Best execution
Best execution means accounting for both the explicit and the implicit costs of a trade, then choosing where it executes for the lowest total. Verus models every cost below for your exact trade on each eligible venue, adds them into one number, and routes to the venue with the lowest all-in cost.
What Verus counts
| Cost | What it is |
|---|---|
| Entry trading fees | The taker or maker fees for entering, set by each venue. |
| Deposit / withdrawal costs | The cost to move funds in and out, mostly withdrawal fees (roughly $1 to $3 on current venues). |
| Entry slippage | Market impact on entry, benchmarked across venues (see below). |
| Funding rate (optional) | Expected funding over a hold time you provide, given current rates across venues. |
| Exit trading fees | Modeled at the trade’s notional value at entry, since an exit price cannot be known in advance. |
| Exit slippage | Like entry slippage, but measured on the opposite side of the order book. |
How slippage is benchmarked
Slippage is handled a little differently from the other costs. The venue with the lowest market impact uses its order book mid-price as the reference point, and the other venues’ slippage is measured relative to that same benchmark.
Example. Suppose the lowest-impact venue fills at $1,010 against a mid-price of $1,000. Its slippage is $10. Another venue fills the same order at $1,030. Its slippage is counted as $10 + ($1,030 - $1,010) = $30.
The reason for a single benchmark is that each venue’s own mid-price can be skewed. If that second venue had a mid-price of $1,025, its mid-based slippage would look like only $5, which would falsely mark it as the better execution. A shared benchmark keeps the comparison honest.
Funding (optional)
Funding is only paid while a position is open, so it depends on how long you hold. If you enter an expected hold time, Verus includes the expected funding cost across venues at current rates in the comparison. Leave it out and funding is excluded.
Exit costs
You cannot know your exit price in advance, so Verus models exit trading fees at the notional value of the trade at entry. Exit slippage mirrors entry slippage but on the opposite side of the book: if you open a long, the exit slippage is estimated as if opening a short into the other side.
One picture
Verus combines all of these into a single estimate of execution cost per venue, then routes your trade to the cheapest one. Every trade uses isolated margin, so only the collateral for that trade is sent to the winning venue.
Realized savings
The routing decision uses a pre-trade simulation. After you close a trade, the Savings tab shows your realized savings: what you actually saved versus the alternatives, not just the estimate. See Placing a trade.