What you actually pay on every trade

Securities Transaction Tax (STT) is charged on the transaction value. For equity delivery, it is 0.1% on both the buy and the sell side. For intraday equity, it is 0.025% on the sell side only. Stamp duty on equity delivery is 0.015% of the buy-side value; the intraday rate is lower. These are statutory — no broker sets them, discounts them, or returns them.

Exchange transaction charges and the SEBI turnover fee are small percentages added by the exchange and the regulator. GST at 18% applies on the service components — brokerage, exchange charges, and the SEBI fee — not on STT or stamp duty.

Brokerage is the one charge your broker actually sets. It is usually a small percentage of the trade value capped at a fixed rupee amount per order, sometimes with a minimum. It is the smallest line on the contract note and the only one that varies by broker — which is why comparing brokers on brokerage alone is comparing the wrong thing.

Slippage is the difference between the price you saw and the price your order actually got. It is not on any contract note, but it is a real cost and often the largest one for someone who trades often. A limit order can avoid adverse slippage by refusing to trade at a worse price — the cost of that protection is that the order may not fill at all.

Every displayed return on this platform is net of all of it: statutory charges, brokerage, and a slippage model, both sides of every trade. A gross number that ignores these is not a bigger number — it is a different and unreal experiment, because the charges scale with how often you trade. The people who trade the most are the people the gross number flatters the most.