Cost-to-edge estimator
The deeper cost tool: same-turnover segment comparison, breakeven move and the frequency-drag curve on capital.
Open →Brokerage (you can shop for this)
-
Free Tool
Brokerage Calculator
What a trade actually costs, line by line, before you place it. Pick a segment, enter a buy and sell price, a quantity in shares or in lots, and your own flat-fee plan, and the tool itemises every charge on the contract note: brokerage, STT or CTT, the exchange transaction charge, the SEBI turnover fee, stamp duty, 18 percent GST and the DP charge on a delivery sell. It returns your net P&L, the breakeven move, and the cost in basis points, all on the Apr 2026 statutory rates.
Brokerage is the line you shop for and the line that matters least. The statutory stack beneath it is a floor no broker can discount.
Preset trades
Load
The trade
Equity delivery: shares held in demat, STT on both sides, a DP charge on the sell.
Your brokerage plan (editable)
The flat cap most Indian brokers publish, charged once per order. A representative figure is 20 rupees; delivery is often zero.
If set, brokerage per order is the lower of this percent of order value or the flat cap above. Leave at 0 for a pure flat fee.
DP charge (delivery sell)
A flat fee your depository participant debits per scrip on a delivery sell, regardless of quantity. Representative range is about 13 to 25 rupees; verify with your broker.
DP charge is levied per company, per day, not per share.
Total charges
-
Net P&L after charges
-
Cost of turnover
-
Breakeven move
-
The one thing this tool teaches
On this trade, here is how the cost splits between the one line you can negotiate and the stack you cannot.
Statutory stack (identical at every broker)
-
Brokerage as a share of total
Where the money goes
The top bar splits your cost into brokerage and the statutory stack. The lower bar breaks the whole cost into its components, drawn to scale, so you can see which line dominates.
The full charge breakdown
| Charge | How it is levied | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Total charges |
Read before you use this figure
This tool prices one trade. The deeper question, whether the strategy clears its costs across hundreds of trades a year, is where most edges quietly die: the statutory stack is paid again on every round trip whether you win or lose. Costing a trade is arithmetic; deciding whether the setup is worth the cost, and sizing it so the losers are survivable, is judgement. That upstream discipline is what the method we teach is built around.
The one principle
Brokerage is the line you shop for and the line that matters least. On a modern flat-fee plan it is capped at a few tens of rupees, or zero on delivery, while securities transaction tax, the exchange charge, stamp duty, the SEBI fee, the DP charge and the 18 percent GST on top are statutory: set by the government and the exchange, identical at every broker, and together usually several times the brokerage. What you actually pay to trade is a floor you cannot negotiate. The only lever you fully control is not which broker you use, it is how often you cross that floor.
A desk treats cost as a hard input it minimises before it thinks about edge. Retail treats it as an afterthought that surfaces only in the contract note. The SEBI FY25 finding that over 91 percent of individual traders in the equity derivatives segment were net loss-making, with aggregate net losses near 1,05,603 crore rupees, up roughly 41 percent on the prior year, is partly an edge problem and partly a cost problem: the statutory stack is collected on every trade whether the trader is right or wrong, and frequency is what makes that collection large. A calculator that shows only brokerage is measuring the one line that was never the point.
The charge math, derived
Every charge sits on a specific base and a specific side of the trade. Get the base wrong, most often by computing an option levy on the notional instead of the premium, and the figure is off by orders of magnitude. Here is the full stack, exactly as the calculator applies it, for a round trip with a buy value and a sell value.
THE STACK, PER ROUND TRIP
brokerage = fee(buy value) + fee(sell value) fee = min(pct × value, flat cap), or a pure flat
STT / CTT = rateseg × taxed side delivery both sides, intraday/futures/options the sell, currency exempt
exchange charge = rateseg × turnover on premium for options, on turnover otherwise
SEBI fee = turnover × 0.0001% (₹10 per crore)
stamp duty = rateseg × buy value buy side only
DP charge = flat per scrip × scrips delivery sell only
GST = 18% × (brokerage + exchange charge + SEBI fee + DP charge)
total = brokerage + STT/CTT + exchange charge + SEBI + stamp + DP + GST
net P&L = (sell value − buy value) − total
breakeven move = total ÷ quantity the per-unit move just to cover cost
brokerage = fee(buy value) + fee(sell value) fee = min(pct × value, flat cap), or a pure flat
STT / CTT = rateseg × taxed side delivery both sides, intraday/futures/options the sell, currency exempt
exchange charge = rateseg × turnover on premium for options, on turnover otherwise
SEBI fee = turnover × 0.0001% (₹10 per crore)
stamp duty = rateseg × buy value buy side only
DP charge = flat per scrip × scrips delivery sell only
GST = 18% × (brokerage + exchange charge + SEBI fee + DP charge)
total = brokerage + STT/CTT + exchange charge + SEBI + stamp + DP + GST
net P&L = (sell value − buy value) − total
breakeven move = total ÷ quantity the per-unit move just to cover cost
The two bases people confuse. First, an option levy is charged on the premium you transact, price times quantity, not on the strike times lot size. A single index option can have a notional of lakhs and a premium of a few thousand rupees, so costing it on the notional overstates the bill wildly. Second, GST is charged only on brokerage, the exchange charge, the SEBI fee and the DP charge. It is never charged on STT, CTT or stamp duty, because those are already taxes. Applying 18 percent to the whole bill is a common and expensive error.
