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Alison Heyerdahl is the Head of Content at FxScouts, a Chartered Market Technician (CMT), and an experienced trader, as well as a financial writer with extensive expertise in Forex trading, broker analysis, and market research. She has reviewed 100+ brokers, publishes weekly YouTube trading videos, and co-hosts the “Let’s Talk Forex” podcast.
In the fast-paced world of forex trading, choosing the right broker is crucial. IC Markets and Octa are two popular options, each with unique strengths and weaknesses. This comparison will dive into the key features of both platforms,helping you decide which one best suits your trading style and goals.
The radar chart above illustrates the comparison between IC Markets and Octa across several key metrics, with the highest possible score being 100 in each category.
At FxScouts, our mission is to assist traders in finding the broker that best suits their needs. Comparing brokers side-by-side is an effective method to achieve this goal. We evaluated IC Markets and Octa, using our standard criteria: trust and regulation, trading platforms, costs and trading conditions, and educational and market analysis resources.
Trust and regulation are crucial when selecting a Forex broker. A broker’s credibility is largely built on its regulatory status. We spend considerable time verifying the safety of each broker by examining their regulatory licenses. We also consider numerous factors when deciding which tier a regulator belongs to. Regulators that we rank as the world’s top regulators, gets a tier 1 rank, while regulators who only scores a tier 5-rank, provide virtually no regulatory oversight. The more top-tier authorities regulating a broker, the higher its trust rating. Read more about regulation and our tier system here.
In our comparison:
Based on these findings, IC Markets earned a higher trust rating than Octa.
When comparing brokers, trading costs are a significant factor. We consider the minimum deposit required to open an account and ongoing costs, including spreads and commissions. We measure the cost to trade one lot of EUR/USD using the broker’s account with the lowest minimum deposit, including both the spread and any commission charged.
We found that Octa has overall lower trading costs than IC Markets.
Trading Platforms Offered Traders prefer brokers that offer a variety of trading platforms. We rate brokers higher if they support multiple platforms like MetaTrader4, MetaTrader5, cTrader, and proprietary platforms.
Copy trading is beneficial for beginner traders or those unable to trade full-time. In this case both IC Markets and Octa offer copy trading.
A broader range of CFD instruments provides more trading opportunities. IC Markets offers a greater variety of instruments compared to Octa:
For those interested in trading cryptocurrencies, Octa offers 34 cryptocurrencies, while IC Markets offers 18 cryptocurrencies. Therefore, Octa is the better choice for cryptocurrency trading.
Traders prefer brokers with quick and cost-effective deposit and withdrawal processes. We favor brokers that process withdrawals within 24 hours using multiple methods without charging fees.We found that IC Markets charges a withdrawal fee and Octa does not. Overall, Octa has better deposit and withdrawal processes than IC Markets.
We often find that brokers offer very little in the way of educational materials, forcing traders to use other third-party sites or self-educate elsewhere. Beginner traders need well-structured, well-presented materials in multiple formats to get a good start at trading. More experienced traders also benefit from webinars led by experts in the field and advanced trading strategy sections with new trading ideas.
IC Markets has better educational support than Octa. Both IC Markets and Octa offer educational support for more experienced traders.Access to frequent and high-quality market research and analysis is crucial.
We found that IC Markets offers better research analysis than Octa and that both IC Markets and Octa offer frequent webinars.
Founded in 2007 in Australia, IC Markets is a globally respected broker known for its transparent pricing, low trading costs, and institutional-grade trading conditions. It is regulated by several of the world’s most reputable financial authorities, including ASIC, CySEC, SCB, and—importantly for Kenyan traders—the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) of Kenya.
IC Markets stands out for its exceptionally low-cost trading environment. On its Raw Spread Account, average spreads are just 0.10 pips on the EUR/USD, combined with a round-turn commission of only 6 USD per lot. It is one of the few brokers to support all four major trading platforms—MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, cTrader, and TradingView—making it suitable for traders with a wide range of strategies and technical preferences.
Kenyan clients benefit from local regulatory protection through IC Markets Kenya Ltd, as well as access to a broad suite of professional trading tools, including VPS hosting, Trading Central, advanced charting, and copy trading services such as Myfxbook AutoTrade and ZuluTrade. Beginner traders will appreciate IC Markets’ 24/7 customer support and straightforward account setup process. While its educational content is more detailed than that of many competitors, the broker’s market analysis resources are somewhat limited.
Octa will be a difficult choice for many Kenyan traders. On the one hand, it has very low trading costs, charges no fees for deposits and withdrawals, and has a great copy trading service.
On the other hand, Octa is essentially unregulated in Kenya and has a very limited range of instruments to trade compared to other brokers: 52 Forex pairs, 5 commodities, 10 indices, and 34 cryptocurrencies.
If you can look past these issues, you will find a low-cost broker with a fairly standard setup: Two accounts with minimum deposits of 100 USD, a slick mobile app, and a good range of trading tools. Octa also heavily promotes its wide range of bonuses and it can offer leverage of 1000:1 on Forex pairs.
For more detailed reviews, please read our comprehensive assessments of IC Markets and Octa.
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Broker | Regulated by CMA | Licenced by | Min. Deposit | Cost of Trading Total trading cost at the time of last update, for 1 lot of EUR/USD using the account with the lowest minimum deposit. Includes spread and commission. | Official Site | Compare | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Yes |     | USD 3 | USD 7 | |||
 | Yes |   | USD 0 | USD 10 | |||
 | Yes |  | USD 0 | USD 10 | |||
 | No |      | USD 0 | USD 6 | |||
 | No |   | USD 100 | USD 9 | |||
 | No | | USD 100 | USD 14 | |||
| No |  | USD 5 | USD 6 | |||
 | Yes | | USD 200 | USD 8 | |||
 | No | | USD 10 | USD 17 |
Select another broker to another broker to compare features, fees, and platforms side by side.
Alison and Chris cover a range of topics, including how to choose a Forex broker, safety and regulation, how to reduce your risk, trading psychology, trading platforms, and trading strategies, among others.
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