I am trading ES futures currently at IB. I plan to buy and sell around 30,000 contracts a year. On Interactive Brokers it costs around $125,000 of commission per year (2.1$ per contract per side). Most of my orders are market makers orders (LIMIT) What is the best way to reduce my commission overhead while sustaining same level of execution and margin requirement and reliability?
And does the situation change if i go up to 60,000 contracts per year?
Can you help answer these questions from other members on futures io?
Thank you for the reply. I actually already did set it up to tiered, just was a bit lazy to do the calculations in the post. Actual cost right now in the tiered plan will be around $116k, with effective cost per side of $1.94
I was hoping for a way to reduce it even farther, like cheaper broker, trading through a firm with an exchange seat discounts, or at worse renting an actual exchange seat. Not sure if my scale is enough for that, and the whole process seems a bit tough for a retail trader.
I remember looking at the Tradovate website perhaps a couple of years ago and on their pricing page they had a list of extras, such as including replay if that wasn't part of your package, and one of the extras at that time was API access for 10cents/side if I recall correctly.
It wasn't something I needed, just that I happened to notice then. They don't appear to mention it anymore and maybe it is now something as you suggest that requires a discussion or approval first.
I realise you didn't post the original question, but they haven't replied, and I thought I would mention it anyway.
Trading, ideally structured, is a vehicle for expanding consciousness, not damaging it. - Brett Steenbarger