Worked on the default delivery trade: 100 shares bought at 1,000 and sold at 1,050 is a buy value of 1,00,000, a sell value of 1,05,000 and a turnover of 2,05,000. Brokerage on a zero-brokerage delivery plan is nil. STT is 0.1 percent on both sides of 2,05,000, that is 205.00. The exchange charge is 0.00307 percent of turnover, about 6.29. The SEBI fee is 2,05,000 at 10 per crore, about 0.21. Stamp duty is 0.015 percent of the 1,00,000 buy, that is 15.00. The DP charge on the delivery sell is a flat 20.00 for one scrip. GST is 18 percent of brokerage plus exchange charge plus SEBI fee plus DP, that is 18 percent of about 26.50, roughly 4.77. The total is near 251.27 rupees on a 5,000 rupee gross gain, so net P&L is about 4,748.73, a cost of about 0.123 percent of turnover, or 12.3 basis points. Not one rupee of it is brokerage. The calculator reproduces these figures line by line.
Which side of the trade each charge falls on
Reference: the per-segment statutory stack (Apr 2026 rates)
The definitive rate card for all seven segments this tool covers, as of July 2026. Brokerage is a representative flat-fee plan and is the only column a different broker changes. Everything to the right of it is statutory and uniform. Verify the current rates against the exchange and SEBI before relying on them for a live trade.
| Segment | Brokerage (representative) | STT / CTT | Exchange charge | Stamp (buy) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity delivery | Often zero | STT 0.1%, both sides | 0.00307% of turnover | 0.015% |
| Equity intraday | Lower of 0.03% or ₹20/order | STT 0.025%, sell | 0.00307% of turnover | 0.003% |
| Equity futures | Lower of 0.03% or ₹20/order | STT 0.05%, sell | 0.00183% of turnover | 0.002% |
| Equity options | ₹20 per order (flat) | STT 0.15%, sell premium | 0.03553% of premium | 0.003% |
| Currency futures | Lower of 0.03% or ₹20/order | Exempt | 0.00035% of turnover | 0.0001% |
| Currency options | ₹20 per order (flat) | Exempt | 0.0311% of premium | 0.0001% |
| Commodity futures | Lower of 0.03% or ₹20/order | CTT 0.01%, sell (non-agri) | ~0.0026% of turnover | 0.002% |
Two constants across every row. The SEBI turnover fee is 10 rupees per crore of turnover in every segment, a negligible line on a retail ticket. GST is 18 percent of brokerage plus the exchange charge plus the SEBI fee plus any DP charge, never on STT, CTT or stamp duty. The DP charge, a flat fee of about 13 to 25 rupees per scrip, applies only on a delivery sell, so it appears in the delivery row alone. Commodity exchange charges vary by contract; the figure shown is representative of non-agricultural futures such as gold and crude.
What the 18 percent GST actually taxes
Reference: the same round trip, priced across every segment
The identical turnover, a 1,00,000 rupee buy and a 1,00,000 rupee sell, run through all seven segments on a representative flat-fee plan. Read the last two columns together: the cost in basis points is what you pay, and the brokerage share is how little of it a broker can change. On delivery brokerage is zero percent of the cost; on options it is around a seventh; only on the cheapest currency-futures ticket does the flat fee dominate.
