MetaTrader 5 at IC Markets: Distance, Instrument Count and Hosting From South Africa
MT5 quotes the full 2,250-instrument list out of Equinix NY4 in New York, while cTrader quotes 121 out of London. From a South African desk those two cities are not equivalent, and the free VPS thresholds the broker publishes are what settle the argument.
Open IC Markets Account →MetaTrader 5 (MT5) at IC Markets
- 2,250 tradable instruments on a MetaTrader account against 121 on the cTrader account — the widest list the broker publishes
- Hosted in Equinix NY4, New York, the same building as MT4, and the further of the broker's two server cities from South Africa
- Leverage is banded: up to 1:5000 on the first 25 lots only, then 1:3000 to 50 lots, then 1:1000, applied slice by slice
- Stop out at 50 per cent on every account type, measured in a base currency that is never the rand
Which IC Markets platform should you use?
| Platform | Pricing model | Best for | Devices |
|---|---|---|---|
| MetaTrader 4 / MetaTrader 5 | Raw Spread charges USD 3.50 a side and quotes from 0.0 pips; Standard charges nothing and quotes from 0.8 pips | Algorithmic strategies, and anyone who wants the NY4 hosting | Desktop, web and mobile builds, all issued from inside the Secure Client Portal |
| cTrader | USD 3.00 for each USD 100,000 traded, on each side | Traders who want the London-hosted book and the cTrader copy tools | Desktop, web, iOS and Android, quoted out of London |
| TradingView | cTrader Raw Spread pricing, unchanged | Chartists who would rather not leave TradingView | Browser |
One account, three front ends — and, from South Africa, two different cities at the far end of the connection.
London and New York are not the same distance from Johannesburg
IC Markets hosts MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 in Equinix NY4, New York, and cTrader in London. Measured as a straight line from Johannesburg, London is roughly 9,000 km away and New York roughly 12,800 km, so the MT5 quote stream has materially further to travel before it reaches a South African screen. Real latency depends on the route your provider takes rather than on great-circle distance, and the undersea cable paths out of South Africa do not follow that line — but the ordering is stable, and it is the one platform variable here that is genuinely local. Measure it from your own connection instead of assuming it.
The broker's answer to distance is a VPS you can earn
A virtual server is published as free once monthly traded volume passes a threshold: 15 lots for the Standard tier (1 CPU, 2 GB RAM, 60 GB, Windows Server), 30 lots for Pro (2 CPU, 4 GB, 80 GB) and 75 lots for Premium (4 CPU, 6 GB, 90 GB). Only forex and precious-metals volume counts toward the threshold, and missing the criteria for two consecutive months cancels the subscription automatically and without notice. ForexVPS is named as the alternative partner provider, co-located in the same Equinix facility. For a South African trader running anything scheduled or automated, that threshold is the actual decision: below it the VPS is a paid line item, above it the distance question largely stops mattering.
Instrument count is the other half of the choice. MT5 quotes 2,250 instruments and cTrader 121, with Raw Spread alone listing 64 currency pairs plus 15 major equity indices. If what you trade lives outside the shorter list, the London hosting argument never gets to start. Confirm both the list and the VPS conditions inside the Secure Client Portal, where the full terms live. CFD trading carries a high risk of losing money.
Get started
MT5 installs from the Secure Client Portal once you open an account, and the same build runs against a free demo if you want to test the instrument list before funding anything.
Open IC Markets Account →