What is commission?

What it means

Commission is usually quoted per lot per side or per lot round turn, and the two are frequently confused. A broker advertising "$3.50" may mean $7 for a complete trade. Read the specification rather than the marketing page, because the difference doubles your assumed cost.

Why it matters

The right way to compare a raw account against a standard one is to convert both to a single number: total cost per round turn at your typical size. A raw account with a $0.20 gold spread plus $7 per lot is not obviously cheaper or more expensive than a standard account with a $0.45 spread until you do that arithmetic.

What this changes in practice

For short-target gold strategies the total is decisive. On a $3 target at 0.10 lots the gross gain is $30, while a $0.30 spread costs $3 and $7 round-turn commission costs another $0.70 — more than 12% of the move gone before slippage. The gold profit calculator shows that share explicitly, because most calculators quietly report the gross figure alone.