IB also has a sliding scale for high volume traders which goes down as as low as 2.82 R/T all inclusive of all fees.
I just recently signed up with Open E-cry, and I can truly say that their service is nothing to be sneered at. They have very kind, helpful people available by phone, e-mail, and chat. I also love their trading system ... they have very nice charts, the software was developed in a nice .NET 2.0 Windows forms environment that is pretty easy to use. I would encourage any prospective futures trader to give them a try.
Well, let's see... IB charges $4.80 round trip PA starts at $4.75 round trip That would tell me that not only are PA's commissions competitive, they BEAT IB. Not to mention that if you simply take the time to chat with the guys at PA, odds are you will pay less than the $4.75 stated. And that's just looking at the pure cost of commissions. After you factor in customer service, access to people that can actually help you and make instant decisions, etc. it's not even close in my opinion. Same can be said of Mirus and OpenECry.
The first place I traded the ES through was ProActive, and they were very good. I used the Trade Maven platform, which I think is now defunct because of all the litigation they went through about the use of the DOM. Anyway there are some good people over at PA. One of them posts on here under the name of TRUFF, I think he's one of the owners, not sure tho.
Good stuff guys.....it's really a competitive environment out there for these brokers. The software platform's capability and stability as well as the data feed reliability are paramount to me as the commissions are all about at the same level anymore. Yeah, tech support can also be important, and I know IB is not great in that regard. It appears I've got to assemble a spreadsheet and score all of these offerings to make a rational decision.
Transact, and infinity use Sierra Charting, and its about $24 a month depending on the service level you use. http://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?file=LearnLevels.php