RAW spread or standard account: compare costs for your EA

The best comparison uses the same trade size, instrument and trading session. An account with an almost-zero minimum spread is not necessarily the cheapest account at the moments your EA trades.

Calculate a round trip

Illustrative example: if one point is worth US$1 for the chosen position, a two-point spread costs about US$2 before other charges. Adding US$6 round-trip commission produces about US$8. A seven-point spread with no separate commission would be about US$7. Substitute your actual contract values.

Use observations from the relevant session

Collect several samples during the hours the EA enters, not just one quiet-market quote. Note whether the broker quotes commission per side or per round trip. A short holding period and an overnight trade have different financing costs.

Check the report interpretation

A trading report usually reflects spread through entry and exit prices. Separately recorded commission and swap must be reconciled with trading profit. Adding a second estimated spread charge would understate the result.

Make the decision practical

Keep the cost worksheet next to your settings file. A source project makes it possible to add cost-aware filters, but choose the filter from your execution conditions rather than assuming one account label always wins.

Reference and further reading

Start with a free editable EA project · Explore MQLume source code

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