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Tickmill Review

Steven Hatzakis

Written by Steven Hatzakis
Edited by John Bringans
Fact-checked by Blain Reinkensmeyer

April 13, 2023
CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75% of retail CFD accounts lose money. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Tickmill is a run-of-the-mill MetaTrader broker that offers a limited selection of tradeable securities. Tickmill does offer very competitive commission-based pricing for professionals through its VIP and Pro accounts.

Tickmill
4/5 Stars Overall
  • Minimum Deposit: $100
  • Trust Score: 82
  • Tradeable Symbols (Total): 295
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Spreads as low as 0.0 pips.

(75% of retail CFD accounts lose money)

Tickmill pros & cons

thumb_up_off_alt Pros

  • Founded in 2014, Tickmill is regulated in one tier-1 jurisdiction and two tier-2 jurisdictions, making it a safe broker (average-risk) for trading forex and CFDs.
  • Tickmill makes the full MetaTrader suite available, as well as platform add-ons – putting it in close proximity with the best MetaTrader brokers.
  • Pricing for Tickmill’s Pro and VIP account is highly competitive, helping the broker finish 1st overall for Commissions and Fees again for 2023.
  • Offers the CQG platform for futures and options trading ($1,000 deposit required).
  • Tickmill is a solid choice of platform for professional trading.
  • Education from the CME, along with interactive sentiment data and website widgets from Acuity Trading help to complement research at Tickmill.

thumb_down_off_alt Cons

  • Only a limited range of markets are available for trading.
  • Pricing for Tickmill's Classic account is not as competitive.

Overall summary

Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Overall Rating 4/5 Stars
Trust Score 82
Offering of Investments 3.5/5 Stars
Commissions & Fees 5/5 Stars
Platform & Tools 4/5 Stars
Research 4/5 Stars
Mobile Trading 4/5 Stars
Education 4/5 Stars

ForexBrokers.com has been reviewing online forex brokers for over six years, and our reviews are the most cited in the industry. Each year, we collect thousands of data points and publish tens of thousands of words of research. Here's how we test.

Is Tickmill safe?

Trust Score
82
ForexBrokers.com

Tickmill is considered trusted, with an overall Trust Score of 82 out of 99. Tickmill is not publicly traded and does not operate a bank. Tickmill is authorised by one tier-1 regulator (high trust), two tier-2 regulators (average trust), and zero tier-3 regulators (low trust). Tickmill is authorised by the following tier-1 regulator: Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Learn more about Trust Score.


Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Year Founded 2014
Publicly Traded (Listed) No
Bank No
Tier-1 Licenses 1
Tier-2 Licenses 2
Tier-3 Licenses 0

Offering of investments

Tickmill offers a total of 295 tradeable symbols encompassing CFDs on currency pairs, indices, metals, bonds, and cryptocurrencies. There are also at least 62 symbols available for futures and options trading which are all accessible through a separate dedicated account. The following table summarizes the different investment products available to Tickmill clients.

Cryptocurrency: Cryptocurrency trading at Tickmill is available through CFDs, but not available through trading the underlying asset (e.g. buying Bitcoin). Note: Crypto CFDs are not available to retail traders from any broker's U.K. entity, nor to U.K. residents.

Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Forex Trading (Spot or CFDs) Yes
Tradeable Symbols (Total) 295
Forex Pairs (Total) 62
U.S. Stock Trading (Non CFD) No
Int'l Stock Trading (Non CFD) No
Social Trading / Copy Trading Yes
Cryptocurrency (Physical) No
Cryptocurrency (CFD) Yes
Disclaimers Note: Crypto CFDs are not available to retail traders from any broker's U.K. entity, nor to U.K. residents (except to Professional clients).

Commissions and fees

Tickmill offers three accounts: Classic, Pro, and VIP. Bottom line: Tickmill is best for active and VIP traders, who have access to pricing that competes among the lowest-cost brokers in the industry.

Classic accounts: The Classic account is entirely commission-free – traders only pay the bid/ask spread. However, average spreads for the Classic account are much higher than Tickmill’s other two account types.

Spreads: Tickmill lists 0.11 pips as a typical spread for the EUR/USD on its Pro account for August 2022. It’s worth noting, however, that the all-in cost actually comes to 0.51 pips when factoring in the RT commission equivalent of 0.4 pips ($2 per side). It is also worth noting that Tickmill records typical spread data during normal market conditions (when spreads are narrower).

Pro account: The Pro and VIP accounts both have a per-trade commission, which is then added to lower prevailing spreads. With its low commission rate, low-cost spreads, and offering of 75 instruments and 62 currency pairs, the Pro account will be ideal for most traders.

VIP versus Pro accounts: Traders that choose Tickmill’s VIP account will need to maintain a minimum balance of $50,000, but will gain access to its low commission of $1 per standard lot (100,000 units) or $2 per Round-Turn (RT) – and effective spreads drop to 0.27 pips after commissions. The Pro account is available with just a $100 deposit, but commissions are twice as high at $4 per round-turn standard lot.

Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Minimum Deposit $100
Average Spread EUR/USD - Standard 0.51 info
All-in Cost EUR/USD - Active 0.31 info
Active Trader or VIP Discounts Yes
ACH or SEPA Transfers No
PayPal (Deposit/Withdraw) Yes
Skrill (Deposit/Withdraw) Yes
Visa/Mastercard (Credit/Debit) Yes
Bank Wire (Deposit/Withdraw) Yes
Tickmill MT5 mobile trading app settings Tickmill MT5 mobile trading app news headlines Tickmill MT5 mobile trading app economic calendar Tickmill MT5 mobile trading app contract specifications Tickmill MT5 mobile trading app charts
Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Android App Yes
Apple iOS App Yes
Mobile Alerts - Basic Fields Yes
Watchlists - Total Fields 7
Watchlist Syncing No
Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total) 30
Charting - Drawing Tools (Total) 15
Mobile Charting - Draw Trendlines Yes
Mobile Charting - Multiple Time Frames Yes
Forex Calendar Yes

Other trading platforms

Tickmill continues to cement its status as a multiasset broker, with the launch of MetaTrader 5 from its U.K. and EU entity and the addition of TradingView. Tickmill has also taken the step of including the CQG platform for futures and options trading (U.K.-only). Tickmill has made real strides in its expansion of platform offerings, putting it in competition with the brokers that lead the industry – despite its lack of a proprietary platform.

Platforms overview: Tickmill is a MetaTrader-only broker that offers the standard out-of-the-box experience for MT4 and MT5. The CQG platform is available for futures and options (for U.K. traders), while TradingView – a popular web platform known for its powerful charting – can be connected to your Tickmill account (although I was not able to do this during our testing). The Agena Trader platform and other third-party applications are also available at Tickmill, with Direct Market Access (DMA) to popular futures exchanges in the U.S. and Europe.

Trading tools: Other notable add-ons are available from FX Blue as part of the Advanced Trading toolkit package, and Tickmill has also included Autochartist integration. VPS hosting – a useful tool for algorithmic traders – is also available at Tickmill.

Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Virtual Trading (Demo) Yes
Proprietary Platform No
Desktop Platform (Windows) Yes
Web Platform Yes
Social Trading / Copy Trading Yes
MetaTrader 4 (MT4) Yes
MetaTrader 5 (MT5) Yes
DupliTrade No
ZuluTrade No
Charting - Indicators / Studies (Total) 30
Charting - Drawing Tools (Total) 15
Charting - Trade From Chart Yes
Watchlists - Total Fields 7
View More

Market research

Tickmill is competitive in its offering of market research and continues to improve in this category each year. That said, Tickmill still can’t compete with industry leaders like IG and Saxo Bank when it comes to depth, personalization, and overall quality.

Research overview: Tickmill produces daily articles on its Expert Blog that cover technical and fundamental analysis, along with video updates published on its YouTube channel. Tickmill’s third-party research tools really shine; the Autochartist plugin allows for automated technical analysis, forex news headlines stream from Investing.com, and Myfxbook powers the broker's economic calendar. Tickmill also delivers content across social media, such as its dedicated FaceBook group and its Telegram channel.

Market news and analysis: Tickmill does a fine job pairing solid market coverage with a good balance of research content. There are articles that focus on technical analysis, paired with offerings like the Weekly Live Markets & Trade Analysis series that analyze market fundamentals. Tickmill also offers archived webinars, technical and fundamental analysis videos, and news updates on its YouTube page – such as its daily Chart Hits series which are quick one-minute updates. Finally, there is interactive sentiment data from the CME, and integrated widgets with sentiment data from Acuity Trading on the Tickmill website.

Copy trading: Besides the native Signals market available in MetaTrader, Tickmill offers three platforms for social copy-trading that connect directly to your MetaTrader account. There is Pelican Trading and the AutoTrade feature of Myfxbook but these two services are not available from the firm's U.K. and EU branches. While previously offered, ZuluTrade is no longer available for copy trading at Tickmill.

Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Daily Market Commentary Yes
Forex News (Top-Tier Sources) Yes
Autochartist Yes
Trading Central (Recognia) No
Social Sentiment - Currency Pairs Yes

Education

Tickmill's educational content is nearly up to par with the average industry offering. It does grant access to a large catalogue of archived webinars, but Tickmill lacks a variety of educational videos and articles.

Learning center: Highlights include live educational courses, a handful of comprehensive eBooks, infographics, and weekly webinars that are hosted in various languages and archived on YouTube. There are also educational resources for learning about futures, powered by the CME available on Tickmill’s website.

