IG vs CMC Markets

CMC Markets is the better choice for most active UK traders in 2026, particularly if you trade forex, UK or European share CFDs, or care heavily about execution costs. IG is the better choice if you want the widest platform ecosystem, specialist trading tools such as ProRealTime and L2 Dealer, or an account you may leave inactive for long periods.

The biggest practical difference is cost. CMC Markets currently advertises EUR/USD spreads from 0.5 pips on its standard offering and from 0.0 pips with FX Active, while IG advertises EUR/USD CFD spreads from 0.6 pips. CMC Markets also charges no commission on UK and most European share CFDs, whereas IG charges from 0.10% per side on UK FTSE 350 share CFDs. (CMC Markets)

IG fights back with a much broader platform stack. IG supports its proprietary web and mobile platforms alongside MetaTrader 4, MetaTrader 5, TradingView, ProRealTime and L2 Dealer. CMC Markets offers its proprietary web and mobile platform, TradingView and MetaTrader 4 to UK traders. (IG)

Our verdict: CMC Markets wins for active trading. IG wins for platform flexibility and traders who want a broader all-round ecosystem.

Spreads are variable and can widen with market conditions.

Risk warning: Spread bets and CFDs are leveraged products and carry a high risk of losing money rapidly. At the time of checking, 69% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading spread bets and CFDs with IG, compared with 68% with CMC Markets. (IG)

IG vs CMC Markets at a glance

The table exposes why there is no useful answer that simply says both brokers are “good”. CMC Markets has meaningful pricing advantages for several common trading activities, while IG's advantage is primarily the breadth of its trading infrastructure and specialist platform options.

Is CMC Markets cheaper than IG?

For EUR/USD, CMC Markets currently publishes a minimum standard spread of 0.5 pips. IG publishes a minimum CFD spread of 0.6 pips. CMC Markets' FX Active account can start from 0.0 pips on six major currency pairs with a commission of $2.50 per US$100,000 of notional value per transaction. (CMC Markets)

That 0.1-pip headline difference sounds more dramatic than it is for a low-volume trader. On EUR/USD, one pip on a standard 100,000-unit position is roughly $10, so:

• A 0.6-pip spread represents approximately $6 of spread cost.
• A 0.5-pip spread represents approximately $5.
• The difference is around $1 per standard lot at the advertised minimum.

The maths changes for someone making hundreds of trades, and advertised minimum spreads are not necessarily the spreads traders receive throughout an entire session.

CMC Markets published its own April 2026 spread monitoring showing lower average spreads than IG across several major currencies, indices and gold. That evidence supports CMC's pricing argument, but it was produced and published by CMC Markets itself, so it should be treated as vendor evidence rather than an independent test. (CMC Markets)

CMC Markets has a bigger advantage on share CFDs

The difference becomes much harder to ignore if you trade individual equities through CFDs.

CMC Markets currently charges 0% commission on UK and European share CFDs, excluding Greek shares. IG charges 0.10% per side with a £10 minimum for FTSE 350 share CFDs. (CMC Markets)

Take a £10,000 UK share CFD position.

At IG, 0.10% equals £10 when entering the trade and another £10 when closing it. The commission component of the round trip is therefore £20.

At CMC Markets, the equivalent UK share CFD currently carries no dealing commission. Spreads, financing and other applicable costs still matter, but the explicit commission difference is material for frequent equity CFD traders.

US share CFDs are closer. Both brokers charge 2 cents per share, but IG currently applies a $15 minimum online commission while CMC Markets applies a $10 minimum. (IG)

For smaller US equity CFD orders, CMC Markets therefore has another measurable cost advantage.

Which is better for forex trading, IG or CMC Markets?

The clearest difference is market depth. CMC Markets provides access to more than 300 forex pairs, including majors, minors and considerably more exotic currencies. IG advertises more than 80 popular currency pairs. (CMC Markets)

CMC Markets also has the stronger headline pricing:

CMC Markets' advantage matters most to traders who trade exotic currencies, run multiple FX strategies or generate enough turnover for relatively small cost differences to compound.

IG remains competitive for major-pair traders and has specialist execution options elsewhere in its ecosystem. If you only trade EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY occasionally, access to 300 currency pairs has almost no practical value.

