Now you can trade commodities and futures in more than one way. There are many international commodity brokers and there are nationwide brokers. There are also many local commodity brokers who operate as introducing brokers, and there are also many online commodity brokers available. But finding the right online commodity broker to fulfill your needs is can be a hard task as there are many things to consider when evaluating commodity brokers.

The most widely assessable way of commodity trading today is through internet. Online commodity brokers offer their services to both experienced and novice traders. Digitalization has greatly facilitated commodity trading as now the traders will get a dynamically updated market movements, news and charts. Traders now can monitor, analyze and trade the market(s) from just one program, the so called trading system. The prices involved in trading are also lesser (and clear) than traditional brokers.

Here are some things which should be considered when choosing an online commodity broker.

1. Services offered by the broker – The major service of any online broker is the timely execution of trader’s orders. But the key services which should be considered thoroughly include trading assistance, trading hours, leverage or margin offered for different accounts, order types, access to various markets, etc. List out all these and make sure that you get what you want.

2. Products available for trading – There are different commodities traded in different markets which involve energy, financial, agricultural, metal, currency and equity commodities. Usually hedgers and investors trade single type of products. Most active traders want to trade more than one type of commodity. So if you an active trader make sure that the broker offer access to your favorite products and markets.

3. Trading fees and other costs – this one is always important and is different with different brokers. Many online commodity brokers charge flat fees for trading all types of contracts in any number. Many others charge on them based on the product and position size. Also most brokers demand different account requirements to trading different products. Generally the pricing plan should be simple and understandable and without any hidden costs.

4. Online trading platforms – this is on which you trade on and this is what lies between you and the market. Capabilities and features of trading platforms differ considerably among brokers and even the same broker can offer more than one type of software. There are manly two type of commodity trading platforms as web based platforms and installable platforms. Usually less-active and inexperienced traders are good with web-based platforms because they are cheap and easy. Active traders demand installable trading platforms because they need real-time market access and more trading tools.

5. Trading account type – there mainly two types of trading accounts and standard trading account and mini trading account. Some brokers offer both type of accounts where some others offer one type of account only. So check that against your trading goals and strategies.

6. Customer service of broker – how one can forget that. Good customer service means better trading assistance and more relaxed/trouble-free trading. Forget all those brokers who took long time to responds to your requests.