Here's a bug you've probably seen on finance sites without noticing it as a bug. The review says a broker's fee is one thing. The comparison table, a few clicks away, says another. The toplist has yet another number from some earlier year. Nobody lied; the pages just drifted apart. Brokeli is my forex and CFD broker research site, it's live, and the most important design decision in it is boring: every page reads the same published research snapshot, so the numbers agree everywhere.
What I was trying to fix
Choosing a forex or CFD broker is a high-stakes decision made with low-quality information. The first question isn't even which broker is best. It's which brokers are available to you at all, because that depends on your country, and a lot of comparison content quietly ignores it.
The other problem is evidence. Regulator status, licences and pricing are facts with dates attached. A licence that was valid when someone wrote a review isn't necessarily valid today, and a page that doesn't tell you when a fact was captured is asking for blind trust.
The research snapshot
How a fact travels from a source to the page you're reading.
- Evidence is collected from sources such as regulator data, licences and published pricing.
- Each fact is captured with the date it was checked.
- Facts are assembled into a published research snapshot.
- Reviews, comparisons, toplists and the fee calculator all read that same snapshot.
- When the snapshot updates, every page updates with it.
illustrative.txt
# Illustration only: the idea, not the real code snapshot = latest_published_snapshot() review_page.fee = snapshot.fee(broker) compare_table.fee = snapshot.fee(broker) calculator.fee = snapshot.fee(broker) # one source of truth -> no competing versions of the same number Country first
Brokeli starts by filtering brokers by country availability. It sounds like a small UX detail. In practice it removes the most common way people waste an evening: reading glowing reviews of a broker that won't take them as a client.
Once you have a list that actually applies to you, you can compare a small set of brokers side by side. It's capped on purpose, because a comparison with endless columns isn't a comparison; it's a spreadsheet you'll close.
What lives on Brokeli
| Piece | What it does |
|---|---|
| Country filter | Shows brokers available where you are |
| Side-by-side compare | A small set of brokers on the same facts |
| Reviews | One broker in depth with dated evidence |
| Toplists | Ranked lists built from the same snapshot |
| Forex fee calculator | Estimates trading costs from published pricing |
| Learning section | Forex basics and risk management and MetaTrader |
Not financial advice. Brokeli is research, not advice. It can tell you what a broker publishes and what regulators say. It can't tell you whether trading CFDs is a good idea for you, and I'm not going to pretend it can.
About the affiliate links
Brokeli is free to use and affiliate-funded. Affiliate links never change scores. I know every site says that, so here's how I think about keeping it true: scores come from the research evidence, and a commercial deal isn't evidence of anything except a commercial deal.
What I won't claim
Brokeli is live, and it works. What I won't tell you is that it covers every broker in every country, because I'm not going to claim coverage I haven't counted for this post. Coverage is whatever is in the snapshot, nothing more.
Dated evidence also cuts both ways. A captured date tells you how fresh a fact is, which means it will sometimes tell you a fact is getting old. I'd rather show you that than hide it.
And the learning section is a starting point. If you've never traded, read it, then read more, then think about risk for longer than feels necessary.
If the review and the table disagree, at least one of them is lying to you. Usually by accident.
— why everything reads one snapshot
What a broker page should always show you
- Whether the broker accepts clients from your country
- Which regulators and licences apply
- When each fact was last checked
- Fees you can plug into a calculator
- A clear line between research and advertising
How I'd use it if I were choosing a broker
- Set your country and see who's actually available.
- Shortlist a few brokers and compare them side by side.
- Open each review and check the dates on the evidence.
- Run your expected trading through the fee calculator.
- Read the risk management pages before depositing anything.
Where to find it
Brokeli lives at brokeli.com. If you spot a number that looks wrong, I'd genuinely like to know. The rest of my projects are on spicanet.net/products.
Brokeli: brokeli.com. Originally published on spicanet.dev.