For forex specifically, CMC Markets wins.

Which has the better trading platform?

IG currently supports:

• IG's web trading platform
• IG mobile trading apps
• MetaTrader 4
• MetaTrader 5
• TradingView
• ProRealTime
• L2 Dealer

CMC Markets supports its proprietary web and mobile platform, MetaTrader 4 and TradingView for relevant UK accounts. Its proprietary platform includes advanced charting, pattern recognition, client sentiment tools, Morningstar research and Reuters news. (IG)

The important distinction is not whether one platform has another 20 technical indicators.

It is whether your workflow depends on specialist software.

Choose IG for platforms if you:

Use ProRealTime, want MetaTrader 5, require L2 Dealer functionality, or want the option to move between several trading environments without changing broker.

Choose CMC Markets for platforms if you:

Primarily trade manually through a browser or mobile app, use TradingView, or run MT4 Expert Advisors and do not need IG's additional specialist platforms.

For conventional manual trading, platform quality is unlikely to justify accepting materially worse trading costs on its own. For a trader whose strategy depends on particular execution or charting software, it absolutely can.

Which broker offers more markets?

IG currently advertises 15,000+ markets on its CFD offering and 16,000 markets on another UK trading page. CMC Markets advertises access to 21,000 global financial instruments from its CFD offering. (IG)

Those numbers are not perfectly comparable. Providers count instruments, contract variations and account-specific availability differently, and their totals change as products are added or removed.

The more useful comparison is whether the broker has depth in the asset class you actually trade.

CMC Markets has the obvious numerical advantage in forex with 300+ pairs. IG provides extensive coverage across shares, ETFs, forex, indices, commodities, bonds, rates and options, as well as specialist trading routes. (CMC Markets)

Don't pick a broker because one homepage says “21,000 markets” and another says “16,000”. If you trade six instruments, the other 20,994 are irrelevant.

IG vs CMC Markets for spread betting

Both providers allow eligible UK clients to spread bet on markets including forex, indices, commodities and shares.

Financial spread betting profits are generally exempt from UK Capital Gains Tax and stamp duty, although tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and tax law can change. (IG)

There is no commission on conventional spread bets because the broker's trading charge is generally built into the spread, although overnight financing, guaranteed stop premiums and other costs may apply.

The same principle therefore applies as with CFDs: compare the actual spread on the instruments and sessions you trade, rather than simply comparing broker-wide claims.

For frequent forex spread betting, CMC Markets' combination of currency depth and current pricing gives it the advantage.

Is IG or CMC Markets better for share investing?

IG's current investing tariff lists:

• £0 trading commission
• £0 platform fee
• £0 custody or inactivity fee
• 0.7% FX conversion fee

(IG)

CMC Invest has tiered pricing. At the time of checking:

All three plans offer £0 in-app dealing commission, but account and investment availability differs between tiers. (CMC Markets)

This creates a useful break-even calculation that basic broker comparisons usually miss.

Compared with IG's 0.7% FX fee, CMC Plus saves approximately 0.20 percentage points on foreign-currency conversions. Assuming the full £6.99 monthly fee and ignoring other plan benefits, that fee is recovered at roughly £3,495 of foreign-currency conversion per month.

CMC Premium saves approximately 0.31 percentage points versus IG. Its £10.99 fee is recovered at roughly £3,545 of monthly foreign-currency conversion.

That means an investor regularly converting several thousand pounds a month into overseas assets could justify CMC's paid plan on FX savings alone. Someone buying an occasional US stock is less likely to.

For passive or infrequent investors who want simple pricing, IG has the cleaner proposition. For larger international investors, CMC's paid tiers deserve a proper cost calculation rather than being dismissed because they carry a monthly fee.

Which broker is better if you trade infrequently?

IG's current UK charges page lists its inactivity fee as free. CMC Markets charges £10 per month once an account has had no trading activity for a continuous period of one year, provided funds remain available in the dormant account. (IG)

CMC Markets states that deductions stop once the balance reaches zero and that up to three months of previously deducted inactivity charges can be refunded when the account is reactivated through trading. (CMC Markets)

That does not matter to an active trader. It matters quite a lot to someone opening several broker accounts, funding them and then forgetting about them.

Is IG safer than CMC Markets?