| Segment | Total cost | Cost in bps | Largest line | Brokerage share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Equity delivery | ₹246 | 12.3 | STT (₹200) | 0% |
| Equity intraday | ₹83 | 4.1 | STT (₹25) | 48% |
| Equity futures | ₹104 | 5.2 | STT (₹50) | 39% |
| Equity options | ₹284 | 14.2 | STT (₹150) | 14% |
| Currency futures | ₹48 | 2.4 | Brokerage (₹40) | 83% |
| Currency options | ₹121 | 6.0 | Exchange charge (₹62) | 33% |
| Commodity futures | ₹66 | 3.3 | Brokerage (₹40) | 61% |
Read the nuance honestly. Brokerage is the small part exactly where it matters most: on delivery and on active options, the two segments retail trades hardest. It only dominates on tiny, lightly-taxed currency and commodity tickets, where the flat fee is large relative to a trivial statutory bill. The general rule holds: the more you trade the heavily-taxed segments, the more the fixed statutory floor, not brokerage, sets your cost.
Reference: one trade is cheap, the habit is not
A single round trip is a small number. The cost of a strategy is that number multiplied by how often you repeat it, and it is paid whether the trade wins or loses. Here is one representative options round trip costing about 110 rupees, scaled by frequency across a roughly 250-day trading year.
| Round trips per day | Per day | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₹110 | ₹2,310 | ₹27,500 |
| 2 | ₹220 | ₹4,620 | ₹55,000 |
| 5 | ₹550 | ₹11,550 | ₹1,37,500 |
| 10 | ₹1,100 | ₹23,100 | ₹2,75,000 |
| 20 | ₹2,200 | ₹46,200 | ₹5,50,000 |
This is the cost you hand over before any edge. Twenty round trips a day on this one trade is over five lakh rupees a year in charges alone, most of it statutory and unavoidable at any broker. For the frequency-drag curve as a percentage of capital, and the same-turnover comparison of the cost wall across segments, use the deeper cost-to-edge estimator, which is built for exactly that question.
Brokerage went to zero. The floor did not move.
Failure modes: where the clean number still breaks
The arithmetic is exact for the inputs you give it. What breaks is the assumption that the inputs, and the rates, match reality. Five conditions detach the figure from what your contract note will actually say.
1. Rates drift, and derivatives rates drift fast. STT on options and futures was raised in October 2024 and again in Budget 2026. Exchange transaction charges are revised by circular, stamp duty is state-set, and DP charges vary by depository and broker. This tool is stamped as of July 2026 on representative published rates. Before you rely on a figure for a live trade, confirm the current STT, exchange charge and stamp rate against the exchange and SEBI, because a tool running last year's rates understates today's cost.
2. Broker plans differ, and the defaults here are only representative. The two brokerage fields are editable precisely because no single plan is universal: some brokers charge for delivery, some cap intraday differently, some bundle add-on fees this tool does not model. The statutory lines are fixed, but the brokerage line is yours to set. If your contract note disagrees, the difference is almost always in brokerage or an add-on fee, not in the statutory stack.
3. The option-premium versus notional trap. Every option levy here is computed on the premium you enter, price times quantity, which is correct. If you instead enter the strike, or the notional per unit, as the price, STT and the exchange charge will be computed on a base tens or hundreds of times too large and the cost figure will be nonsense. Enter the premium you actually pay and receive, not the contract's notional value.
4. Physical delivery and exercise change the tax. If a stock future or in-the-money stock option is held to expiry and physically settled, the leg is treated like a delivery trade and attracts delivery-rate STT on the settlement value, which is far higher than the derivative rate and is not modelled here. This tool prices a normal buy-and-sell round trip. Positions taken to physical delivery or exercise need the delivery-segment treatment on the settled leg.
5. Spread, slippage and other fees are not in this number. The bid-ask spread you cross, the slippage on a market order, annual maintenance charges, payment-gateway and call-and-trade fees, and any GST on those, all sit outside this stack. On an illiquid contract the spread alone can dwarf the entire statutory bill. Treat the total here as the floor of what a trade costs, not the ceiling.
The honest summary. This tool prices the statutory and brokerage stack correctly for the inputs you give it, on the rates current as of July 2026. It does not price liquidity, it does not know your exact plan, and it does not follow a position into physical settlement. Use it to see the shape of the cost and which line dominates, and to confirm a contract note is in the right range, not as a substitute for your broker's own figures on a live order.
The risk-manager's view: you control frequency, not the floor
Cost is the one part of a trading outcome you can know with certainty before you act. The move is uncertain, the fill is uncertain, the edge is a probability, but the charge stack is arithmetic you can compute to the paisa. That is why a desk minimises it first: it is the only variable that behaves. And the way it minimises it is not by hunting for a cheaper broker, because brokerage is already near its floor and is the smallest line on most trades. It is by controlling the one input that scales the whole stack, which is how often the trade is placed.
