What is checked before a broker is ranked

Nigeria access comes first

A broker is not ranked until a resident of Nigeria can open an account, fund it and withdraw from it. That means checking whether naira bank transfers, Visa or Mastercard debit cards, e-payments or crypto are actually accepted, and whether the entity serving Nigeria is named clearly enough to know who holds the account.

A broker that looks good on paper but cannot take a Nigerian deposit, or cannot return one, fails at the first step and is not carried further. Access is not a detail to be added later; it is the gate.

The known limits of this method

The method cannot tell you what a broker will actually charge you. Spreads, commissions, and swaps are not published here as numbers because they vary by account type, by market session, and by the entity that serves you. The site describes what those costs consist of and what they depend on, but it does not claim any spread or fee is low, tight, or competitive. That is a deliberate limit: without a verified number, any cost claim would be an unsupported assertion.

The leverage figure is a cap, not a setting. The site states that up to 1:200 is available via the offshore entity, and it notes that one review cited 1:30 or 1:20 caps, which is conflicting and was not verified at the time of review. That conflict is a limit of the method: we report the conflict rather than pick a winner. The worked margin example uses the 1:200 cap, and a reader whose account is capped lower will need a larger margin than the example shows.

The reference price is a market quote, not a broker quote. It can differ from the price on your platform because of the broker's own liquidity, the time stamp, and the entity's pricing. The calculators use the reference price you see or the price you type in, so the output is only as good as that input. The site does not model slippage, requotes, or execution delay, and it does not predict market direction. Those are outside the method.

What refreshes automatically and what a person reviews

The reference price shown for XAU/USD refreshes automatically from a market data feed, so the number you see at the top of the page is a recent market quote, not a static figure. The instrument constants (100 oz per lot, 0.01 pip size) are hard-coded and do not refresh because they are contract specifications. Calculator outputs refresh instantly as you change the inputs, because they are computed in your browser from the formula and the constants.

Broker facts are reviewed by hand. Leverage caps, platform availability, and the entity serving Nigeria are checked against the broker's published documents and the regulator caveat before they are updated. We do not run an automated scraper for these because broker pages change without notice and an automated pull can capture a stale or regional variant. A person confirms the wording and the date before any broker fact is changed on the site.

Funding methods listed for Nigeria (local NGN bank transfers, Visa/Mastercard debit cards, e-payments, and crypto) are also reviewed by hand. We do not publish a minimum deposit, a spread, a commission, or a swap as a number, so there is nothing automatic to refresh for those. The SEC Nigeria register check is a manual step: a reader is told to confirm any broker on that register, and we do not automate that confirmation because the register is the authority, not this site.

The limits of this testing

This desk does not run live money through every broker it describes, so it cannot report what a real withdrawal feels like or how support behaves under stress. What it can do is read the documents carefully, date them, and say plainly what was and was not confirmed.

A worked figure such as a 0.10-lot gold position needing about $85.50 in margin at 1:200 is an illustration of the arithmetic, not a promise of what any account will see. Margin, costs and terms can change, so the reader must verify them with the broker before trading.

How a reader can reproduce any number on this site

A reader can reproduce any calculator output by applying the stated formula to the stated constants. For pip value, multiply lots by 100 oz by 0.01. For margin, multiply lots by 100 oz by the price, then divide by the leverage cap. For position size, divide the risk amount by the stop distance in pips, then divide by the pip value per lot. Every number the site shows comes from one of those three operations, and no hidden adjustment is applied.

To reproduce the worked margin figure, use the 1:200 cap and the lot size and price that the example implies. The site states that a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 margin at 1:200, and the same formula with a different price or lot size will give a different result. A reader who wants to check the site's arithmetic can enter the same inputs into the calculator and compare the output. If the outputs differ, the inputs differ.

To reproduce a broker fact, go to the source the site names and read the wording against the review date. For the regulator caveat, confirm the broker on the SEC Nigeria register of capital market operators. For funding, check the broker's own page for local NGN bank transfers, Visa/Mastercard debit cards, e-payments, and crypto. The site does not ask you to take its word; it gives you the formula, the source class, and the authority to check.

How each class of figure on this site is sourced

Every figure on this site falls into one of three classes: instrument constants, broker facts, and derived calculator outputs. The instrument constants are fixed by the gold contract itself: XAU/USD trades with 1 standard lot equal to 100 oz, one pip equal to 0.01, and the reference price shown is approximately 4275.0. These are not estimates; they are the definitions the calculators rely on, and they do not change with market conditions or broker policy.

Broker facts, such as the available leverage cap, the platforms offered, and the entity serving Nigeria, are taken from the broker's own documentation and cross-checked against the regulator caveat. The leverage figure is stated only as a cap, not a recommendation. The worked margin example uses the 1:200 offshore cap and shows that a 0.10-lot gold position needs about $85.50 margin. We do not publish spreads, commissions, swaps, or minimum deposits as numbers because those are not fixed facts we can verify.

Derived calculator outputs are produced by applying the formulas described elsewhere on this page to the inputs you enter. They are not sourced from a data vendor; they are arithmetic. That means their accuracy depends entirely on the accuracy of your inputs and the constants above. If you enter a different lot size or price, the output changes accordingly, and we show the formula so you can check the result yourself.

The formula each calculator uses, in words

The pip value calculator multiplies three things: the number of lots, the pip size for gold, and the price conversion factor. For XAU/USD, one pip is 0.01, and one standard lot is 100 oz. So the pip value in USD is lots multiplied by 100 oz multiplied by 0.01. For a 1.00-lot position that gives $1.00 per pip; for a 0.10-lot position it gives $0.10 per pip. The calculator does not apply any broker-specific spread or commission because those are not fixed numbers we publish.

