Cheapest TRUE ECN Broker

Hi all,

Is there any ready to refer table to find who is the cheapest retail ECN broker and what are their commissions

Try IC Markets True ECN / Pepperstone Razor.

Their review : click here

There are many brokers with quite competitive pricing and trading conditions. However, which is the cheapest? Let's take a look with rebates and special commission agreements.

ICMarkets:

Average spread is about 0.2 pips with a $7 round lot commission so bring your total to about 0.9 pips per trade. However, taking into account of HFTGroupFX's discount of $1.50, you will be paying $5.50 instead of $7.00, which added to 0.2 pips is about 0.75 pips. Assuming you get the best possible condition of a 0.0 pip spread, then you pay a total of 0.55 pips only in total fee, which this is quite unlikely and won't happen often.

Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 0.75 pips

ArmadaMarkets:

They have a much lower commission at just $4 per round lot. Their spreads is around 0.4 to 0.6 usually so let's use 0.6 pips to get a better sense of what we would be paying. This would translate into an approximate 0.8 pips to 1 pip total fee per trade. However, HFTGroupFX provides a discounted commission of 5% so instead of $4 per lot, you will be paying $3.8 per lot translating to about 0.98 total fee or about 0.78 if using their lower average spread of 0.4.

Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 0.78 pips

ExcelMarkets:

This broker is slightly newer in my opinion, but let's take a look. Their live spread is about 0.5 with, surprisingly, USDJPY lower at 0.4 than compared to EURUSD 0.5. Nevertheless, let's go with 0.5. Their commission is $5 per round lot, which translates to a total cost of around 1 pip total fee, slightly less usually I would say. However, if we were to include the $5 per million rebate or $0.5 per standard lot, this is 0.005 pip saved per trade under my assumption. however, this is just for ONE lot, and the value would vary according to the number of lots you are trading.I would say if you were trading a couple of lots at a time, you will pay a total fee of 0.90 to 0.95 in pips.

Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 0.95 pips

Pepperstone:

An Australian broker like ICM which as an average spread about 0.6 pips and commission of $7.53. Now the total fee would be 1.353 pips if I did my calculation correctly for a round standard lot. CashBackForex provides a rebate of $0.75 AUD per round lot so converting $0.75 AUD to USD is about $0.79USD. Take the commission minus the rebate is about $6.74 commission per trade. The total fee would be about 1.274 pips.

Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 1.274 pips

AxiTrader:

This is based on their 'Pro' account and not on the standard. Their pro account is subjected to a $7 commission per round lot with spreads floating 0.1 pips to 1 pips for the major pairs so taking a middle number, 0.55 pips in this case would be approximately what their spreads will be. This translates to a total fee of 1.25 pips. Now, adding HFTGroupFX commission discount of $1.50, we get $5.50 commission paid per round lot similar to ICM. Now, this discounted commission will bring the total fee to about 1.1 pips.

Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 1.1 pips

LMAX:

*note: I cannot access this broker's site direction as they do not accept clients in my country so all info i got are from third party sources.

Commission of 2.50€ per standard 100K lot (2.80€ on MT4) which translates to $3.67 USD per side or $7.34 round lot (did this in my head, hopefully it's right). Now, apparently their spreads are very close to zero, but since i have no figures, so I have to go with the quoting on MyFXBook which is about 0.4 pips. This brings total commission fee included to 1.134 pips.


Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 1.134 pips

FXOpen

Their MT4 ECN account is much cheaper compares to FASS so let's go with them. They have a $2.5 per side per 1 lot so this is just $5 total commission for a round lot. Their spreads are quite consistently low ranging between 0.3 to 0.4 pips under good volatility and volume conditions so let's go with the higher end 0.4 pips. This brings the total fee to 0.9 pips for a standard lot, which is pretty good, slightly on the lower side. however, if you are depositing over $50,000, you get a commission of $1.8 per side so that's $3.6 per round lot or 0.76 pips total fee.

Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 0.76 pips

This is just what i got so far, hope it helps.

Why this cheapest and probably best brokers are not in top 10 brokers, even they offer industry lowest trading cost?

dood, seriously? do you have any idea how i would calculate that? all brokers have some sort of additional condition. icm for example has a different commission calculation on their cTrader platform and im pretty sure they aren't the only one. if you have something to add, add it, don't grill me over the gritty nitty little details. i provided an approximation so you know RELATIVELY how much you are paying compared to other brokers.

for the rest of you, don't take my quick review into consideration only. actually have a live chat with the broker you want to trade with and get to know their conditions thoroughly.

Dear "dood",

you actually got it wrong in the Armada paragraph, then got it (almost) right with lmax, but then continued to fail again at FxOpen. Thats 1 out of 3 from the ones i accidentally happen to know how much they charge. Thanks for your effort tho.

