Exness · Account types

What separates the five account types in practice

Exness lists five account types — Standard, Standard Cent, Pro, Zero and Raw Spread — and for a South African trader the choice comes down to one line: how you pay for each lot. Standard and Pro charge no commission at all, and the cost sits inside the spread. Standard starts from 0.2 pips, Pro from 0.1 pips. On XAU/USD, the Standard spread was 0.26 USD on 2026-09-11, which is 26 USD per lot — the number that matters if gold is what you actually trade.

Zero and Raw Spread move the cost to the commission line instead. Zero starts from 0 pips and charges from 0.05 USD per lot per side. Raw Spread also starts from 0 pips and charges up to 3.50 USD per lot per side.

Worth reading alongside this: Exness · Broker overview, and Exness · Funding the account.

Commission is charged twice on a round turn

A position that is opened and closed pays the per-side commission on both legs, so the figure quoted per side is not what a completed trade costs. That is the detail traders miss when they compare Zero and Raw Spread against Standard on spread alone: the quoted spread is only half the picture on those two account types.

Execution differs as well. Standard, Zero and Raw Spread fill at market. Pro fills instantly, and uses market execution for crypto. If your approach depends on the exact moment of entry — and gold around the release of US data is exactly that kind of moment — the execution model belongs in the decision alongside the spread.

Margin call thresholds and the overnight lot cap

Margin call triggers at 60% on Standard, and at 30% on Pro, Zero and Raw Spread. Stop out sits at 0% across the board, and hedged margin is 0%, so a fully hedged position does not consume margin.

Lot size runs from a minimum of 0.01 to a maximum of 200 lots between 07:00 and 20:59 GMT+0, then drops to 60 lots from 21:00 to 06:59 GMT+0. Open positions are unlimited. The overnight reduction is the one that catches people holding size into the Asian session.

Leverage is not one number across the book. Majors are customizable, USD/ZAR runs at 1:200, indices at 1:200–1:400, USOIL at 1:2000 and USD/MXN at 1:50. XAU/USD leverage is customizable, so the gold exposure you carry is a setting you choose, not a fixed term.

What gold volatility looks like in the tick data

Exness publishes tick history for all instruments, and the gold record is the most useful thing on the page for anyone sizing a position. The sharpest minute of the day lands at 12:00 UTC, at 60.91 USD — 6,091 USD per lot. The calmest is 20:00 UTC, at 3.29 USD.

Read that as a range, not a forecast. A stop placed on the assumption of a quiet minute will behave very differently at midday UTC than in the evening, and the same lot size carries a different risk depending on when it is held.

The South African entity and what it covers

Exness ZA (PTY) Ltd holds FSCA FSP 51024. The wider group operates through separate entities — among them Exness (SC) Ltd under FSA Seychelles SD025, Exness (Cy) Ltd under CySEC 178/12 and Exness (UK) Ltd under FCA 730729 — and each is authorised for its own jurisdiction, not for South Africa.

The rand pair carries its own conditions: USD/ZAR shows 116.8 pips with no commission, a swap of -18.7/0 pips and leverage of 1:200. On the metals side, XAU/USD shows 26 pips and a swap of -53.49/0 pips, XAG/USD 3 pips and -0.84/0 pips, and USOIL 2 pips with a swap of -20.03/0 pips.

Funding sits behind segregated accounts in tier-1 banks, with PCI DSS certification and 3D Secure. Withdrawals carry no broker fee, and third-party fees are covered by Exness. Negative balance protection is available, and there is a compensation fund through the Financial Commission of up to EUR 20 000 per client.

Questions traders ask about Exness accounts

Does a Standard account make sense if I mostly trade gold?

Standard carries no commission and a quoted XAU/USD spread of 0.26 USD, which is 26 USD per lot. Whether that beats a raw-spread account depends on the commission you would pay instead, and that comparison is yours to make on your own lot sizes.

Why would the maximum lot size change overnight?

Between 21:00 and 06:59 GMT+0 the cap is 60 lots, against 200 lots from 07:00 to 20:59 GMT+0. If your strategy holds size through that window, the lower cap applies to what you can add.

Is the commission on Zero charged once per trade or twice?

It is quoted per lot per side, so an opened and closed position pays it on both legs. Raw Spread works the same way, at up to 3.50 USD per lot per side.

Which entity holds my account as a South African client?

Exness ZA (PTY) Ltd, under FSCA FSP 51024. Other entities in the group are authorised elsewhere and do not carry the South African licence.

Does a hedged gold position free up margin?

Hedged margin is 0%, so a fully hedged position does not consume margin. The swap on XAU/USD of -53.49/0 pips still applies to positions held past rollover.