What Is an Introducing Broker? A Complete Guide

An Introducing Broker (IB) is an individual or business that refers clients to a trading broker and earns an ongoing commission — usually called a rebate — based on how much those clients trade. Unlike a one-time referral bonus, an IB's income recurs for as long as their referred clients keep trading.

The model exists because brokers compete heavily for traders, and word-of-mouth referrals from a trusted source — a trading educator, a community leader, a fellow trader — convert better than most other acquisition channels. Brokers pay for that trust by sharing a slice of the trading volume it brings in.

How the IB model actually works

The mechanics are simpler than most people expect:

1. You get a unique referral link or code from the broker's IB programme.
2. You share it with your audience — a trading community, a Telegram channel, a YouTube following, a personal network of traders.
3. Someone signs up through your link and opens a live trading account with the broker.
4. They trade. Every time they open and close a position, that trade generates a small amount of spread or commission for the broker.
5. You receive a rebate — a fixed or tiered amount per lot traded — for the life of that client's account, not just their first trade.

That last point is what separates the IB model from a typical affiliate programme: the income is recurring, tied to ongoing trading activity rather than a single conversion event. See our IB rebate tiers for exactly how rebate rates scale with volume.

Who typically becomes an Introducing Broker

The IB model works best for people who already have the trust of an audience interested in trading or financial markets:

• Trading educators and course creators who teach strategy, technical analysis or risk management
• Community and Discord/Telegram channel owners with an engaged trading-focused audience
• Signal providers who already share trade ideas and want a monetisation path beyond subscriptions
• Financial content creators and influencers covering forex, CFDs or commodities
• Existing traders with a network of friends, colleagues or followers who trade
• Affiliate marketers moving into financial services who want a recurring rather than one-off commission structure

None of these require a licence to become an IB — most reputable brokers require only an application and basic KYC checks, not a financial services qualification. That said, being transparent with your audience about the nature of the relationship (that you earn a rebate from their trading) is both good practice and, in many jurisdictions, a compliance expectation.

How Introducing Brokers get paid

Rebates are usually calculated per lot traded — a lot being a standard unit of trading volume — rather than as a percentage of profit or loss. This distinction matters: an IB earns on trading activity, not on whether the client's trades are profitable. It removes any incentive to encourage reckless trading, since the rebate is the same whether a trade wins or loses.

Most programmes group IBs into tiers based on the total monthly volume their referred clients generate, with higher tiers unlocking a higher rebate per lot. Settlement frequency varies by broker — some pay monthly, others (including Equity IB) settle daily, which matters if you're relying on this income to fund ongoing business costs like advertising or content production.

Is it worth becoming an IB?

For someone who already has an engaged trading-adjacent audience, the IB model is close to a natural monetisation layer that doesn't require building or selling a separate product. The realistic ceiling depends entirely on the trading volume your audience generates — a small, highly engaged community of active traders can outperform a much larger, passive following.

If you're weighing this against a straightforward affiliate arrangement, worth reading through the differences in payment structure and longevity before deciding — the two models solve different problems.

Getting started

If you're ready to see what this looks like in practice, our how to become an Introducing Broker guide walks through the actual application and onboarding process step by step. You can also model potential earnings with our IB earnings calculator, or read through common questions in our FAQ.

Ready to apply? Become an Equity IB partner — the application takes under five minutes and there's no cost to join.