Pepperstone Razor Review: Does More Platforms Beat IC Markets' Price?
We ran a Razor account through MT5 and cTrader, tracked EUR/USD spreads across a full week, and weighed Pepperstone's platform lineup against IC Markets, the broker most scalpers ask us about first.
Best for: Active traders who want MT5, cTrader and TradingView on the same raw-spread account
Pepperstone's Razor account is not the cheapest raw-spread account on the market, IC Markets consistently prices tighter on EUR/USD, but Pepperstone answers with a wider platform bench: MT4, MT5, cTrader and live TradingView execution under one login. An active trader who wants to test platforms before committing to one should start here; a pure cost-per-lot scalper should still put IC Markets side by side first.
Price No minimum depositMaker Pepperstone Grouppepperstone.com
Every trader who asks us about raw-spread brokers eventually asks the same follow-up: Pepperstone or IC Markets? We opened a Razor account, moved in $3,000, and traded EUR/USD, GBP/USD and gold across MT5 and cTrader for two weeks specifically to answer that question with our own fills rather than a marketing page.
The Razor account, and what "raw" actually costs
Razor spreads on EUR/USD advertise from 0.0 pips, and during quiet Asian-session hours we did see prints at 0.1 and 0.2. London open widened that out, averaging closer to 0.4 across our sample. Add Pepperstone's flat $3.50 per lot per side commission and the all-in cost per round trip lands near $10.50 for a standard lot, broadly matching what independent trackers report. IC Markets, running the same math on its Raw account, has consistently priced a touch tighter on the exact same pair, so a scalper counting fractions of a pip should not assume Pepperstone automatically wins on cost.
Where Pepperstone claws cost back is on the Standard account for anyone who dislikes commission billing: no per-lot fee, just a roughly 1 pip markup baked into the spread. It is simpler to budget for but more expensive over volume, so we would only recommend Standard to someone trading occasionally rather than daily. We ran a side-by-side ticket on both account types during a single afternoon, and the Razor fill beat Standard by close to $6 on a one-lot EUR/USD round trip once commission was included, which is the kind of gap that adds up fast for anyone placing more than a handful of trades a week.
Four platforms, one login: this is where Pepperstone pulls ahead
The commission math is close between the two brokers. The platform lineup is not. Pepperstone gives a Razor account access to MT4, MT5, cTrader and TradingView, all under the same login, and we tested order execution on three of the four during this review. cTrader's depth-of-market view made it our pick for gold, where seeing real liquidity levels mattered more than automation. MT5 handled our basket of hedged forex positions cleanly and remains the platform most third-party expert advisors are built for.
