Worked example
Practising on Octa (formerly OctaFX)'s numbers
This is an exercise sheet, not a review. We are going to take three things that Octa (formerly OctaFX) publishes — a spread, a ladder of account types and a list of licences — and turn each of them into something you can do arithmetic with. By the end you should be able to repeat the whole exercise on any firm you come across, which is the actual skill being taught.
The figures we are working from
Nothing below is our estimate. Where a firm has not published something, or we could not read it on a source we trust, the box says so instead of guessing — a habit worth copying when you build your own broker notes.
Exercise one — turn the spread into money
The spread is the gap between the price you can buy at and the price you can sell at, and you pay it the instant you enter. Octa (formerly OctaFX) publishes 0.6 pips on EUR/USD. On its own that number means nothing. Here is how it becomes money.
Compare this broker's 0.6 pip EUR/USD figure against the "from" number in its own advertising.
Now do it without us
Take the spread of any other firm on the practice index, run the same four steps, and write both figures down — per lot and per micro. When you can do that in your head you have stopped shopping on marketing copy and started shopping on cost. The pip value calculator will check your working on pairs where the pip is not a flat ten dollars.
Exercise two — read the account ladder
Account tiers are a pricing structure dressed as a status ladder. Octa (formerly OctaFX) offers 3 rungs. Read them as a question — what does each rung ask of me, and what does it give back? — rather than as a set of prizes to climb towards.
- OctaTraderThe entry rung. Whatever the published spread applies to, it is almost always this one — so this is the rung your arithmetic above describes.
- MetaTrader 5A higher rung usually trades a tighter spread for a commission, a larger deposit, or a status test. Convert both pricing models to money per lot before you decide either is cheaper.
- MetaTrader 4A higher rung usually trades a tighter spread for a commission, a larger deposit, or a status test. Convert both pricing models to money per lot before you decide either is cheaper.
Account names as published: OctaTrader, MetaTrader 5, MetaTrader 4. Platforms listed: OctaTrader, MT4, MT5.
Exercise three — what this licence list means for you
A long licence list is not automatically a good sign. What matters to a beginner is a narrower question: which entity would hold my money, and who supervises that entity? Those are often not the same as the impressive name at the top of the list. Here are Octa (formerly OctaFX)'s lines, each with a plain reading.
| Regulator | Entity on the register | Number | What that means for a beginner |
|---|---|---|---|
| CySEC · Cyprus | Octa Markets Cyprus Ltd | 372/18 | a mid-tier regulator: real supervision and a register, usually with a smaller or capped compensation scheme |
| FSCA · South Africa | Octa Markets (Pty) Ltd | FSP 51913 | a mid-tier regulator: real supervision and a register, usually with a smaller or capped compensation scheme |
| FSA Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (company registration) · Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | Octa Markets Incorporated | 19776 IBC 2011 | an offshore registration: a company exists and pays a fee, but expect little practical recourse from that entity |
No top-tier line appears on this file. That does not make the firm illegitimate, but it does mean the compensation-scheme and capital-rule protections a beginner usually assumes are present are not evidenced here. 1 line is offshore registration; treat those as a company address rather than as supervision.
The record behind these numbers
- The brand was renamed from OctaFX to Octa in 2023.
- Clients outside the EEA and South Africa are onboarded through Octa Markets Incorporated, registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
- Octa's account comparison page lists a $25 minimum deposit across OctaTrader, MT4 and MT5 accounts.
- Octa states it does not accept clients from the EU, UK, USA, Canada, India, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan or the Philippines.
What we could not verify
The following are unconfirmed and are deliberately left blank rather than estimated: headquarters city; exact legal name of the FSCA-licensed entity; maximum leverage per entity; founding year 2011 relies on secondary sources plus Octa's own '15+ years in the market' claim; headquarters. Confidence in this file overall: medium. When you build your own notes on a firm, keep a list like this one — the gaps are more useful than the figures, because they tell you what to go and check.
Run the same exercise on another firm
PipMentor does not rank brokers, does not award badges and does not tell you where to open an account. This page exists so the arithmetic you learn in the curriculum has real numbers to bite on.