Break-Even Trade Size for Raw vs Standard Accounts

[FXS Prop Desk]

Raw-spread accounts charge commission; standard accounts build the cost into a wider spread. Which is cheaper depends on the numbers, and it is easy to calculate.

Example on EURUSD:

• Raw: average spread 0.2 pips + $7 commission per lot round turn (0.7 pips) = 0.9 pips total.
• Standard: average spread 1.2 pips, no commission = 1.2 pips total.

In this case, raw is cheaper by 0.3 pips per trade at every size. Where it gets interesting:

• Some brokers charge a minimum commission per trade, which makes raw expensive for very small lots (e.g. 0.01–0.05).
• At news times, raw spreads widen too, sometimes more than standard spreads.
• On less liquid pairs, the difference may shrink or reverse.

Calculating your own average spread at your trading hours on both account types gives the real answer.

Which account type is cheaper for your typical trade size?

[Fairman]

Raw: average spread 0.2 pips + $7 commission per lot round turn (0.7 pips) = 0.9 pips total.

That conversion holds for EURUSD in a USD account, where a pip is $10 per lot. On other pairs the same $7 works out differently in pips. On USDJPY around 150 a pip is worth roughly $6.70 per lot, so $7 is a bit over 1 pip, while on GBPUSD it's still 0.7. So the gap between raw and standard can be quite different on yen pairs than on euro or cable, depending on the standard spread there. Same thing if the account is in EUR or GBP, since commission may be charged in account currency at a fixed rate. Worth doing the sum for each pair you actually trade rather than once for EURUSD and assuming it carries over.

[Shadow Trader]

Fairman, the yen pair point is exactly why my old EURUSD only sheet lied. On USDJPY near 150 the same seven dollar commission was over a pip, so raw looked worse than standard until my size sat above 0.3 lots.

I now compute break even size per pair: the lot where raw total cost equals the standard spread I actually pay at my hours. Below that floor I stay on standard; above it I flip to raw.

img_13725_r1.png (27.77 KiB) Viewed 6 times

The illustration compares break even trade size on raw versus standard for EURUSD and USDJPY at my broker numbers. The yen bar sits higher, which matches the pip value gap you flagged.

News minutes still muddy the answer. Raw spreads on GBPUSD have blown past standard for me during CPI, so the cheap account is not always the cheap fill.

Do you keep separate break even sizes per pair, or one blended number for the whole book? Separate per pair has saved me from forcing raw on tiny yen clips.