I’m trying to pick a main account for short scalps during London. I care more about stable spreads and fills than headline leverage. If you’ve traded Tickmill alongside IC Markets or Pepperstone, can you share your measured cost per lot after cashback?
If you can, include:
- pair or symbol and session
- average spread and commission
- average slippage in and out
- your rebate rate and payout currency
- deposit and withdrawal timings you saw
Did any of them come out clearly cheaper once rebates were counted, or did execution wipe out the difference?
Tickmill cheaper net for me IC had better fills
Use cost per million so pairs are comparable. For EURUSD, $10 per pip per lot. Compute average spread in pips plus commission in pips minus rebate in pips plus average slippage in pips. Multiply by $10 and lot count. In my logs over three weeks, Tickmill and IC were within one to two dollars per lot most sessions. Pepperstone had slightly higher spread but tighter slippage on some news entries. Differences flipped by time of day. Withdrawals took one to two business days for all via card.
Keep the test controlled. Same VPS or location, same lot size, same entry criteria, and record timestamp, server time, spread, commission, slippage in and out, and latency. Convert everything to pips then to dollars per lot, subtract your actual rebate, and average by session. Do it for at least 100 trades per broker. Without this, results skew to the last bad fill and you cannot see the real cost gap.
Share your pairs and session.
My notes: EURUSD during London, IC had the best fills for me, while Tickmill had the lowest headline spread plus a small rebate. Net cost ended up similar unless news hit.
Small differences vanish if you enter late. I care more about slippage control than rebates in fast markets.
Tracked 500 micro scalps across the three.
On calm hours, Tickmill plus rebate came in cheapest by a small margin. During spikes, IC was cheaper because fills were cleaner for me.
Also watch currency conversion on rebates. Paying out in your account currency saved me a few dollars.