Sigh, dood is writing this at midnite so pardon dood's inability to keep a clear head. dood admits dood has not thoroughly read armada's trading conditions as dood has never considered armadamarkets. as for lmax, they aren't available to where dood lives so dood got that from 3rd party sources. as for fxopen, dood pulled it right from their commissions page so dood either a) missed a detail while yawning or b) shrike is not up to date with possible policy changes. either way, dood will make updates soon confirming with other sources.

this is what dood sees:

http://i49.tinypic.com/11jr7dz.png

http://i48.tinypic.com/mlqn9u.png

*FASS ECN includes both ECN commission and mirror trader commission O.o

btw, as a senior member, perhaps you could aid dood in answering the thread starter's question instead of proving u hav an 'photographic memory' when it comes to brokerage conditions?

@mmaker:

let's not forget there is more to a broker than just spreads and commission charges. there is customer service, deposit and withdrawal speed and services, dispute settlement, uptime, and so on. however, dood personally considers either one of the four brokers offered by HFTGroupFX worth checking out. after all, they offer commission discounts rather than pip rebates credited to your account on a periodical basis so sorta like getting cash upfront.

hope this helps,
-dood

btw, let's not forget dood is still learning from so called gurus like shrike..even tho shrike was no help at all. after all, we are all learners...dood hopes. dood is not an insti or hft, just a s-spec making a fair roi of dood's own. ty mmaker for pointing out armada's trading conditions, dood wishes dood can update earlier post, but dood regrets it is not possible.

Thanks for adding FXOpen into the comparisons, however you are looking at FXOpen NZ, not FXOpen AU.

We have commissions from 3.60 round turn for VIP accounts or 5.00 round turn for Standard accounts. Go to fxopen.com.au for details as our conditions are a bit different to FXOpen NZ.

When you look at cost to trade (spread+commission), an FXOpen AU VIP account is the cheapest, and our Standard is also very competitive.

Make the comparison.

There are two FXOpen brokers with different commission structure:

For FXOpen NZ, http://www.fxopen.com/TradingTerms.aspx

For FXOpen AU, http://www.fxopenaus.com/TradingTerms.aspx

hmm, still not sure if i follow fxopenaus commission but basically it's 1.8 units of base currency so taken a major pair such as eurusd, the commission is $2.36 for a round lot? this seems very cheap actually, but now to consider that the spread is also around 0.4, that's a spread of 0.636, by far the cheapest i've seen. not sure if the calc was correct, but $2.36 was the result of both long and short 3.6 units. of course, this is their vip ecn requiring a min deposit of $25000 aud or 26252.50 US Dollar. however, chances are the average trader will go for the standard ecn account with 2.5 units of base currency which translates to $3.28 per round lot or 0.738 pips for those that can afford only a couple of thousand dollars worth of trading capital. the standard account requires $1000 AUD or 1050.10 US Dollar.


Average Cost Per One Lot Traded: 0.636 pips

To his dudeness: Commission is usually quoted in $ per million USD traded.

FXO <50k deposit is $25/m, >50K is 18/m. Lmax is 25/m and Armada 20. Isn't that the most obvious way to compare fees?

FXOpen AU is $18/m ($36 r/t) for a $25k+ deposit. Don't forget that the best spread can also be found with FXOpen meaning overall cost to trade is less. When you are scalping, that can add up quickly.

Check out the FX Intel website - on the right you'll see average spread for pair you can choose to add commission to compare overall cost of one lot traded

any thread that asks who " the best broker, the cheapest broker, the smartest broker" sees an army of brokers and broker agents jumping out the woodwork its quite nauseating!

I didn't jump in until someone mentioned FXOpen. OK so it was the other FXOpen, so I decided to set the record straight so that visitors to the thread had the correct information with which to make an informed decision about whether the cost to trade at FXOpen AU really is the lowest.

Glad you came and commented so that we get correct info. Notice that the guy that blasted you only has 7 posts so his opinion of ANYONE is....

You can have good commission (almost like PRO ) on any real ECN ... but You must trade large volume on monthly basis ( 1000 lots +)
just call to Your ECN broker and tell them that their competitor on local market give You lower commissions .

i think you better trade with a big market make if you want to trade small accounts from 100 - 25000

the most better choice is oanda and oanda only no other broker will like you to make profit

why i think big market maker is better for small accounts

because you will have your profit for sure because a lot will be trading your pair and your trade will be matched

oanda have the best matching system and it is so experienced from 2001 .

fixed spread help make your coast less and your trades more safe .it also wave coast from your side

as you always can trade in internal environment so slippage will be rare not like ecn brokers

which will depend on there liquidity provider and there rules and off course they dont like to lose

with a market make big enough like oanda your trades will be matched and if you win it is not a problem for them
they will still have a spread as profit and you get your profit from other losing trader

if you want to trade big accounts then you can go to BIG respectable ecn brokers or both market make and ecn brokers

i then advice you with interactive brokers ,FXCM PRO , ADAM OR VCAP . and baxter-fx

but for all unprofessional traders with small accounts i advice to trade with oanda only

all have a nice day

i am quite please with axitrader currently. they have ecn.

0.3-0.5 on majors with commissions at only 7/10.

meaning if 1 lot commission is about 7 dollar, so if add spread would be just 1 pip flat.

its Live acct,i assume...hows the filling,execution,etc,esp during big news time?