Methodology — comparisons and ratings

This page sets out how comparison pages, provider ratings and thematic overviews on Option News are produced. We publish our scoring logic openly so that readers can see what sits behind a score — and what does not.

Rating axes

Comparison pages on Option News rate providers on a 1-to-10 scale. The overall score is a weighted average across five axes:

Regulation & jurisdiction (25%): the supervisory authority, licensing status (MiCA, FMA, BaFin, AFM), deposit insurance and any group affiliations.
Fees & conditions (25%): spreads, order fees, withdrawal costs, custody fees and the handling of KESt (Austrian capital-gains tax) for Austrian investors.
Functionality (20%): the asset universe, savings-plan support, limit and stop orders, API access and tax reporting.
Security & custody (20%): the share of assets held in cold storage, multi-signature setups, 2FA options, any insurance pool, and security incidents in the past 36 months.
Service & language (10%): availability of German-language support, response times, quality of documentation and the user interface.

Sources

We rely exclusively on publicly verifiable sources:

Official provider documents (fee schedules, terms and conditions, insurance terms, white papers).
Supervisory registers (the FMA database, BaFin company register, ESMA listings).
Audited annual reports and compliance disclosures published by the providers themselves.
Our own test accounts, where publicly available, used to evaluate the user interface, withdrawal times and support quality.

We do not rely on affiliate aggregators, marketing PR or unverified third-party sites.

Data freshness and updates

Every comparison page carries the date of the most recent research at the top. Regulatory changes (loss of licence, new fees, takeovers) are incorporated promptly and logged at the foot of the page with date and scope. Full re-reviews take place at least once a year, or whenever the market changes structurally.

Provider selection

We include a provider in a comparison when at least two of the following conditions are met:

Availability to retail customers in Austria, Germany or Switzerland.
A valid EU supervisory licence or Swiss FINMA status.
A relevant market position (customer numbers, trading volume or media presence in the DACH region).

Providers without German-language support, without a published fee structure, or currently subject to consumer-protection proceedings are not included.

Review team and conflicts of interest

Ratings are written by one editor and reviewed by a second. Any personal stake is disclosed up front: an editor who uses a provider personally may still rate it, but must say so in the article.

Affiliate links and advertising

If a comparison page contains affiliate links, this is flagged clearly at the top of the page. Affiliate relationships have no influence on a provider's score or on the order in which providers appear. Sort orders follow the overall score, or a neutral ordering disclosed in the article (such as market share). Comparisons built on any other logic are labelled Sponsored Content, Anzeige (advertisement) or Werbung (advertising).

Corrections and tips

If you spot an error in a rating or have new publicly available data on a provider, please contact us at [email protected]. Every tip is reviewed. Substantive corrections are logged at the foot of the affected page with date and scope.