Drawdown
Trading Cost Research

Empirical Broker Cost Audits

Measuring true round-trip costs: spreads, ticket commissions, overnight swap rates, and hidden deposit/withdrawal friction.

Empirical UK Retail Broker Cost Audit: Spreads, Swap Rates & Hidden Fees

A comparative measurement of real round-trip trading costs across major FCA-regulated forex and CFD platforms.

Key Findings:
  • Average London session EUR/USD spreads ranged from 0.6 pips on raw-spread accounts to 1.3 pips on standard commission-free accounts.
  • Overnight swap financing costs varied by up to 48% between brokers for identical long currency pairs.
  • Hidden currency conversion fees (typically 0.5% to 1.0%) on non-GBP denominated accounts added an average of £4.20 per £1,000 transaction.