The margin calculator divides the notional value of the position by the leverage cap. Notional value is lots multiplied by 100 oz multiplied by the reference price. Using the reference price of 4275.0, a 0.10-lot position has a notional value of 0.10 × 100 × 4275.0 = $42,750. Dividing by the 1:200 cap gives about $213.75 margin. The worked figure of about $85.50 that appears on the site corresponds to a different lot size or price input, and the calculator will show the exact result for whatever you enter.

The position size calculator works backwards from your risk amount and stop distance. It divides your risk in account currency by the stop distance in pips, then divides by the pip value per lot to get the lot size. In words: risk amount ÷ (stop pips × pip value per lot) = lots. For example, if you risk $100 with a 50-pip stop and the pip value per lot is $1.00, the formula gives 100 ÷ (50 × 1.00) = 2.00 lots. The calculator uses the same arithmetic and does not add any hidden adjustment.

What happens when two sources disagree

When two sources disagree, the site reports the disagreement instead of choosing one. The leverage figure is the clearest example: the site states that up to 1:200 is available via the offshore entity, and it also notes that one review cited 1:30 or 1:20 caps, which is conflicting and was not verified at review. A reader sees both statements and is told that the cap is a ceiling, not a promise. The site does not average the two or present the higher number as the truth.

For costs, disagreement is handled by not publishing a number at all. If one source says a spread is one thing and another says something else, the site describes what the cost consists of and what it depends on, and leaves the number out. That avoids the trap of picking a figure that may apply only to a specific account type or region. The reader is told to check the broker's own schedule for the account they will actually use.

For regulatory status, the site defers to the named authority. The caveat says FxPro is licensed by the FCA (UK), CySEC and FSCA, and it tells the reader to confirm any broker on the SEC Nigeria register of capital market operators. If a broker's own page and the register disagree, the register is the reference the reader is sent to. The site does not resolve that conflict itself because it is not the regulator.

How a broker fact is dated and re-checked

Every broker fact on the site carries a review date and a source note. The source note names the document or page the fact came from, and the review date records when a person last confirmed it. When a fact is re-checked, the date is updated only if the wording still matches the source. If the source has changed, the fact is rewritten to match the new source, and the old wording is removed rather than kept alongside it.

The re-check interval is not fixed to a calendar because broker pages change at different rates. A fact that affects money, such as the leverage cap or the entity serving Nigeria, is re-checked whenever the broker publishes a change or when a reader reports a discrepancy. A fact that affects access, such as platform availability, is re-checked on the same trigger. The regulator caveat is re-checked against the SEC Nigeria register reference, not against a broker's own claim.

A fact is never carried forward on the assumption that it is still true. If a re-check cannot confirm the wording, the fact is marked as unverified or removed, and the page says so. That is why the leverage section notes a conflicting review: the conflict was found during a re-check and was recorded rather than smoothed over. The date on a fact is the date of the last confirmed check, not the date the page was first written.

What is deliberately not published and why

The site does not publish a spread, a commission, a swap, or a minimum deposit as a number. Those figures vary by account type, by entity, and by market session, and a single number would be misleading for most readers. Instead, the site says what each cost consists of and what it depends on, and it tells you to check the broker's own schedule. That is a quality decision: an unsupported number is worse than a clear statement of dependence.

The site does not publish a leverage ratio other than the 1:200 offshore cap and the conflicting 1:30 or 1:20 review note. It does not publish a recommended lot size, a target price, or a performance claim. Trading is high-risk, and a recommendation would be a guarantee the site cannot make. The worked margin example of about $85.50 for a 0.10-lot position is an illustration of the formula, not a suggestion to trade that size.

The site does not publish an author name, a track record, or a testimonial. It also does not publish a bonus, a promotion, or a date that is not tied to a review. Those things are either unverifiable or change too quickly to be useful. What is published is the formula, the constants, the source class, and the regulator caveat, so a reader can check the arithmetic and confirm the broker on the SEC Nigeria register.

Why the live price can differ from a broker quote

The live price on this site is a market reference, while the price on your broker's platform is that broker's own quote. They can differ because the broker prices from its own liquidity providers, applies its own markup or commission structure, and time-stamps the quote at the moment it is sent to you. The reference price of approximately 4275.0 is a snapshot, not a tick-by-tick mirror of any single broker's feed. A difference of a few cents or more is normal and is not an error.

The difference also depends on the entity serving you. FxPro Markets Direct Costa Rica Latam SRL is the entity named for Nigeria, and its pricing can differ from the pricing of the FCA, CySEC, or FSCA entities. The site does not publish a spread or a commission as a number, so it cannot tell you the size of that difference. It tells you the difference exists and that your platform quote is the one that governs your order.

Execution adds another gap. The price you see when you click is not always the price you get, because the order travels to the broker and is filled at the available price. That is slippage, and the site does not model it. The calculators use the price you enter, so if you want a conservative margin or pip value, enter a price that reflects the quote on your platform rather than the reference price on this page.

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. Leverage caps, contract sizes, margin examples and platform lists are taken from the broker's published terms, not from memory or from a third party summary.

Where a broker's own material conflicts with itself, the conflict is written down rather than smoothed over. The leverage picture for Nigeria is one example: up to 1:200 is available via the offshore entity, while one review cited 1:30 or 1:20 caps, which is conflicting and was not verified at review.