MT4, MT5 and cTrader: which to pick

An order type is the instruction attached to a trade before it is filled. The main ones are market, limit, stop and stop limit. A market order fills at the next available price. A limit order waits for a better price. A stop order waits for a worse price, and a stop limit order waits for a worse price but then fills only at a set price or better.

The three platforms differ in how they store those instructions. MT4 keeps pending orders on the terminal and sends them when the price is reached. MT5 and cTrader both hold pending orders on the server side, so the order survives a lost connection. That difference matters on a slow connection, but it does not change the price you get.

Check the order ticket before sending anything. Each platform shows the order type in a drop-down list, and each list uses slightly different words for the same idea. Read the list once, in a demo account, and write down which word means what. That note is more useful than any chart setting.

Spread is the gap between the buy price and the sell price. It is the first cost of every trade. Some brokers quote it in pips, some in points, and the number of decimal places shown differs between platforms. On AUD/USD around 0.6640, one pip is the fourth decimal place, so a spread of 1.0 pip is 0.0001.

Commission is a separate charge per lot, added when the trade opens or closes. MT4 and MT5 usually show it as a single line in the statement, while cTrader often splits it into an open charge and a close charge. That split is a reporting choice, not an extra cost. Swap is the overnight charge for holding a position past the daily rollover, and it can be positive or negative.

The statement is where the three lines meet. Open it in each platform and find the spread, the commission and the swap for one closed trade. If a platform hides one of them, that is the platform to avoid. The figures vary between brokers, so compare the statement rather than the marketing page.

The platform is the screen. The account type is the set of rules behind it. Those rules decide which instruments you can trade, the minimum size, the leverage cap and the commission schedule. A platform can be swapped in minutes. An account type is usually fixed at opening, or changed only by closing the account and opening another.

In Australia, ASIC sets the leverage limits that apply to retail accounts, so the account type often matters less for leverage than for instrument access. Some account types offer only a short list of currency pairs. Others add indices, metals or shares. If the instrument is not on the list, no platform setting will bring it back.

Ask one question before opening anything: which instruments does this account type include. Then check the order types it allows. If both answers match what you plan to trade, the platform choice is the easy part and can be revisited later at no cost.

Take one trade and follow it across the three platforms. Buy 0.10 lots of AUD/USD at 0.6640. One pip on one standard lot is 10 units of the quote currency, so 10 x 0.6640 = A$6.64. On 0.10 lots, one pip is A$6.64 x 0.10 = A$0.664.

A stop loss 20 pips away gives 20 x A$0.664 = A$13.28 before costs. Spread, commission and swap are added on top and are not in that figure. Each broker may round the pip value, quote the spread in points, and charge a commission or swap that never appears in the order ticket.

Write the three numbers on paper for each platform: spread in pips, commission in A$, and swap in A$ per night. The platform whose statement makes those three lines clearest is the one to use. The figures here are for the example only and will differ between brokers.