Raw vs standard accounts

Two ways to charge the same trade

Most prop firms and brokers offer the same market through two pricing models. A raw account shows a spread close to the underlying interbank market, sometimes near zero on EUR/USD, and charges a separate round-turn commission, typically a few dollars per lot. A standard account folds everything into a wider spread and charges no commission at all.

Neither model is cheaper by definition. They are two invoices for the same service, and the only way to compare them is to put both in the same unit: total dollars per round turn at your lot size.

The normalization math

The formula is short. Total cost equals spread cost plus commission. Spread cost is the spread in pips multiplied by the pip value of your position. On a raw account you might pay 0.2 pips of spread, about two dollars per standard lot on EUR/USD, plus a three dollar commission, for roughly five dollars all in. A standard account quoting 0.9 pips with no commission costs about nine dollars for the same trade.

In that example raw wins clearly. But flip the numbers, a 0.5 pip raw spread with a seven dollar commission against a 1.0 pip standard spread, and the standard account is suddenly two dollars cheaper per round turn. The label on the account tells you nothing until you do the addition, and the answer can differ from one instrument to the next on the same firm.

How the board handles it

This is why the live board never ranks firms on the quoted spread alone. Every figure is normalized to estimated dollars per lot, with each firm's published round-turn commission added on top of the sampled spread, so a raw feed and an all-in feed land on the same scale. Commission schedules shown here are treated as placeholder values until they are verified against each firm's current terms, and the board says so.

Which model suits you

Frequency decides. Scalpers and high-frequency traders usually come out ahead on raw accounts, because a tight spread matters more when you cross it dozens of times a day and the commission is a fixed, predictable add-on. Swing traders who place a handful of positions a week often find the difference negligible, and may prefer the simplicity of one all-in number.

Whatever you choose, run both models through the cost calculator at your own size before committing. Ten minutes of arithmetic is cheaper than a month of paying the wrong invoice.