IC Markets Raw Spread vs Standard Account in 2026: Which One Pays You More

The IC Markets Raw Spread vs Standard question is the single most common one the desk gets from people opening an IC Markets live account in 2026, and the honest answer is not what most affiliate sites tell you. It is not about who you are as a trader on day one. It is about how many lots you push through the account per month. Anything under five and the spread mark-up on Standard is invisible. Anything north of five and you are quietly bleeding money on every fill.

IC Markets is genuinely multi-regulated: ASIC AFSL 335692, CySEC licence 362/18, and FSA Seychelles SD018. There is no FCA UK entity. UK retail traders are routed via CySEC Cyprus or the Seychelles offshore entity, both of which the desk has tested through 2024 and 2025. The account-type decision sits underneath all of that and matters more than most traders realise.

The two account types, explained without the marketing gloss

IC Markets runs three live retail account types in 2026, and one of them is really just a platform variant of another. Here is the desk’s read of each.

Standard MT4 / MT5. Zero commission. The cost is baked into a wider spread, typically 1.0 to 1.2 pips on EUR/USD during London / New York overlap. $200 minimum deposit recommended (the technical minimum is lower, but $200 is what they market). Suits beginners, copy-trade subscribers, and anyone trading sub-1 lot positions where the absolute pip cost is trivial.

Raw Spread MT4 / MT5. Spreads from 0.0 to 0.1 pips on EUR/USD, plus a fixed $7 round-turn commission per standard lot ($3.50 per side). All-in cost lands at roughly 0.7 to 0.8 pips. $200 minimum. This is the workhorse account for serious traders on the MetaTrader stack.

cTrader Raw Spread. Same raw 0.0 to 0.1 pip spreads, but commission drops to $6 round-turn ($3 per side). All-in cost ~0.6 to 0.7 pips. Same $200 minimum. The $1 round-turn delta sounds tiny until you scale lot volume, at which point it becomes the cheapest mainstream broker fill the desk has tested.

Leverage is identical across the three: 1:30 on ASIC and CySEC entities for retail, up to 1:500 on the Seychelles SD018 entity. Negative balance protection applies on the regulated entities. Execution model is the same true ECN routing across all three. The only meaningful differences are where the cost lives (spread vs commission) and how much total you pay.

Cost-per-lot mechanics: where the money actually goes

One standard lot of EUR/USD is 100,000 units of currency. One pip is worth $10. That is the maths that makes the rest of this article work, so it is worth holding in your head as you read.

On Standard at a 1.1 pip typical spread, you pay $11 to enter and exit a single standard lot round-turn. There is no commission line item. The cost is just embedded in the price you fill at.

On Raw Spread MT5 at a 0.1 pip raw spread plus $7 commission, you pay $1 in spread plus $7 in commission = $8 round-turn per lot. Saving versus Standard: $3 per lot.

On cTrader Raw at the same 0.1 pip raw spread plus $6 commission, you pay $1 plus $6 = $7 round-turn per lot. Saving versus Standard: $4 per lot. Saving versus Raw Spread MT5: $1 per lot.

A dollar a lot sounds like nothing. Twenty lots a month it is twenty dollars. Two hundred lots a month it is two hundred dollars. Two thousand lots a year it is two thousand dollars of pure cost difference between two accounts at the same broker, before you have made or lost a single trade.

The break-even-by-lot-volume table

This is the table you came for. Monthly cost in US dollars for each account type, assuming EUR/USD-equivalent fills at typical 2026 IC Markets spreads.

The five-lot row is the pivot point and the row to anchor on. Below five lots a month the dollar difference is small enough that platform preference, charting tools, and copy-trade features can reasonably outweigh cost. From five lots upward, Raw Spread (and especially cTrader Raw) starts compounding into real money over a trading year.

A trader doing 50 lots a month on Standard versus cTrader Raw is paying $200 extra every month. That is $2,400 a year in cost difference at the same broker, executing the same trades. Year on year, that is what funds a trading laptop, a Bloomberg-cheap data feed, or a year of mentorship. It is not a rounding error.

