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Adding up the full cost of a short trade usually gives a higher number than people assume. A worked example for 1 lot of EURUSD on a typical raw account, with illustrative figures:

• Spread at entry: 0.2 pips ($2).
• Commission round turn: $7.
• Average slippage on entry and exit together: 0.1 pips ($1).
• Total: $10, or 1.0 pip.

Costs often forgotten:

• VPS and data subscriptions spread across all trades in the month.
• Spreads during your own trading hours, which can be above the advertised average.
• Orders bounced or requoted, then filled at a worse level.

What it means: if the strategy targets 4 pips with a 4 pip stop, costs are a quarter of every target. A 55% win rate on paper becomes roughly break-even after costs.

To do it with your own numbers, take one month of real fills and compute the average total cost per trade in pips. Then compare it with your average winner.

What surprised you most when you added up your costs?