ECN brokers route your order into an electronic network that aggregates quotes from banks, institutional investors, and other large participants. The broker is not your counterparty. Your order goes out and matches against the best price the pool is currently showing.
Because the broker is not betting against you, it does not make its money on spreadSpreadThe gap between the bid and ask price of an instrument, paid implicitly on every entry.Click the word to learn more. It charges a fixed commission per lot instead. The spread you see on the platform tracks the raw interbank market, often near zero in liquid hours, and you pay a separate commission line on top. The total cost can be very low or very high depending on the moment.
This model fits strategies that fire orders often. The narrower the average target, the more spread matters. ECN executionExecutionHow the broker turns an order into a real fill: speed, routing, and the price you actually get.Click the word to learn more shaves the spread component close to zero, then makes you pay commission in plain sight. Most scalpers prefer this exact arrangement.
ECN is not automatically better for everything. A long-horizon swing strategy paying commission on every entry and exit can spend more in cost than it would on a fixed-spread broker, depending on volume. The right model depends on the strategy. Javlot indicates per strategy whether the partnered broker uses ECN, STP, or a hybrid.