FREE TOOL · COSTS

Spread Cost Reality Check for Gold EAs

How much do spreads and slippage cost a strategy every year? Enter how often it trades and see what it must earn just to break even. Scalpers are usually shocked.

Trades per month

Cost per trade (spread + slippage)

$ per ounce

$0.35 = a 35-point round-trip cost, what we used for gold in all our tests.

Lot size

Account balance

USD

TRADING COSTS PER YEAR

–

Cost per trade–

–

Your input–

Catalyst EA (~3 trades/month)–

Breakout EA (~9/month)–

1 trade a day–

Scalper, 10 trades a day–

Scalper, 30 trades a day–

Yearly cost as % of the balance at the same lot size and cost per trade.

Free, no login, nothing is stored or sent: the calculation runs in your browser. For education only, not financial advice.

The cost nobody shows in the screenshot

Every gold trade starts at a loss: the spread (the gap between buy and sell price) plus slippage. On XAUUSD that is typically about $0.25–0.40 per ounce on a standard account, and more around news. A 0.01 lot is 1 ounce, so a $0.35 cost is $0.35 per trade, which sounds tiny until you multiply it.

200 trades a month × 12 × $0.35 = $840 a year at 0.01 lot, 84% of a $1,000 account, before the strategy has made a single cent.

What our own tests showed

Taking a trade on every 5-minute gold candle from 2011 to 2026 was roughly break-even before costs, and lost money in 16 of 16 years (buys) and 15 of 16 (sells) after costs.
A momentum scalper that made +$16,900 in the tester with its default low spreads lost −$995 over the same months with real tick data.

That's why our bots trade 3–9 times a month instead of hundreds. Read the full story: why most gold scalpers lose.

FEW TRADES, LOW COSTS

Catalyst EA trades about 2–3 times a month

It only trades when a major US report surprises economists, so trading costs stay tiny compared with a scalper.

See Catalyst EA →

FAQ

Questions about this tool

What cost per trade should I use for gold?+

Check your broker's typical XAUUSD spread (not the minimum) and add slippage. $0.35 per ounce is a fair standard-account figure; raw-spread accounts are lower but charge commission, so add that too.

Why does trade frequency matter so much?+

Costs grow with every trade, but profits don't grow just because you trade more. A strategy that trades 30 times a day needs a much bigger edge per trade than one that trades twice a month.

Does a low-spread broker fix scalping?+

It helps, but slippage, commission and wider spreads around news remain. Always test with real tick data, not a fixed tester spread.

LAUNCHING EARLY 2027

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