Raw spreads for prop firms: why a marked-up feed quietly loses you traders
Spread markups are invisible on a pricing page and obvious to a trader. What a markup really is, how it warps your evaluations, and why the feed on every PropExecutor account is raw.
The PropExecutor Team · · 8 min read
Frequently asked questions
- What are raw spreads in a prop firm?
- Raw spreads are the real bid-ask prices from the underlying feed, with nothing added on top. A raw-spread prop firm shows traders the same spread the market is showing, rather than widening it to skim a margin on every trade.
- What is a spread markup and why do platforms add one?
- A spread markup is extra distance added to the bid-ask price so the platform (or firm) earns on every trade a trader makes. Platforms add it because it is a quiet, recurring revenue stream that never appears on a pricing page - which is exactly why it erodes trust when traders notice it.
- Does PropExecutor mark up spreads?
- No. Every PropExecutor account trades against the raw feed with no markup, and the full fill and trade history is kept per account so nothing is hidden. Your revenue comes from evaluation fees, not from quietly taxing your traders' spreads.
- How does a spread markup affect an evaluation?
- It moves the finish line. A wider spread raises the cost of entering and exiting, so profit targets get harder and drawdown limits get closer for reasons that have nothing to do with the trader's skill. Two firms with identical written rules can have very different real difficulty purely because of the feed.
- Can traders tell if spreads are marked up?
- Skilled traders can, quickly. They compare fills against a reference feed, watch how spreads behave around news, and notice when costs are consistently worse than the wider market. Once they conclude a firm is taxing the feed, they leave and tell others.
- Are raw spreads better for the firm or the trader?
- Both, over any real time horizon. Traders get fair conditions and stay; the firm keeps a reputation that markets itself. A markup wins a little on every trade today and costs you the traders who would have funded your growth.
- Do raw spreads mean the firm makes less money?
- No - it means the firm makes money the honest way, from evaluation fees, rather than from a hidden tax. The firms that grow fastest are the ones traders recommend, and a fair feed is one of the first things a serious trader checks.
- How is execution handled on a raw-spread executor?
- Fills are simulated against live prices rather than routed to a broker, so traders get the familiar terminal and realistic execution while the accounts stay evaluation accounts. The spread they trade is the raw feed, and every fill is recorded per account.
- Does a raw feed work across forex, indices, metals and crypto?
- Yes. The terminal carries the instruments traders expect - majors, indices, metals and crypto among them - on the same raw-spread basis, with the order ticket, market watch and chart they already know.
- Is a raw-spread platform more expensive to run?
- No. On PropExecutor raw spreads are the default on every account, on every plan, including the $129 entry plan - there is no premium tier you have to buy to stop marking up your own traders.
A spread markup is the easiest revenue in this business to add and the most expensive one to keep. It never shows on a pricing page, so it looks free - and it quietly drives away exactly the traders whose word of mouth would have grown your firm. Here is what a markup really is, what it does to your evaluations, and why the feed on every account here is raw.
What a spread markup actually is
Every instrument has a bid and an ask, and the distance between them is the spread. A markup adds distance to that spread so that whoever runs the platform earns a slice of every trade a trader makes. It is charged silently, on entry and exit, forever. To the person adding it, it looks like found money. To the trader paying it, it looks like a tax they did not agree to.
Raw spreads are the opposite: the real prices from the underlying feed, passed through untouched.
Why platforms add one
For the same reason they add a monthly licence - recurring revenue that scales with your traders' activity. A markup converts your traders' volume into the vendor's income automatically, whether or not the vendor did anything to earn it. It is a pricing decision dressed up as a technical detail, and it is invisible right up until a good trader catches it.
Your revenue should come from evaluation fees, not from a hidden tax on your traders. See how PropExecutor is priced
How a markup warps your evaluation
Your written rules are only half of an evaluation's difficulty. The feed is the other half. Widen the spread and you have quietly:
- Raised the profit target, because every round trip costs more to open and close.
- Moved the drawdown closer, because costs eat into equity faster.
- Punished the exact strategies - scalping, high-frequency, tight-stop trading - that skilled evaluation traders use most.
Two firms can publish identical rules and run completely different challenges, purely because one marks up the feed and the other does not. Traders who fail on a marked-up feed do not blame the spread - at first. Then they work it out.
Traders notice, and then they leave
The traders you most want - consistent, disciplined, the ones who pass and get funded and bring friends - are precisely the ones who benchmark their fills, watch spread behaviour around news, and compare costs against a reference feed. When they conclude a firm is taxing them, they do not file a complaint. They quietly move to a firm that does not, and they say why in the communities you are trying to recruit from.
A markup wins a fraction on every trade today. It loses you the traders who would have funded next year.
A fair feed is one of the first things a serious trader checks. Give them one. Launch on raw spreads from $129
Raw spreads on every account, by default
On PropExecutor the feed is raw on every account, on every plan, including the $129 entry plan. There is no "premium" tier that finally stops you from marking up your own traders, and there is no markup toggle working against you in the background. Every fill and the full trade history is kept per account, so both you and your traders can see exactly what happened.
Fills are simulated against live prices, so traders get realistic execution in the terminal they already know - chart, order ticket and market watch - across the instruments they expect, from majors and indices to metals and crypto. The rules enforce the challenge; the feed stays honest.
The choice, put plainly
You can earn a little on every trade and slowly lose the traders who notice, or you can run a clean feed, earn from evaluation fees, and let a fair reputation do your marketing. The firms that compound are the ones traders recommend, and raw spreads are table stakes for being recommended.
Build a firm traders trust, on a feed with nothing hidden in it. See the price list
Keep reading: what it really costs to run a prop firm platform, or go straight to the plans.
Written by
The PropExecutor Team
Product and engineering
We build PropExecutor: prop firm software that lets anyone launch a fully branded firm from $129, paid once, with a real-time rule engine and a dashboard in every trading account. These guides come from the same product we ship. About PropExecutor