Who Standard actually suits

Despite the cost maths above, Standard is the correct account for a specific set of traders, and the desk is not in the business of pushing people into accounts that do not fit. If you tick any of the following, Standard is the right call.

Beginners under three months in live markets, regardless of monthly lot count. The simplification of a single embedded cost (no separate commission line) makes journaling and post-trade analysis cleaner while you are still learning what you are looking at. The thirty or fifty dollars a month you might overpay is cheap tuition.

Sub-1 lot position traders. Mini-lot (0.1) and micro-lot (0.01) traders pay 10x and 100x less per pip respectively, so the absolute cost difference between Standard and Raw Spread becomes pennies per trade. The platform choice and feature set matter more than fractional dollar savings.

Copy-trading subscribers using IC Markets’ copy-trade integrations. Most signal providers publish on Standard accounts, and following them on a matched account type avoids weird allocation slippage that occasionally pops up when the master and follower account specs differ.

Anyone who simply does not want to think about commission. The behavioural argument for Standard is real. Some traders execute better when the fee is invisible because they stop second-guessing every trade size against the per-lot commission tick. If that is you, the $30 a month is buying you discipline.

For a deeper breakdown of every cost line item on every IC Markets account, including overnight swaps and inactivity, see the desk’s full IC Markets cost teardown for 2026.

Who Raw Spread suits

Raw Spread (either platform) is the right account if you fit any of these.

Scalpers. Anyone holding positions for less than thirty minutes is paying the spread proportionally hard. Cutting EUR/USD from 1.1 pips to 0.7 pips is a 36% cost reduction on every single fill. Over a scalping month that is the difference between a profitable and break-even account.

EA and algorithmic traders. Bots do not care about commission line items in journals. They care about total cost per round-turn and consistency of fills, and Raw Spread wins on both. The desk runs production EAs on cTrader Raw specifically for this reason. See the scalping account breakdown for tested EA configurations.

Traders pushing five-plus standard lots a month, by any combination of frequency and size. This is the cost-maths argument from the table above. Below five lots the savings are small, above five they compound aggressively.

News traders and day traders working volatility windows. Faster execution on the ECN routing combined with the tighter raw spread is the difference between catching a 5-pip Non-Farm Payroll move and watching it on the chart while your fill is still pending.

cTrader Raw vs MT5 Raw: the $1 round-turn delta

The cheapest mainstream broker fill the desk has tested in 2026 is IC Markets cTrader Raw. The reason is simple: the round-turn commission is $6 instead of $7. That is a 14% reduction in commission on every trade, on top of identical raw spreads.

cTrader as a platform has nothing to do with the commission saving. IC Markets simply chose to price its cTrader offering more aggressively, presumably because cTrader-native traders skew toward scalpers and algo users who are the most cost-sensitive cohort in retail. The platform itself is excellent (cleaner order management, native depth-of-market, better algorithmic API) but the savings are independent of whether you actually like the interface.

The honest catch is platform familiarity. If you have three years of MT4 muscle memory, switching to cTrader for a dollar a lot is a false economy until you have spent at least a couple of weeks rebuilding chart templates and learning the order ticket. If you are platform-agnostic or already on cTrader from a prior broker, the $1 round-turn saving is free money.

The desk’s call for traders who are equally comfortable on both stacks: cTrader Raw. For everyone else: stick with whatever platform you know and pick the Raw Spread variant on it. The MT5 Raw account at $7 round-turn is still substantially cheaper than Standard. For a full platform comparison see the cTrader vs MT5 vs MT4 breakdown.

Profile-fit matrix

Switching accounts: can you actually change?

Yes, and it is easier than most brokers make it. IC Markets does not technically let you “convert” an existing live account from Standard to Raw Spread or vice versa, because the back-office pricing rails are different. What it does let you do is open a second live account on the same client login at the new type, in seconds, no re-KYC required.

Internal transfer of funds between your live accounts is instant and free. Most traders open the new account, transfer 100% of the balance across, and either leave the old account dormant or formally close it via the client portal. The desk has done this multiple times across testing rigs in 2024 and 2025 with no friction.

