: 2010
easyMarkets ReviewVisit easyMarkets
Overall, the reason we scored Eightcap 66/100 compared to easyMarkets 46/100 is largely based on trading costs and trading account factors.
Given Eightcap’s variable spreads were, on average, lower than easyMarkets’ fixed spreads, this played a big part in its higher rating. Eightcap also offered more account types and a slightly better account opening experience than easyMarkets.
In every other area, Eightcap and easyMarkets were largely the same. While neither broker stood out in terms of broker trust, tradeable products or education, we were very impressed with their trading platforms and customer service.
