IC Markets vs Exness vs Pepperstone: execution notes from live logs
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2026 8:30 pm
Head-to-head notes from live logs, same weeks, same hours. Not a billboard ranking.
The IC Markets, Exness and Pepperstone raw accounts I tested showed different personalities at 08:05 versus 13:35. One looked tighter in quiet mid-morning; another rejected fewer stops in my sample; a third had cleaner withdrawals. None won every column. I keep the comparison sheet dated so stale months do not decide current size.
Method, so people can judge it: same EURUSD setup, minimum size, roughly sixty trades per account over six weeks, all inside London hours. I logged spread at entry, fill versus requested price, and any rejects. Sixty trades is small, so I treat differences of less than 0.1 pip as noise.
The biggest difference was not spread at all. It was behaviour in the first minute after data, where one account widened much more than the others. If you never trade near news, that may not matter to you at all.
Execution notes expire. I rerun a short sample after any account change. Brand loyalty is how people ignore their own deals tab.
The IC Markets, Exness and Pepperstone raw accounts I tested showed different personalities at 08:05 versus 13:35. One looked tighter in quiet mid-morning; another rejected fewer stops in my sample; a third had cleaner withdrawals. None won every column. I keep the comparison sheet dated so stale months do not decide current size.
Method, so people can judge it: same EURUSD setup, minimum size, roughly sixty trades per account over six weeks, all inside London hours. I logged spread at entry, fill versus requested price, and any rejects. Sixty trades is small, so I treat differences of less than 0.1 pip as noise.
The biggest difference was not spread at all. It was behaviour in the first minute after data, where one account widened much more than the others. If you never trade near news, that may not matter to you at all.
Execution notes expire. I rerun a short sample after any account change. Brand loyalty is how people ignore their own deals tab.