This is the line the SEBI FY25 numbers sit on. Over 91 percent of individual traders in the equity derivatives segment were net loss-making, with aggregate net losses near 1,05,603 crore rupees, up roughly 41 percent on the prior year, on notional turnover running many times the country's output. A large part of that is edge, and a part of it is cost: every one of those trades handed the exchange and the exchequer the statutory stack, win or lose, and the traders paying it most were the ones trading most. The Budget 2026 STT hike is the regulator making that arithmetic more punishing on purpose. The charge you can shop for was never the point. The one you cannot, multiplied by frequency, is.
Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How is brokerage calculated on a trade in India?
+Brokerage is a per-order fee your broker sets, and under the flat-fee plans most Indian brokers now publish it is the lower of a small percentage of the order value or a flat cap. A representative model is the lower of about 0.03 percent of the order value or 20 rupees per executed order for intraday, futures, currency and commodity, a flat 20 rupees per order for options, and zero on equity delivery. Because it is charged per order, a round trip pays it twice, once on the buy and once on the sell. This calculator lets you set the flat fee and the percentage yourself so it matches your own plan. The important point is that brokerage is the only line you can shop for. Every other line on the contract note is statutory and identical at every broker, which is why brokerage is usually the smallest part of what a trade actually costs.
What are all the charges on a trade in India, not just brokerage?
+A trade carries up to seven separate charges. In order: brokerage, which your broker sets; securities transaction tax, STT, or on commodities the commodities transaction tax, CTT, levied by the government on the taxed side of the trade; the exchange transaction charge, set by the exchange as a percentage of turnover or of option premium; the SEBI turnover fee of 10 rupees per crore; stamp duty, charged on the buy side only at a state-harmonised rate; 18 percent GST, charged on the sum of brokerage plus the exchange charge plus the SEBI fee plus any DP charge; and on a delivery sell, a flat DP charge per scrip debited by your depository participant. Only brokerage varies between brokers. STT, the exchange charge, the SEBI fee, stamp duty and GST are the same wherever you trade, so the true cost of a trade is mostly a figure you cannot negotiate.
Is zero brokerage really free? What does a delivery trade actually cost?
+No. Zero brokerage means one line on the contract note is zero, not that the trade is free. Take a delivery trade of 100 shares bought at 1,000 rupees and sold at 1,050, a turnover of 2,05,000 rupees. Even with brokerage at zero, the trade still pays STT of 0.1 percent on both sides, about 205 rupees, plus stamp duty of 0.015 percent on the buy, about 15 rupees, plus a flat DP charge on the sell of around 20 rupees per scrip, plus the exchange charge, the SEBI fee and GST on the taxable lines. The total lands near 251 rupees, and not a single rupee of it is brokerage. So a 5,000 rupee gross gain becomes about 4,749 net. The lesson is that chasing a cheaper broker moves one line that was already small; the statutory stack, which you cannot discount, is what you are actually paying.
What are the current STT rates on options and futures in 2026?
+From 1 April 2026, securities transaction tax on options is 0.15 percent of the sell-side premium and on futures is 0.05 percent of the sell-side turnover, both charged only when you sell. This is the second hike in about eighteen months: the October 2024 change had already raised options and futures once, and Budget 2026 raised them again to these levels. On the cash side, equity delivery STT is 0.1 percent on both the buy and the sell, and equity intraday is 0.025 percent on the sell only. The stated aim is to make frequent derivatives speculation more expensive, and because STT scales with how often you trade, the hike falls hardest on high-frequency retail activity. A charges tool that still applies the pre-2026 rates understates the cost of an options round trip.
What are the charges on one lot of Nifty or Bank Nifty options?
+You compute the charges on the premium you transact, not on the notional value of the contract. Take two lots of an index option at a lot size of 65, so 130 units, bought at a premium of 180 rupees and sold at 210, a premium turnover of 50,700 rupees. Brokerage at a flat 20 rupees per order is 40 for the round trip. STT at 0.15 percent of the 27,300 sell premium is about 40.95. The exchange charge at about 0.03553 percent of the premium turnover is about 18.01. Stamp duty at 0.003 percent of the buy premium is about 0.70, the SEBI fee is a few paise, and 18 percent GST on brokerage plus the exchange charge plus the SEBI fee is about 10.45. The total is near 110 rupees, so a 3,900 rupee gross gain nets about 3,790. Note that the exchange charge on option premium is more than ten times the cash-equity rate, which is why options sit high on the cost wall.
