OctaFX was established in 2011 and is a member of a group of international companies that also includes Octa Markets Incorporated (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) and Octa Markets Cyprus Ltd (Cyprus). When funding with a Visa or MasterCard, the minimum deposit amount at OctaFX is only $25. It offers 229 tradeable symbols.

In my three-year evaluation of OctaFX on ForexBrokers.com, I discovered that in addition to its proprietary web and social copy-trading platforms, OctaFX provides a basic, affordable MetaTrader platform experience.

It has made significant progress in terms of the pricing options available to traders, but struggles with a small selection of tradeable instruments and a dearth of variety in its educational materials. Only one regulatory license is held by OctaFX.

Trading Instruments OctaFX 

Less than 230 tradeable instruments are available from OctaFX. Saxo Bank, IG, and CMC Markets, the market leaders, each offer over 10,000 tradeable instruments.

Trading cryptocurrency at OctaFX is only possible through CFDs; trading the underlying asset directly (such as purchasing Bitcoin) is not an option. Notably, neither U.K. residents nor retail traders from any broker’s U.K. entity are permitted to trade cryptocurrency CFDs.

• Forex Trading (Spot or CFDs) Yes
• Tradeable Symbols (Total) 229
• Forex Pairs (Total) 40
• 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
  
  

Fees and commissions

In the past, OctaFX had trouble with pricing, but it has made significant progress in this area and is now overtaking the most affordable MetaTrader brokers.

Account types: The commissions or fees you pay to OctaFX will depend on the type of account you choose and the OctaFX entity that is in charge of regulating your account. International clients are served by OctaFX’s offshore entity in Saint Vincent and The Grenadines (SVG), while European clients will choose the broker’s EU entity. The SVG entity offers accounts for both MT4 and MT5, whereas the EU promotes only MT5, making only one account available.

Depending on which of OctaFX’s entities is in charge of regulating your account, different spread prices apply. For the EUR/USD pair, for instance, its EU entity performs marginally better with an average spread of 0.5 pips as opposed to 0.9 pips for the SVG entity. It’s important to note that because OctaFX did not provide a date range for its average spread data, the values don’t have the same significance as spreads that do. Overall, OctaFX has improved its pricing and seems to keep up with the most affordable MetaTrader brokers, but we were unable to draw any precise comparisons due to the lack of a date range for its average spread claim.

• Minimum Deposit $25
• Average Spread EUR/USD – Standard 0.9
  
  

Apps for mobile trading

Even though OctaFX has its own social copy trading app (the OctaFX Copytrading app).

Overview of apps: The iOS and Android versions of the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5) apps are both available for download from the Apple App Store and Google Play store, respectively, because OctaFX is a MetaTrader-only broker. For social copy trading, OctaFX also provides its own OctaFX Copytrading app.

Trading Platforms

OctaFX is primarily a MetaTrader broker, providing access to MetaQuotes Software Corporation’s suite of platforms, which includes MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). OctaFX also offers access to its proprietary OctaTrader web trading platform.

OctaTrader: The recently released web platform from OctaFX offers a straightforward trading environment, providing the fundamentals required for basic trading operations without any frills or advanced features. Although OctaTrader still has a ways to go before it can compete with the trading platforms provided by the best brokers, this in-house web platform is a good place to start.
Copy trading: OctaFX provides a web interface that links to its MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform offering for copy trading. The copy trading service provided by OctaFX keeps getting better every year, but there is still room for improvement.

OctaFX Market research

The market research from OctaFX is comprehensive and has a wide range of topics. OctaFX offers a broad range of content types rather than specializing in any one area. 

Overview of research: OctaFX’s Market Insights section houses its research materials, including daily analysis posts, an economic calendar, and automated technical analysis performed using the Autochartist plugin for MetaTrader. The interest rate tracker, the daily and weekly forecast articles, and the economic calendar—which was helpful for keeping track of public holidays and international trading hours—were my favorite features.
Market news and analysis: OctaFX publishes daily articles on technical and fundamental analysis of well-known trading symbols, such as forex and CFDs. Additionally, it provides access to its OC LiveTrader series, which consists of live-streamed video content on its recently passed one million subscriber YouTube channel. Although slightly superior to what you’d typically find with the average broker, OctaFX’s research material still falls short of the in-depth offerings made by the top brokers in this field.

Education

Despite the fact that OctaFX has expanded its educational offerings with webinars and recordings of live trading sessions, its educational articles and videos lack variety.

The OctaFX website has a section devoted to forex education with about 20 articles for beginners. The OctaFX YouTube channel hosts its 11-part Forex Basic Course video series as well as webinar archives.
OctaFX’s educational resources are enhanced by tools like its trading glossary, platform tutorials, and a large number of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Despite this, there isn’t a lot of educational material available for learning how to trade or comprehend market dynamics. Although the broker does have a blog and a YouTube channel, I still felt like I could have used more information.

Conclusion on OctaFX

Although there are relatively few tradeable instruments available, OctaFX provides the complete MetaTrader suite. There is no doubt that OctaFX must enhance its product offering, as well as its research and education, if it hopes to compete with the best MetaTrader brokers.

Even though OctaFX has been given regulatory status in Cyprus, the absence of other respectable licenses significantly lowers its Trust Score. Gaining regulation in more places, especially tier-1 places, will help you gain the trust of your current and potential customers.