Commissions or fees are not what you expected in Tradovate

What is causing it

Futures trading costs come from several separate places: your broker's commission plan, exchange and clearing fees, regulatory fees, and any platform or data charges.

Why this happens

Only part of what you pay goes to your broker. Exchange fees, clearing fees and regulatory fees are levied per contract by other parties and passed through, so a headline commission figure never represents the full cost of a round turn.

Plan structures make this worse, because a plan that is cheap for an active trader can be expensive for someone trading a few times a week.

The fix, step by step

1. Ask your broker or funding firm for a full breakdown of the per-contract cost on your plan, including exchange and clearing fees, not just the commission.
2. Check whether you are on a plan with a monthly fee and lower per-trade costs, or the reverse, as the better choice depends entirely on your volume.
3. Separate market data charges from trading costs in your own accounting, since data is billed monthly regardless of whether you trade.
4. Remember that fees differ by product, and that micro contracts have different economics from full-size ones.
5. If the account is with a funding firm, check whether they pass through costs differently from a retail account.

How to confirm it is fixed

You can predict the total cost of a round turn on your main product before you place it, and the statement matches.

Stopping it happening again

Get the full breakdown in writing when you open the account, and review it if your trading volume changes materially.