I just wanted to see if someone has done the math as well to see how many contracts would benefit someone between the 3 trading plans that is offered.
I did the rough calculation based on 1000 contracts monthly for the MES for the Membership free vs Active Trade, and it it almost the same, considering the $99 for the active plan.
However, if someone trades 100 contracts of the ES instead, the membership free plan is much more beneficial than the Active trader plan, and the membership free plan.
I wanted to see if any one has tried the 3 different plans and compared them for the different tickers. ES, MES, etc
If I’ve got my math right, the formula to calculate the breakeven contracts is:
(Difference between Monthly Plan Cost)/(2x difference between commission per side))
For example for ES Free vs Active
=(99-0)/(2*(0.79-0.19))
=83
ES Active vs Commission Free
=(199-99)/(2*(0.19-0))
=264
ES Free vs Commission Free
=(199-0)/(2*(0.79-0))
=126
In other words:
If you trade less than 83 contracts, you’re better off on the free plan
If you trade between 83 and 126, you’re better off on the active plan.
If you trade more than 126 contracts, you’re better off on the commission free plan.
Don’t bother comparing Active vs Commission Free breakeven.
The ‘all-in’ price difference for MES is $0.25 between the membership free plan (most expensive per trade, but no monthly cost) and the commission free plan (least expensive per trade, but $200/mo upfront cost). 200/0.25=800 contracts per month to break even. Or rather, 400 contract trades in both directions. I’m waiting to get ACH funded still, but I’ve gone through 800 contracts in 3 days in demo, so imagine I’ll probably be going with the expensive plan pretty much right away - that seems to be one of the big advantages of tradovate vs others: the rates are already pretty great on the membership free account, but the commission free account with an upfront cost is an even better value.
You are right, but here is the flipside. Why not trade the ES if you are trading that many contracts?
The only concern with going commission free is we got to pay upfront for the year to get that low rate, and it forces you to trade that many contracts to break even .
I’m new to this, so I may be wrong (or I may have the perspective to answer depending on how you look at it), but the higher cash requirements for the ES, and the psychological difference present due to the underlying values. MES is pretty easy to see as relatively low risk. I may make a bad trade, I may compound a bad trade and wipe out my whole account in moments, etc - there are obviously endless ways to lose money - but the ES presents a much more obvious way: it’s just more money we’re talking about to begin with
But, I had forgotten about the up-front cost of the commission-free pricing, and that’s definitely valid! Especially since I don’t even think that would be deductible at tax time as I understand it (I’m still trying to understand the taxes though for sure)!
So here’s my situation, both as an example and because I obviously need to think this through myself at some point so it might as well be now! I’m only bringing in $550 right now, so I plan to focus on the MES. If I filter my 3 days of demo data to just look at my MES trades I’m up $311.44 total P/L and it shows $268.56 commissions and fees on 746 contracts (I’m not really sure why that adds up to $0.36 commissions and fees, I’m assuming I either don’t understand something - which worries me - or it’s a weird fluke of being on demo?) Regardless, if I were to be on the membership-free account I’d presumably be looking at $0.25 more per contract, which would change my P/L to only $124.94. If I actively traded 15 days a month, and my small sample size was somehow fairly representative of the future, then I’d profit at the exact same rate for a month-end total of $624.70 profit. But, if instead I had committed for the year and ponied up the $2400 (so $200 for the month), then after deducting that $200 cost from my monthly profit just one time, I’d continue to go up at $311.44 after that, for a month-end total of $1357.20. Which, if I could even remotely consistently pull that off, is a good motivation to keep going for the whole year I had paid for!
But, alas, I don’t have $2400 laying around which is why I’m only funding for $550 in the first place. So I suspect I’ll either end up doing as you suggest and switching to the ES as soon as possible/comfortable, and probably paying the $100 on a no-commitment monthly basis to get Active-Trader since it would definitely be worth it still, or I’ll stay low risk & low reward and stick with MES until I really feel like I’ve proven myself and am willing to dump $2400 in to commit. You’re probably right - I’ll likely go with the ES. Guess I should build up my demo account more and practice with that then!
Edit: The commission-free plan can be had for $350/mo without an annual commitment. That’s almost definitely the way I’ll go as soon as I can build up $350 in the account or just fund it externally. Even at the higher cost it would still put me at double the profit based on my data so far.
You are right about trading the MES, if you are a scalper, that is a great start. I trade the MES as well…
Remember that the total fee is $0.56 with no membership per Leg, so a round trip would be $1.12
I would say trade commission free and do the math later. The way how I think psychologically is by number of Points that I have to make since 1 point = $5 for the MES, meaning 1 Point already pay for my fee round trip.
Remember you need to pay for data feed monthly as well… The support folks at Tradovate are very helpful if you have questions, even in the chat.
I appreciate the advice! On your own advice thread too nonehteless lol
I did already have to ask the support folks for clarification on the data feed - they were helpful! Overall I’m very happy with this platform/broker, and just micro/mini futures in general - I feel like I’ve found my home in the financial world and can trade to my hearts content whereas with a small account stocks are just soooooo limiting it kills me and I end up making obviously dumb mistakes trying to ‘make the best use’ of my 3 day trades. I’ve never ever understood how that rule could possibly be perceived as protecting anyone. So maybe I’m just excitedly rebelling against that constraint now, but so far I’ve been having good success with scalping and that’s probably what I’ll end up doing. This thread has me giving another thought to other strategies again that I’m trying now in simulation though - since maybe it would actually be worth it to get those commissions down a bit lol
Hola, nose si me pueden ayudar, yo he hecho operaciones en demo en el MES pero ahora quiero pagar datos para seguir operando pero solo este activo, !que plan de datos debo pagar para solo tener datos del MES no me interesa otro activo y que costo puede tener este plan de datos?
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