Trading Costs Decide Winners: FTMO vs IBKR vs Futures vs Binance

The same strategy can win on one platform and lose on another purely because of costs — and in stocks, the gap between venues reaches a factor of seven. That's the core finding of a cost comparison published on TradingView by analyst hectorldu, who measured what it actually costs to open and close one trade across FTMO, Interactive Brokers, micro futures and Binance.

The unit of measurement matters here. Hectorldu uses basis points: 1 basis point equals 0.01% of the traded amount. On a $10,000 position, that's $1. It's the cleanest way to compare venues that charge in very different ways — spreads, commissions and taker fees all collapse into one number.

What does trading cost on each venue?

The comparison covers four asset classes. All figures are in basis points per round-trip trade:

• Currencies: FTMO prop account 1.7; ECN broker or Interactive Brokers 1.9
• Indices: FTMO CFD 2.1; micro futures 1.5
• Stocks: FTMO CFD 14.5; Interactive Brokers 2.0
• Crypto: FTMO CFD 18; Binance with a market order 13; Binance with a limit order 4

The FX picture is remarkably tight. FTMO's prop account at 1.7 basis points and an ECN broker or IBKR at 1.9 sit within 0.2 basis points of each other. On a $10,000 EUR/USD trade, that's a $20 round trip either way, give or take a dollar. For currency traders, venue choice barely moves the needle.

Indices tell a similar story with one wrinkle. Micro futures come in cheapest at 1.5 basis points, while FTMO's index CFD costs 2.1 — a spread of just 0.6 basis points. Hectorldu's takeaway: in currencies and indices, costs are similar almost everywhere. If your strategy trades those markets, you're not leaving much on the table wherever you execute.

Where the costs really diverge

Stocks are where venue selection becomes a strategy decision. Trading equities through FTMO's CFD offering costs 14.5 basis points versus 2.0 at Interactive Brokers. That's roughly 7.3 times more expensive — about 7 times, as hectorldu frames it. Put in dollar terms: on a $10,000 stock position, the CFD route costs around $145 round trip, while IBKR costs about $20. A strategy that nets 10 basis points per trade is comfortably profitable at IBKR and deeply underwater on the CFD.

Crypto shows an even wider internal spread — within a single exchange. Binance charges 13 basis points for a market order but only 4 for a limit order, according to the comparison. FTMO's crypto CFD tops the table at 18 basis points. Hectorldu's key point: in crypto, using limit orders instead of market orders cuts the cost to less than a third. On that $10,000 position, the difference between a market and limit order on Binance is roughly $90 per round trip — money that goes straight to fee savings rather than the exchange.

What does this change for traders?

The practical question for any trader evaluating a backtest or a signal service: what does this change for you? Hectorldu's answer is blunt. Before deciding whether a strategy works, give it the real cost of the place where you will trade it.

That has implications across the board. A strategy tested on futures data may not survive IBKR's FX costs, let alone a CFD platform's crypto pricing. Crypto scalping strategies in particular face a make-or-break variable in order type alone — the market-order trader pays more than three times what the limit-order trader pays on the same venue. And stock strategies showing thin edges need to be stress-tested against a 14.5-basis-point CFD reality, not a 2-basis-point brokerage assumption.

The comparison serves as a reminder that platform selection isn't an administrative detail. It's part of the strategy itself, and in stocks and crypto it may be the single largest determinant of whether a marginal edge survives contact with real execution.

The author notes the content is educational and not investment advice.