Room for improvement: Tickmill continues to expand its educational offering, in both its scope of material and variety of formats. As of now, however, it suffers from a lack of video content and written articles are scarce. Introducing a dedicated educational portal that makes it possible to filter content by experience level would be a notable organizational boost. Some of the best brokers offer lesson programs, complete with quizzes and progress tracking – features that are currently absent at Tickmill.

Tickmill education:

Feature Tickmill logoTickmill
Has Education - Forex or CFDs Yes
Client Webinars Yes
Client Webinars (Archived) Yes
Videos - Beginner Trading Videos Yes
Videos - Advanced Trading Videos No
Investor Dictionary (Glossary) Yes

Final thoughts

Tickmill is most valuable to high-volume, high-balance traders who are looking to trade only the most popular forex and CFD instruments. Tickmill complements its MetaTrader offering with a good variety of copy-trading platforms, and offers multiple account options with varying pricing structures.

Drawbacks to consider are its small range of markets, limited research material, and lackluster educational content. While the VIP account does have highly competitive pricing, there are better forex brokers out there for traders to consider in 2023.

About Tickmill

Tickmill was founded in 2014 by Brothers Ingmar and Illimar Mattus, both long-time forex industry entrepreneurs with significant experience in financial services. Today the Tickmill brand holds regulatory status in the U.K., Cyprus, South Africa, Seychelles, and Labuan in Malaysia. According to its website, Tickmill Group has over 250 staff and more than 327,000 customers.

2023 Review Methodology

At ForexBrokers.com, our reviews of online forex brokers and their products and services are based on our collected data as well as the observations and qualified opinions of our expert researchers. Each year we publish tens of thousands of words of research and detailed forex guides, and we monitor dozens of international regulator agencies (read more about how we calculate Trust Score here).

Our research team conducts thorough testing on a wide range of features, products, services, and tools (collecting and validating thousands of data points in the process). We test all available trading platforms for each broker – whether they are proprietary or come from third-party providers – and evaluate them based on a host of data-driven variables.

We also take an in-depth look at each broker’s commissions and fees, such as bid/ask spreads – including the average spread data for some of the most popular forex currency pairs. We research other trading costs, such as inactivity or custody fees, minimum deposit requirements, VIP rebates and/or discounts, and a range of other important fee-based data points.

Some of the other important research categories that are factored into our testing include mobile trading accessibility and capability, availability of market research and educational content, and each broker’s overall Trust Score.

Read our full explanation and accounting of our research and testing process to learn more about how we test.

ForexBrokers.com 2023 Annual Awards

For the ForexBrokers.com 2023 Annual Awards, brokers were evaluated against ForexBrokers.com’s 8 Primary Categories: Commissions & Fees, Offering of Investments, Platforms & Tools, Mobile Trading Apps, Research, Education, Trust Score, and Overall.

Best in Class honors were awarded to the Top 7 forex brokers in each of the following areas: Beginners, Social Copy Trading, Ease of Use, MetaTrader, Algo Trading, Crypto Trading, and Professional Trading.

ForexBrokers.com also recognized brokers that demonstrated excellence and innovation with our exclusive Industry Awards.

Primary categories

Tickmill logoTickmill Overall Rating Offering of Investments Commissions & Fees Platforms & Tools Research Education Mobile Trading Apps Trust Score
Rating 4/5 Stars 3.5/5 Stars 5/5 Stars 4/5 Stars 4/5 Stars 4/5 Stars 4/5 Stars 82
Rank #1 check
Streak #1 3
Best in Class check
Best in Class Streak 3

Secondary categories

Tickmill logoTickmill Social Copy Trading MetaTrader Crypto Trading Ease of Use Professional Trading Beginners Algo Trading
Rank #1
Streak #1
Best in Class check check check
Best in Class Streak 2 2

Forex Risk Disclaimer

There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. It should not be assumed that the methods, techniques, or indicators presented in these products will be profitable, or that they will not result in losses. Read more on forex trading risks.

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About the Editorial Team

Steven Hatzakis
Steven Hatzakis

Steven Hatzakis is the Global Director of Research for ForexBrokers.com. Steven previously served as an Editor for Finance Magnates, where he authored over 1,000 published articles about the online finance industry. A forex industry expert and an active fintech and crypto researcher, Steven advises blockchain companies at the board level and holds a Series III license in the U.S. as a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA).


John Bringans
John Bringans

John Bringans is the Senior Editor of ForexBrokers.com. An experienced media professional, John has close to a decade of editorial experience with a background that includes key leadership roles at global newsroom outlets. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from San Francisco State University, and conducts research on forex and the financial services industry while assisting in the production of content.


Blain Reinkensmeyer
Blain Reinkensmeyer

Blain Reinkensmeyer has 20 years of trading experience with over 2,500 trades placed during that time. He heads research for all U.S.-based brokerages on StockBrokers.com and is respected by executives as the leading expert covering the online broker industry. Blain’s insights have been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and the Chicago Tribune, among other media outlets.