Triggered by Burer’s seminal characterization from 2009, many copositive (CP) reformulations of mixed-binary QPs have been discussed by now. Most of them can be used as proper relaxations, if the intractable co(mpletely )positive cones are replaced by tractable approximations. While the widely used approximation hierarchies have the disadvantage to use positive-semidefinite (psd) matrices of orders which rapidly increase with the level of approximation, alternatives focus on the problem of keeping psd matrix orders small, with the aim to avoid memory problems in the interior point algorithms. This work is the first to treat the various variants from a common theoretical perspective, using concise arguments and discussing conic duality.