The best Forex brokers for expert advisors (EA) are the ones that have the best and fastest execution speed, lowest slippage, lowest spreads (for scalping or day trading robots), support MetaTrader platform, and last but not least don’t have any problems with running EA. These features provide the best conditions for Forex robots.

Best Forex Brokers for Expert Advisors (EA)

I’ve reviewed more than 200 reputable forex brokers in the industry and examined and tested them from different angles based on the aforementioned factors. Here’s a list of the best forex brokers for running expert advisor (EA):

• FP Markets
• FXOpen
• Axi Trader
• Global Prime
• Hot Forex
• IC Markets
• Admiral Markets

You can find more information about every one of these forex brokers in the table at the bottom of this article.

Now let’s talk about the factors that make forex brokers fit for forex robots or EAs…

Most Important Factors for Choosing Best Forex Brokers for EAs

As I mentioned earlier, there are some factors that we need to notice when picking a forex broker to run our EA on. Some of these factors such as “the best execution” is in common among all types of EAs and some like “lowest spreads” are related to a specific type of Forex Robots, scalping or day trading in this case.

So let’s become more familiar with each of them…

Brokers’ Execution

The quality of forex brokers’ execution and the technology behind their execution software can affect the performance of your EA to some extent especially if you use an HFT (high-frequency trading) type of EA.

If your expert advisor opens and closes several trades in a row or uses a scalping method that needs fast execution, your broker should execute orders as fast as possible so that you can make sure all the orders your EA takes are executed without any problems.

I tested both MT4 market and limit order execution of more than 200 forex brokers using two EAs to find the fastest exaction brokers. You can find the entire process in an article that I wrote here.

Broker’s Slippage

Slippage happens when an order is sent to a broker to be executed but the broker can’t fill the order at the exact ordered price so that it’s filled at the closest price possible.

The price can be better than you ordered which is called positive slippage or worse which is called negative slippage. The latter is the one that more often are seen.

Slippage mostly happens either in volatile situations when markets move fast, for example when an important news event is released, or in low liquid circumstances for instance, after the New York session and also lower liquid trading instruments such as stocks or lower liquid forex pairs such as exotic pairs.

Normally, forex brokers that have more and larger liquidity providers, which means they can receive prices from different providers, can handle these kinds of situations better so you see fewer and smaller slippages.

Forex brokers that have better conditions in terms of slippage are generally suggested for all types of EAs, however, you should pay closer attention to this factor if you use an EA that trades based on news or in low liquid situations and/or trading instruments.

I scanned the slippage of forex brokers in the industry using a third-party website called myfxbook. The examinations were conducted on different occasions when the most important news events were released.

You can find the entire study on a blog post that I wrote here.

Spread & Commission

Spreads + commission can play a critical role in scalping or even day trading EAs. Imagine an EA that targets 10 to 12 pips for GBPJPY. The average spread + commission for this pair in low spread + commission forex brokers is something between 1.2 and 1.8 pips while some other brokers charge you 5 pips or even higher.

Obviously, it can take a toll on the EA and turn it from a profitable one to a losing EA.

Almost all forex brokers with low spreads + commission offer a type of ECN account called raw or zero spread in which they charge small spreads plus an amount as commission. The spreads are variable and change constantly but the commission is fixed and only changes for different pairs in some brokers.

They also offer another account which is usually called Standard or STP for which you only pay spreads. The spreads are usually higher compared to the ECN account; however, spreads’ fluctuations are less and also the spreads you receive are more stable and predictable.

As a result, if you have an EA that trades in volatile conditions, it’s better to go with the Standard account otherwise the ECN type of account is a better choice for you.

Anyway, again we did a study on the spreads + commission of almost all the reputable brokers in the industry to find the lowest spread + commission. You can find that on this post.

Brokers’ EA Policy

When picking a forex broker for EA, first you have to make sure they let you run EAs, and secondly, they don’t have any problems with the type of trades that your EA takes.

Most Forex brokers don’t have any problems with EAs in general but there might be limitations on some types of EAs. For example, some brokers don’t allow the EA to open and close trades with less than 3 pips, so if you use such a scalping EA, you should ask them first.

The other strategies that some brokers don’t allow are arbitrage and hedging so make sure to ask them before running such EAs especially the arbitrage because a majority of brokers don’t like that.

We’ll talk about these limitations more later on this article.

Trading Platform

Since 99% of Forex robots are programmed for Metatrader, mostly for MT4, the Forex broker that you want to pick for your EA should offer MT4. Again 99% of Forex brokers offer Metatrader especially MT4.

What is important here is the way this MT4/MT5 executes your orders which is actually related to the execution software that brokers use and how sophisticated it is.

Besides the liquidity providers of brokers that can speed up the order execution process, having a state of the art software leads to fast order execution.

Brokers’ Limitations on Expert Advisor (EA)

As I mentioned earlier, there are some Forex brokers that put limitations on some types of EAs. Normally brokers don’t have any problems with running EAs because otherwise, they lose a lot of prospects, however, some of them don’t like some types of trading strategies specifically scalping, hedging, and news trading.

These kinds of limitations are a lot more on the brokers known as market makers. Technically the ones that take the other side of your trades and don’t connect you to their liquidity providers — the ones that don’t offer ECN accounts.

They might allow you to use scalping EAs but have some pip or time limitations. For instance, you can’t have trades under 3 or even 10 pips, or your trades must last for a few minutes.

Other limitations might be on news trading. For example, you or your EA can’t open trades a few minutes before and after some important news events.

The best Forex brokers for EAs are the ones without those kinds of limitations.

How to Make EAs Orders Be Executed Faster by Brokers?

So far we’ve talked about the factors that forex brokers can have in order to provide the best conditions for our EAs but we can add another factor that improves the quality of executions to a great degree, VPS.

Using VPS is almost a must when we want to run an EA.

First off, it decreases the latency between our broker and our platform dramatically. For example, if you’re in let’s say Japan and the closest server of your broker is in London, you see a latency of around 200 milliseconds, more or less. This number can be reduced to 1 or 2 milliseconds when you use a VPS. As a result, your EAs’ orders are executed much faster.

Another reason that you should use a VPS is to have a more stable connection. Whenever your internet disconnects, it can cause a lot of trouble for your EA. For example, it can miss a trade, a loop, or commend so that the result of that trade changes completely.

Spending a few bucks for a VPS each months can save you from all those problems and help your EA to run smoothly.

I’ve written a post and explain more about VPS that you can find it here.

Best Forex Brokers for EA Comparison

In the following table, you can find the forex brokers that provide the best conditions for expert advisors or forex robots and pick the one that is more suitable for your EA.

If you don’t know about some of the information in the table, you haven’t read the article, so you can find the section you want in the table of content at the beginning of the article and then take a look at the section.