Tickmill Review 2023

How we ranked fees

We ranked Tickmill's fee levels as low, average or high based on how they compare to those of all reviewed brokers.

To get things rolling, let's go over some lingo related to broker fees. What you need to keep an eye on are trading fees, and non-trading fees.

• Trading fees occur when you trade. These can be commissions, spreads, financing rates and conversion fees.
• Non-trading fees include charges not directly related to trading, like withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.

Below you will find the most relevant fees of Tickmill for each asset class. For example, in the case of forex and stock index trading the most important fees are spreads, commissions and financing rates.

We also compared Tickmill's fees with those of two similar brokers we selected, XM and Admirals (Admiral Markets). This selection is based on objective factors such as products offered, client profile, fee structure, etc. See a more detailed rundown of Tickmill alternatives.

To have a clear overview of Tickmill, let's start with the trading fees.

Tickmill trading fees

Tickmill's trading fees are low. Different account types come with different cost structures. We tested the Pro account, which charges a commission but offers tight spreads.

We know it's hard to compare trading fees for forex brokers. So how did we approach the problem of making their fees clear and comparable? We compare brokers by calculating all the fees of a typical trade for selected products.

We have chosen popular instruments in each asset class usually provided by the forex brokers:

• Forex: EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, EURCHF and EURGBP
• Stock index CFDs: SPX and EUSTX50

A typical trade means buying a leveraged product, holding it for one week and then selling. For the volume, we chose a $20,000 position for forex and a $2,000 position for stock index and stock CFD transactions. The leverage we used was:

• 30:1 for forex
• 20:1 for stock index CFDs

These catch-all benchmark fees include spreads, commissions and financing costs for all brokers. Let's see the verdict for Tickmill fees.

Forex fees

Tickmill has low forex fees.

Low forex fees are mainly the result of the low commission Tickmill charges. The commission is 2 base currency units per lot per trade. For example, it is €2 per lot per trade for EURUSD, £2 per lot per trade for GBPUSD, etc.

CFD fees

Tickmill CFD fees are generally low.

Non-trading fees

Tickmill has low non-trading fees. There is no fee for deposit or withdrawal. There is also no inactivity fee, but accounts that have been inactive for more than a year and have an account balance of less than €10 (or equivalent) may be closed by the broker.

Can you open an account?

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76% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Tickmill accepts clients from all over the world. There are only a handful of exceptions, the most notable being the US, Canada and Japan.

What is the minimum deposit at Tickmill?

The required minimum deposit at Tickmill is $100. For a VIP account, you need to maintain a minimum $50,000 balance.

Account types

Tickmill has several account types that differ in pricing, minimum deposit and minimum account balance.

Retail clients of Tickmill Ltd Seychelles can use leverage up to 1:500 while retail clients of Tickmill UK Ltd and Tickmill Europe Ltd can use maximum leverage of 1:30. If you qualify as a professional trader, you can trade using higher leverage, at up to 1:500 (Tickmill UK Ltd) or 1:300 (Tickmill Europe Ltd).

The criteria for professional clients:

• An average trading frequency of 10 trades per quarter in the previous four quarters
• A financial instrument portfolio in excess of €500,000
• At least one year of experience in a relevant financial position

You can also open corporate accounts and swap-free Islamic accounts. The main difference between Islamic and other accounts is that instead of daily swap rates, an administration fee is charged if you hold some exotic currencies for more than 3 nights.

How to open your account

Account opening is fully digital, fast and straightforward. You can fill out the online application form in a matter of minutes. Our account was verified within one day.

To open an account at Tickmill, you have to go through these steps:

1. At the top of the page, choose the Tickmill entity most appropriate to your country of residence (Tickmill UK, Tickmill Europe, Tickmill South Africa, etc)
2. Fill in your name, country of residence, date of birth, phone number and email address
3. Choose a regulator in the 'entity' field; please note that for some countries, only one option may be available. We recommend going for the UK or EU (Cyprus) regulator if available in your country.
4. Click 'Submit', after which you will receive an email to verify your email address
5. Once you returned to the page, enter your address, tax number and nationality
6. Answer questions about your employment status, financial situation and trading experience; fill in a short CFD quiz
7. Select your account type (Pro, Classic or VIP) and base currency
8. Verify your identity and residency. You can upload a copy of your national ID, passport or driver's license to verify your identity, while utility bills and bank statements are accepted as proof of residency.

Account base currencies

At Tickmill, you can choose from the following account base currencies: EUR, GBP, USD, PLN, CHF. This selection is definitely not the best on the market.

Why does this matter? For two reasons. If you fund your trading account in the same currency as your bank account or you trade assets in the same currency as your trading account base currency, you don't have to pay a conversion fee.

