What each broker charges
Alpaca: no options commission. You still pay the regulatory pass-throughs, which are cents per contract.
tastytrade: a commission to open, capped per order, and nothing to close. Clearing and regulatory fees apply on both sides.
TradePilot charges no per-trade fee of its own on any plan. Your subscription is the whole cost of the software.
Why this matters more than it sounds
On same-day-expiry options the contract itself is often cheap, so a fixed cost per contract is a larger share of the trade than it would be on a bigger position. Two dollars of fees on a two hundred dollar trade is a percentage worth knowing before you size up.
What you cannot avoid
- Regulatory fees on every options trade, at every broker.
- Clearing fees where your broker charges them.
- The spread between the bid and the ask, which is a real cost even when no fee line item appears.
The honest answer
If commissions are your deciding factor, connect Alpaca. It is the cheaper of the two per contract. The trade-off is a stricter expiration-day cutoff, which is why TradePilot closes Alpaca positions 30 minutes earlier, at 3:15 PM Eastern rather than 3:45. You are choosing between a lower cost per trade and half an hour of afternoon price action.
TradePilot records the actual fees on each trade in your log, per broker, so you can see what you paid rather than estimating from a rate card.
First 20 trades free. No credit card required.