For youPlatformsCompareCalculator
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Methodology

How every fact on Investmatch is sourced, verified, refreshed, and rendered. If a number doesn't have a source URL we can show you, it isn't on the site.

1 — Platform shortlist

A platform is eligible for inclusion if it (a) is licensed by ASIC to provide retail investment services to Australians, and (b) operates an active product accepting new customers as of the most recent review. We exclude platforms that have wound down or closed to new applications, even if they still service existing customers. Where a platform is white-labelled by a partner (e.g. Bendigo Invest Direct, operated by CMC Markets Stockbroking), the AFSL holder is what we record.

2 — Fact extraction

For each platform we track ~70 fields covering identity (legal entity, AFSL, parent), costs (visible brokerage, hidden costs like FX spread and market data fees), asset coverage (ASX, US, options, CFDs), account structure (CHESS sponsorship, account types), trading mechanics (auto-invest, DRP), tax reporting, money movement, and platform UX.

Each fact is extracted from the platform's own website — most often the pricing or fees page, the FAQ, or the Financial Services Guide (FSG) PDF. AFSL numbers are cross-checked against ASIC Connect. We don't extract from comparison sites, broker review aggregators, or partner-affiliate content.

Every extracted fact is stored alongside the source URL and the verbatim quote it was extracted from. Visit any platform page and click "source" next to any data point to see exactly where the value came from.

3 — Verification & flags

Approved facts are the source of truth. Where a value is uncertain or known to have changed recently, it's marked for manual review and the stale version is hidden from public pages. Readers can flag any specific fact via the flag button on each row of the platform page — flagged items go into a review queue.

Pricing changes frequently — we strongly recommend verifying the live pricing on the platform's own site before committing. The "Last updated" date shown on each page is your guide to how fresh the data is.

4 — Refresh cadence

5 — Head-to-head comparisons

For every same-category platform pair we generate a head-to-head comparison page covering: an editorial intro framing the biggest difference; "Choose A if…" / "Choose B if…" use-case cards; up to five highlighted fact-level differences; a verdict sentence; and the full data table.

The comparison content is generated from the verified facts only — no marketing claims, no third-party scores. We never invent numbers, and every figure cited in the prose appears unchanged in the data table below it. See moomoo vs Superhero for an example.

6 — Cost calculator

The calculator uses the formula brokerage = max(min, pct × trade size) per trade, plus FX spread × trade × US trades, plus prorated platform and market-data fees over the period. USD→AUD is assumed at a flat 1.52 for US-trade simulations.

Special-case pricing rules (Webull's $30 brokerage cap, Vanguard PI's free Vanguard-ETF rule, CMC's free-first-trade-per-day, IG's holdings platform fee) are coded as overrides and flagged in the calculator results so you can see where the standard formula doesn't apply. Where a platform's actual pricing is materially different from what the calculator shows, this is a bug — please flag it.

7 — Rankings and search

When you ask in plain English ("cheapest CHESS broker", "set-and-forget ETF DCA for kids"), we extract your intent into two structured signals: hard filters (e.g. "must be CHESS-sponsored", "must support kids accounts") and a primary sort field (e.g. ASX brokerage minimum, lowest first; auto-invest sophistication, highest first). Platforms that fail the filters are dropped; the remainder are sorted by the named field. The result page shows you exactly which filters and sort applied, so the ranking is auditable.

Got a correction?

If something on the site is wrong, please tell us or hit the flag button on the specific row. We respond from hello@investmatch.com.au.