What is a DP charge and when is it charged?
+A DP charge, or depository participant charge, is a flat fee debited when you sell shares held in your demat account on delivery. It is levied per scrip, meaning per company, per day, regardless of quantity, so selling one share or ten thousand shares of the same scrip on the same day costs the same DP charge. A representative figure is around 13 to 25 rupees per scrip, made up of a depository component and a broker component, plus GST. It applies only to a delivery sell: it is not charged on the buy, and it does not apply to intraday equity or to futures and options, which are cash-settled and never touch your demat. Because it is a fixed rupee amount, the DP charge is a heavy drag on small delivery sells and negligible on large ones, and it is the reason a delivery trade is never truly free even at zero brokerage.
Is GST charged on STT and stamp duty?
+No, and getting this wrong is one of the most common errors in retail cost estimation. GST at 18 percent is charged on brokerage plus the exchange transaction charge plus the SEBI turnover fee, plus the DP charge where one applies. It is not charged on STT or CTT, and it is not charged on stamp duty, because those are themselves taxes and you do not levy a tax on a tax. A tool that applies 18 percent to the whole bill including STT overstates the cost, and one that forgets GST on the exchange charge understates it. This calculator applies GST only to the correct taxable base, which is why on a heavily taxed options trade the GST line is modest even though STT is large: GST never touches the STT.
Do currency and commodity trades have STT?
+Currency derivatives are exempt from securities transaction tax entirely, so a currency futures or currency options trade carries brokerage, a small exchange transaction charge, the SEBI fee, a very low stamp duty of 0.0001 percent and GST, but no STT. That makes currency one of the cheapest segments as a percentage of turnover, where the flat brokerage fee is often the largest single line. Commodities are not charged STT either, but they carry a separate levy, the commodities transaction tax or CTT, at 0.01 percent on the sell side of non-agricultural futures such as gold or crude, while agricultural futures are exempt to support hedging. So the government levy exists in every derivatives segment, it is simply called STT on equity and currency-exempt, and CTT on commodities. This tool applies the correct levy for the segment you choose.
Why are my actual charges higher than a broker's advertised brokerage?
+Because the advertised number is brokerage, and brokerage is only one of up to seven charges. A broker can honestly advertise zero-brokerage delivery or a 20 rupee flat fee, and your contract note will still show STT, the exchange transaction charge, the SEBI turnover fee, stamp duty, GST and, on a delivery sell, the DP charge. Those statutory lines are set by the government and the exchange, not the broker, and they are identical everywhere. On a delivery trade brokerage can be the smallest line at zero while STT and the DP charge do all the work; on an active options trade brokerage is often under a fifth of the total. The gap you notice is the statutory stack, which the advertised brokerage figure never mentions because no broker can change it. This calculator shows every line so the full figure is visible before you trade, not after.
Where the facts come from
Sources
- The Apr 2026 STT rates. Union Budget 2026 raised securities transaction tax on options to 0.15 percent of the sell-side premium and on futures to 0.05 percent of the sell-side turnover, effective 1 April 2026; equity delivery remains 0.1 percent on both sides and intraday 0.025 percent on the sell. nseindia.com
- Exchange transaction charges, the SEBI fee and stamp duty. NSE, SEBI turnover fees, STT and other levies reference for the cash, equity-derivatives and currency-derivatives segments; the SEBI turnover fee of 10 rupees per crore; and the uniform stamp-duty schedule effective 1 July 2020, at 0.015 percent delivery, 0.003 percent intraday, 0.002 percent futures, 0.003 percent options and 0.0001 percent currency, all on the buy side. nseindia.com
- The commodities transaction tax. MCX Clearing, Commodities Transaction Tax: 0.01 percent on the sell side of non-agricultural commodity futures, with agricultural commodities exempt. mcxccl.com
- The FY25 loss base rate. SEBI study on the profit and loss of individual traders in the equity derivatives segment: over 91 percent net loss-making in FY25, with aggregate net losses of about 1,05,603 crore rupees, up roughly 41 percent from FY24. sebi.gov.in
Educational note. This tool computes charges from the inputs you enter, on representative published rates as of July 2026; every output is illustrative and depends entirely on your numbers, your broker's plan and the current statutory rates, which drift. Verify the live rates with your broker and the exchange before relying on a figure for a trade. Nothing here is a recommendation to trade or to buy or sell any security, and it is not tax advice. Bharath Shiksha is an educational publisher, not a SEBI-registered investment adviser or research analyst.