One quirk to flag. Open positions cannot be transferred between accounts. If you want to switch mid-trade, either close the open positions first, or open the new account and start fresh on it while the old one runs down its existing exposure. Most traders just close everything on a Friday and start the new account on Monday.

Frequently asked questions

Is IC Markets Raw Spread always cheaper than Standard?

For trades larger than roughly 0.05 standard lots, yes. The $7 commission on Raw Spread MT5 only beats the spread mark-up on Standard once your trade size is big enough that the commission scales below what the wider Standard spread would have charged. For micro-lot (0.01) trades the maths actually slightly favours Standard, though we are talking pennies.

What is the minimum deposit for IC Markets Raw Spread?

$200 is the recommended minimum across all three live account types. The technical minimum on some entities is lower (around $100 USD equivalent) but $200 is what IC Markets actively markets and is realistic for trading any reasonable position size.

Does cTrader Raw work for EAs?

Yes, via cTrader’s cAlgo framework (C# rather than MQL). MetaTrader-native EAs written in MQL4 or MQL5 will not run on cTrader, so for legacy MetaTrader bots stay on Raw Spread MT5 instead.

Can I have both a Raw Spread and a Standard account at the same time?

Yes. Most active IC Markets clients run two or three live accounts: one Raw Spread for manual trading, one cTrader Raw for algo, sometimes a Standard for copy-trade subscriptions. All sit under the same client login and free instant internal transfers.

Is Raw Spread better for scalping than Standard?

Yes, materially. A 0.4 pip spread reduction on every trade compounds fast at high frequency. Scalpers should default to cTrader Raw, with Raw Spread MT5 as fallback if they need MetaTrader EAs.

Does IC Markets charge inactivity fees?

No inactivity fees on any account type as of 2026. This is genuine, the desk has confirmed it on dormant test accounts. See the full cost teardown for swap and overnight financing rates.

What leverage do I get on Raw Spread vs Standard?

Identical. ASIC AFSL 335692 and CySEC 362/18 retail leverage caps at 1:30 on FX majors. FSA Seychelles SD018 offshore entity goes up to 1:500. The account type (Raw vs Standard) does not change leverage. The regulatory entity does.

Is there an FCA UK entity?

No. IC Markets does not hold an FCA licence. UK retail clients are routed via CySEC Cyprus or the Seychelles entity. If FCA UK protection is a hard requirement, look at FCA-regulated alternatives. The desk uses Vantage (FCA reference 590299) for FCA-coverage requirements.

How quickly can I switch from Standard to Raw Spread?

Minutes. Open a new live account from inside the client portal (no fresh KYC), wait for it to provision, transfer funds across, and you are trading. Total time to the desk, including platform login: under fifteen minutes.

Do Raw Spread commissions show up on the MT5 platform?

Yes, as a separate line on each closed trade in the History tab. They are also reflected in real-time on the account balance. This is helpful for accurate journaling and tax reporting.

What is the EUR/USD spread on Standard vs Raw Spread typically?

Standard: ~1.0 to 1.2 pips during London / New York overlap, widening to ~1.5 pips outside session. Raw Spread (both variants): 0.0 to 0.1 pips during overlap, ~0.2 to 0.3 pips outside session. Asia open is when the delta is widest.

Which account does the desk personally use?

cTrader Raw for algorithmic strategies, Raw Spread MT5 for manual scalping and swing where MetaTrader features (specific custom indicators) are needed. Standard is rarely used outside of testing scenarios where matching a signal provider’s account is the priority.

Sources

IC Markets published spreads and commissions tables, accessed 14 May 2026. ASIC AFSL register entry 335692. CySEC investment firm register entry 362/18. FSA Seychelles SD018 register. Cross-verified against live demo and live account fills on IC Markets cTrader and MT5 stacks during London / New York overlap, May 2026. Author byline: By Ken Chigbo, Founder, KenMacro, 18-plus years in markets, London trading floor and institutional FX.