The Cost of Trading — fees & friction
Reality Check · the quiet tax

The cost of trading

Costs don't matter in the abstract — they matter compared to what each trade actually makes. A £10 cost is nothing on a trade that nets £200, and fatal on one that nets £12. Set your typical trade and see how big a bite friction really takes.

Your typical trade

On an average trade, roughly…

Your average profit per trade if friction were free — this is your strategy's edge.
Spread + commission + slippage, added up, per round-trip.

🟢 kept per trade: 🔴 cost per trade:
Gross profit
before any costs
Paid in costs
You actually keep
after friction
Your profit building up — before vs after costs
Before costsAfter costsGone to friction

How to read it: everything here hangs off one ratio — your cost per trade versus your profit per trade. That's why the same £14 cost is trivial for a patient, big-target trader and ruinous for a scalper chasing tiny moves. (This is a simple per-trade view; on a compounding account the gap grows wider still over time, because money paid in costs never gets to grow.) A teaching model on steady averages — not a promise about any real strategy. Not advice.