Hey all 
Running an algo trading bot on Alpaca and trying to nail down the
full fee breakdown. REG/TAF fees show up clean in my statements,
but I can’t find a clear answer on the crypto spread, PFOF, or
fractional fill markups.
If anyone’s actually done the math on net cost per trade for an
algo strategy, I’d love to hear what you found.
Quick plug: I’m the founder of JorgAI, an AI auto-trader built on
top of Alpaca. Free to try at https://jorgai.com if you want to
see what the bot looks like running on real broker integration.
Thanks!
Jermaine
@jbatt017 You were wondering about the net cost of trading. For equity trades using the default Commission-Free plan, there are really three regulatory fees as you alluded to and outlined here in the docs. The current rates are detailed here. These fees are typically negligible and only a few cents a day. I personally never include them in any modeling or back testing. Do run the numbers however, for your individual trading profile. If you trade a lot of penny stocks or day trade with a significant number of round-trip trades each day, you may find that the fees become impactful.
For crypto trading, fees are shown at the end of each day and are calculated based on the previous day’s crypto trading. These appear on your statement and in the account activities, similar to the regulatory fees. These fees are outlined here.
There are no charges regarding “crypto spread” (buy orders generally fill at the ask and sell orders fill at the bid). There are no PFOF (pay for order flow) charges (PFOF execution platforms provide rebates to Alpaca for orders that allow for $0 commission trading). There are no charges for “fractional fills”.
For my personal trading, I assume my net cost for a trade is simply the sell price minus the buy price. I never include any fees since they are generally negligible. But again, run the numbers using your order profile.