IG's UK services are provided through several regulated entities depending on the product. IG Markets Limited is FCA reference 195355, IG Index Limited is FCA reference 114059, and IG Trading and Investments Limited is FCA reference 944492. (IG)

CMC Markets UK plc is FCA reference 173730, while CMC Markets Investments Limited is FCA reference 948126. (CMC Markets)

Eligible customers can also have Financial Services Compensation Scheme protection of up to £85,000 where the relevant conditions are met. FSCS protection concerns the failure of an authorised financial firm. It does not reimburse normal investment or trading losses. (IG)

For a UK retail customer, regulation is therefore closer to a draw than a useful differentiator.

Costs, product fit and platform requirements should make the decision.

IG vs CMC Markets: which should you choose?

CMC Markets is the stronger choice for:

• Active forex traders
• Traders wanting access to 300+ currency pairs
• UK and European share CFD traders
• Smaller US share CFD trades
• Traders considering FX Active
• Manual traders happy with CMC's proprietary platform or TradingView
• Traders whose priority is transaction cost

IG is the stronger choice for:

• Traders who use ProRealTime
• Traders who need MetaTrader 5
• Traders interested in L2 Dealer
• Users who want multiple specialist platform choices
• Infrequent traders who want no inactivity fee
• Occasional long-term investors who prefer straightforward commission-free pricing
• Traders for whom a broader software ecosystem matters more than the lowest possible trading cost

Final verdict: CMC Markets vs IG

Its advantage is not based on a subjective star rating. CMC Markets currently offers a lower advertised EUR/USD minimum spread, more than 300 forex pairs, an FX Active pricing option, commission-free UK and most European share CFDs, and a lower minimum commission on US share CFDs. Those are differences that can translate directly into trading costs. (CMC Markets)

IG remains the better broker for traders who need its specific platform ecosystem. MetaTrader 5, ProRealTime, L2 Dealer and the broader selection of specialist trading interfaces give IG capabilities that CMC Markets does not currently match in the UK. IG also currently has no inactivity fee. (IG)

The decision is therefore straightforward:

For active forex, spread betting and share CFD trading, choose CMC Markets. For specialist platforms, advanced tooling or an account you may use intermittently, choose IG.

Before funding either account, compare the live spread and total transaction cost on the three to five instruments you actually trade. A broker-wide average matters far less than what your own strategy costs to execute.

Frequently asked questions

Is CMC Markets better than IG?

CMC Markets is better for most active UK traders because its current pricing is stronger across several important areas, including forex and UK or European share CFDs. IG is better for traders who value its wider selection of specialist platforms such as MetaTrader 5, ProRealTime and L2 Dealer.

Does CMC Markets have lower spreads than IG?

CMC Markets currently advertises EUR/USD spreads from 0.5 pips on its standard offering, compared with 0.6 pips for IG's CFD offering. CMC Markets also offers FX Active pricing from 0.0 pips on six major forex pairs plus commission. Actual spreads vary with liquidity, market conditions, position size and trading hours. (CMC Markets)

Can I use MetaTrader 4 with IG and CMC Markets?

Yes. Both IG and CMC Markets support MetaTrader 4. IG additionally advertises MetaTrader 5, ProRealTime, L2 Dealer and TradingView. CMC Markets also supports TradingView for eligible accounts. (IG)

Is IG or CMC Markets better for forex?

CMC Markets is better for most retail forex traders. CMC Markets offers more than 300 forex pairs compared with more than 80 at IG, publishes a lower current minimum EUR/USD spread, and offers its commission-based FX Active account for higher-volume traders. (CMC Markets)

Are IG and CMC Markets FCA regulated?

Yes. IG and CMC Markets operate FCA-authorised entities in the United Kingdom. The exact legal entity depends on the account and product being used, so customers should verify which regulated entity their account is contracted with. (IG)

Does IG or CMC Markets charge an inactivity fee?

IG's current UK pricing lists no inactivity fee. CMC Markets charges £10 per month after 12 continuous months without trading activity where funds remain in the dormant account. (IG)

I’ve deliberately made the cost examples and investing FX break-even calculation the information-gain layer rather than padding the page with generic broker definitions. That gives both the searcher and an answer engine something concrete to retrieve beyond the standard “both are FCA regulated and have good platforms” copy.