The fees

“Hidden fees” is the worry most people bring to trading. There’s nothing hidden here. The fees you might expect — for holding an account or moving money — you simply don’t pay. The only costs are three small trading fees, and we’ll walk through each one.

Zero non-trading fees

Pepperstone advantages:

• No deposit or withdrawal fee — funding and withdrawals both go through PayNow, free either way.
• No account fee.
• No inactivity fee.
• No monthly fee.

The three trading fees

These are the only costs that apply when you trade:

• Spread — the main cost, and the only one on most trades. It’s the small gap between the price you can sell at and the price you can buy at.
• Commission — a small fee that only applies to forex, gold and share trades. Zero commission on indices and other commodities.
• Swap — a small charge, or sometimes a small credit, for holding a trade overnight. If you open and close on the same day, it never applies.

The spread, the cost that’s always there

• The spread is the difference between the buy price and the sell price at any moment.
• You don’t pay it as a separate line. It’s already built into the two prices you see, so you cross it the instant you open a trade.
• This is where the broker matters. Pepperstone’s spreads are very competitive, especially on the indices like the Nasdaq 100, which is one reason we pair the Navigator with it. A tighter spread means less cost to you on every trade.

The spread — here, about 1 point

The buy price sits a touch above the sell price. That small gap is the spread, and it's the main cost of a trade.

Spreads differ for every market, so rather than quote numbers that go out of date, you can look up the average spread for each instrument yourself:

See average spreads

Commission, only on some markets

Commission is a separate small fee that only applies to a few markets. Indices and commodities other than gold have none at all, so if you start on an index, commission simply doesn’t enter the picture.

Market	Commission per side
Indices	None
Commodities except gold (e.g. oil)	None
Gold	US$3.50
Forex	US$3.50
US shares and ETFs	US$0.02 a share
Hong Kong shares	0.15%
Shares in other countries	0.07%–0.10%

These rates are for the Razor account, the account type we set everyone up on. Pepperstone’s other account, Standard, charges no commission at all but builds the cost into a wider spread instead — with Razor you get the tighter raw spread and pay the small commission separately.

Swap, only if you hold overnight

Swap (also called the overnight fee or rollover) is a small adjustment for holding a trade overnight, meaning past the daily cut-off around 5am Singapore time. Open and close on the same day and there’s no swap at all.

It exists because holding a leveraged trade overnight means the broker funds the borrowed part for you, so a small amount changes hands each night to carry it.

It can cost you, and sometimes it pays you

Swap can go either way, depending on the market and interest rates, and your trade direction usually decides which:

• A long trade (a buy) usually pays a small charge each night.
• A short trade (a sell) is usually much smaller, and often a credit, so you earn a little for holding.

To tell in advance, look up the instrument’s swap: a positive number is a credit (paid to you), a negative number is a charge (you pay).

Example: Apple is priced at US$100 and you hold 100 shares

• Your position is US$100 × 100 shares = US$10,000.
• Long (rate −0.01697%): 10,000 × 0.01697% = about US$1.70 charged for each night you hold.
• Short (rate +0.00308%): 10,000 × 0.00308% = about US$0.31 credited for each night you hold.

Same trade, opposite direction: holding the long costs you about US$1.70 a night, while holding the short pays you about US$0.31.

The weekend “three-day” swap

Most nights you hold, you pay or earn one night of swap. But the market behind your trade is closed on Saturday and Sunday, and that funding isn’t skipped. It’s collected in advance on one weekday.

So on that day you’ll see about three nights’ swap at once: the normal night plus the two weekend nights. Not an extra penalty, just the same nightly amount bundled.

Which day depends on what you trade:

Forex

1. Mon 1 night
2. Tue 1 night
3. Wed 3 nights
4. Thu 1 night
5. Fri 1 night
6. Sat closed
7. Sun closed

Indices & shares

1. Mon 1 night
2. Tue 1 night
3. Wed 1 night
4. Thu 1 night
5. Fri 3 nights
6. Sat closed
7. Sun closed

Next, the three order types — the ways you actually enter a trade. (And once you reach your trading terminal, you’ll see how to look these fees up for any market yourself, so you never have to take a number on trust.)