A convenient way to save on currency conversion fees is by opening a multi-currency bank account at a digital bank. Revolut or Transferwise both offer bank accounts in several currencies with great currency exchange rates as well as free or cheap international bank transfers. Opening an account only takes a few minutes on your phone.

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Deposit fees and options

Tickmill charges no deposit fees. You can use bank transfer, credit/debit cards, and many electronic wallets:

• Neteller
• Skrill
• dotpay
• Paysafecard
• Sofort
• Rapid by Skrill
• Paypal

A bank transfer can take several business days, while payment with credit/debit cards is instant.

You can only deposit money from accounts that are in your name.

Withdrawal fees and options

Similarly to deposits, Tickmill charges no fee for withdrawal. You can use the same options for withdrawal as for depositing.

How long does it take to withdraw money from Tickmill? We tested debit card withdrawal and it took 1 business day.

You can only withdraw money to accounts that are in your name.

How do you withdraw money from Tickmill?

1. Log in to account management
2. Go to 'Withdrawal'
3. Select your wallet and withdrawal method
4. Add the withdrawal amount
5. Initiate the withdrawal

Tickmill doesn't have its own self-developed trading platform; instead, it uses MetaTrader 4, a third-party platform.

MetaTrader 4 is available in an exceptionally large number of languages.

Look and feel

The Tickmill web trading platform has great customizability. You can easily change the size and the position of the tabs.

However, the platform feels outdated and some features are hard to find. For example, it took us a while to figure out how to add an asset to the watchlist.

Login and security

Tickmill provides only one-step login. Two-step authentication would be more secure.

Search functions

The platform's search functions are average. You can find assets grouped into various categories, but we missed the usual search function where you can type in the name of an asset manually.

Placing orders

You can use all the basic order types. However, you won't find more sophisticated order types such as 'one cancels the other'.

The following order types are available:

• Market
• Limit
• Stop
• Trailing Stop

Trailing Stop is available only on the MT4 desktop platform.

If you are not familiar with order types, read this overview.

There are also order time limits you can use:

• Good 'til canceled (GTC)
• Good 'til time (GTT)

Alerts and notifications

You can't set alerts and notifications on the Tickmill web trading platform. This feature is available only on the desktop trading platform.

Portfolio and fee reports

Tickmill has clear portfolio and fee reports. You can easily see your profit-loss balance and the commissions you paid. These reports can be found under the 'History' tab. We didn't find a way to download them.

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Similarly to the web trading platform, Tickmill offers MetaTrader 4 as a mobile trading platform. MetaTrader 4 is available for both iOS and Android. We tested it on Android.

After you download the MT4 mobile trading platform, you have to select the relevant server, e.g. TickmillUK-Live03.

Just like on the web trading platform, you can choose from many languages on the mobile trading platform. Changing the language is a bit tricky on Android devices, though; you can do it only if you change the default language of your mobile.

Look and feel

Tickmill has a great mobile trading platform, we really liked its design and user-friendliness. You will easily find all the features.

Login and security

Similarly to the web trading platform, Tickmill provides only one-step login. Two-step authentication would be safer.

You can't use fingerprint or Face ID authentication. Providing this feature would make the login process more convenient.

Search functions

The search functions are good. You can search by typing the name of the product or by navigating the category folders.

Placing orders

You can use the same order types and order time limits as on the web trading platform.

Alerts and notifications

You can set alerts and notifications for your mobile, although you can do it only on the desktop trading platform. It would be much easier if you could set these notifications on the mobile trading platform itself as well.

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76% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Tickmill offers MetaTrader 4 as a desktop trading platform.

It has the same design, is available in the same languages, offers the same order types (plus Trailing Stop), has the same search functions, and offers the same portfolio and fee reports as the web trading platform.

The major difference is that you can set alerts and notifications on the desktop trading platform, in the form of mobile push and email notifications. To set email or mobile notifications, you have to provide your email address and mobile MetaQuotes ID (you can find it in the MT4 app's settings). You can add them if you go to 'Tools' and then 'Options.'

Tickmill offers an Advanced Trading Toolkit to complement and enhance some features of the MetaTrader desktop platform.

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76% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Tickmill is a CFD and forex broker. To learn more about CFDs read our CFD trading tips.

Disclaimer: CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.

Tickmill's currency pair selection is fairly average compared with the rest of the market. Beyond that, you can also trade CFDs on some stock, stock indices, commodities, government bonds and cryptos. Options and futures are also available. However ETF CFDs are not available.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned the sale of crypto derivatives to UK retail customers as of 6 January 2021.

