What Is Spreads and Commissions in Prop Trading?

The spread is the difference between the buy and sell price. A commission is a fixed fee per lot. Together they’re your cost per trade.

Example

If EUR/USD has a 0.2-pip spread and a $7 round-trip commission per lot, each one-lot trade costs about $9. At 20 trades a week, that’s around $180 a week, a large share of a $1,000 weekly target.

How prop firms apply it

Costs vary between firms and programs: FundedNext’s Stellar Lite charges $7 per lot. Spreads widen during news and at the daily rollover, which can trigger tight stops.

Practical tips

• Compare costs at the times you actually trade.
• Include costs in your backtests.
• Avoid tight stops around rollover and news.

More terms in our prop firm glossary.

How costs change your break-even

If your average trade risks $250 and costs $9 in spread and commission, costs are 3.6% of your risk on every trade. For a strategy with a 1:1.5 risk-reward, that raises the win rate you need to break even from 40% to around 41.5%. Small, frequent trades feel costs most: scalpers can spend more on costs than they make.

Comparing firms fairly

• Check typical spreads at the hours you trade, not the minimums advertised.
• Add commission per round-trip lot.
• Check costs on your main instruments, especially gold and indices.
• Look at swap rates if you hold overnight.

Where costs are highest

Costs are usually lowest on major forex pairs during the London–New York overlap and highest on exotic pairs, during the Asian session and around the daily rollover at 22:00 UK time.

Prop firms we currently recommend

1. 1
   

   FundedNext Best for MetaTrader users

   Max account

   $200,000 (up to $4M through scaling)

   Profit split

   80%, up to 95%

   Fee from

   $59.99 USD (confirm at checkout)

   Our rating

   4.4 out of 5

   Visit FundedNext Read review
2. 2
   

   SabioTrade Best for learning while you evaluate

   Max account

   $1,000,000

   Profit split

   80–90%

   Fee from

   $139 USD (confirm at checkout)

   Our rating

   4.0 out of 5

   Visit SabioTrade Read review

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