How we score and rank
Every score on this site comes from the same four pillars, weighted the same way for stocks, crypto and gold.
The four pillars
| Pillar | Weight | What we look at |
|---|---|---|
| Costs | 30% | What a typical European investor actually pays: trading fees, spreads, currency conversion, deposits, withdrawals and account fees, worked out for realistic amounts like €100 a month. |
| Licence & protection | 30% | Which regulator licenses the provider for EU residents, how client assets are kept apart, investor compensation, proof of reserves for crypto, and its track record of fines and incidents. |
| Products | 20% | What you can buy and how: ETFs and savings plans, stocks and markets, crypto coins, staking, gold, order types. |
| Ease of use | 20% | Opening an account, the app, deposits in euros, support in English, and tax paperwork for your country. |
For gold dealers and vaults, buying physical gold isn't a licensed activity in most of Europe, so “licence & protection” scores how you own the metal (allocated and in your name, or a claim on the dealer), independent audits, insurance and the company's track record.
Each pillar gets a score from 1 to 10. The overall score is the weighted average. Rankings on “best” pages start from the score and then apply the goal of the page, such as the lowest cost for €100 a month.
Verdicts, in trail marks
A score can't tell you who a provider is for, so every review ends with one of four verdicts, borrowed from the painted marks on hiking trails.
We'd send a friend here for the goal we name. It still has downsides, and we list them.
Good, but only if a condition is true for you: an amount, a country or a way of investing.
We wouldn't use it, usually because of costs, a missing licence or how it treats customers.
We haven't checked enough to give a verdict, so we say so instead of guessing.
Licence policy
For crypto exchanges we check the ESMA interim MiCA register and the home regulator. Since the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) took full effect, exchanges need a MiCA licence to serve EU residents. If an exchange has none, we still review it, because people search for it, but we don't recommend it to EU residents and we don't link to it. For brokers we check the register of the national regulator, such as the AFM, BaFin or CySEC.
Where the facts come from
- Official fee schedules, price lists and legal documents published by the provider.
- Regulator registers and public enforcement notices.
- Reputable financial press for incidents and regulatory history.
Each fact box shows the date we last checked it. We aim to re-check fees and licences at least every quarter, and immediately after big news. We don't claim hands-on testing unless we did it ourselves, with our own account.
What we don't do
We don't give personal financial advice, we don't predict prices, and we don't rank providers that are not allowed to serve you.