You can change leverage levels, which is great. Changing the leverage is a very useful feature when you want to lower the risk of your trade. Always be careful with forex and CFD trading, as preset leverage levels may be too high.

Tickmill's research tools are available in different places:

• MetaTrader trading platforms
• Autochartist in the website's Client Area
• 'Client Tools' section on the website
• Tickmill's blog

Trading ideas

Tickmill has a handful 'experts' who publish daily blog-like posts that explain and comment on market events. These short posts often showcase a chart and present trading opportunities. You can contact the experts if you have any comments or questions. We think this can be very useful for beginners.

We also liked the Autochartist tool, which gives trading ideas based on recognized chart patterns.

Fundamental data

As Tickmill mainly offers forex trading, it focuses on macroeconomic data rather than company fundamental data. Tickmill provides an economic calendar through its website, which also shows historical macroeconomic data. We liked the filter function, where you can filter by countries, data type and importance.

Charting

Tickmill has average charting tools. You can use 31 technical indicators. These charting tools can be found on the MetaTrader trading platforms.

On the negative side, the design is outdated and some features are hard to use. For example, it was hard to figure out how to remove an indicator from the chart.

News feed

Tickmill has a poor default news feed. It is not really structured, so finding the relevant news is not easy. When you click on a headline, it shows only a link to investing.com.

Other research tools you may enjoy

Tickmill offers the Tickmill Advanced Trading Toolkit as a free add-on for all clients using the MetaTrader platforms. Among others, it includes a customizable mini-terminal, an app to manage your news feed, a sentiment analysis tool and a chart indicator pack.

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You can contact Tickmill via:

• live chat
• telephone
• email

Tickmill phone support was fast and we got relevant answers.

Via email, we received a reply within a day and the answers were helpful.

Tickmill's live chat is of average speed but they are eager to help; e.g. they will make screenshots for you to help explain things.

The only thing we missed was 24/7 availability.

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At Tickmill you can learn in the following ways:

• Demo account
• General educational videos
• Platform tutorial videos
• Webinars
• Quality educational articles

Educational videos (including platform tutorial videos) are available on the website in the secure client area, under 'Forex Tools'. We really liked the quality of these videos. A few of these videos are also available for viewing on the public website under 'Client Tools' > 'Video Tutorials'.

There is also a great glossary as well as a demo account where you can practice trading and familiarize yourself with the platform.

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76% of retail CFD accounts lose money

Is Tickmill regulated?

It is regulated by several financial authorities, including the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), the Financial Services Authority of Seychelles, the South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) and the Financial Services Authority of Labuan Malaysia (LFSA).

Tickmill is based in the UK and was founded in 2014.

Is Tickmill safe?

To be certain, we highly advise that you check two facts:

• how you are protected if something goes wrong
• what the background of the broker is

How you are protected

Depending on your country of residence, you can open an account at one or more of Tickmill's legal entities.

This is important for you because the investor protection amount and the regulator differ from entity to entity.

We recommend that you register your account with the UK entity if it's available for you, as we consider the FCA regulation the best one.

Tickmill provides negative balance protection for retail customers. If the balance on your account goes negative, you will be protected.

Background

Tickmill was established in 2014. The longer track record a broker has, the more proof we have that it has successfully survived previous financial crises.

Find your safe broker

We recommend Tickmill for forex traders looking for low fees who are familiar with the MetaTrader 4 platform.

Below, you can find links to all aspects of Tickmill in this comprehensive collection.

Lower fees, lower costs?

We detailed this in our Tickmill fees article.

What about the minimum deposit?

Our ultimate guide to the Tickmill minimum deposit is updated regularly.

How to start your Tickmill account?

Look no further than our evaluation of the Tickmill account opening.

How's their trading app?

Here's our expert view after checking the Tickmill trading app.

Is the quality of customer service satisfactory?

All you need to know about Tickmill customer service.

Legit or scam?

Is Tickmill legit features all the key aspects you need to look at to see if a broker is safe and legit.

Free or premium? Or both?

A glance at actual costs and whether Tickmill is really free.

Is this broker good for beginners?

We checked it in Is Tickmill good for beginners.

Should you buy your silver bullets on Tickmill?

Research for silver bugs in the Silver buy on Tickmill guide

I want to trade options, are they available at Tickmill?

We explored the topic in Can you trade options on Tickmill?

What is the minimum account balance at Tickmill?

Check out the current account balance requirements at Tickmill in our What is the minimum account balance at Tickmill article.

Looking for commission and fees data for Tickmill?

We collected them in Tickmill commission and fees.

How do you withdraw money from Tickmill?

We tested it and collected the options and costs in How to withdraw money on Tickmill.