oh ok, that makes sense. When doing a search on memberships, I saw an old post of yours which mentioned having $2k AMP membership in addition to leasing seat , where you can pay .75 RT. Do you know if this is still an option? I'll try reaching out to them.
The following practical info could be interesting & useful: "How can an individual trader get risk-based margins like a market maker without owning (or leasing) a seat or trading on the exchange floor? Portfolio margin. ... " https://tickertape.tdameritrade.com/trading/portfolio-margin-vs-reg-t-15526
Portfolio Margin (PM) is risk based margin for US-Listed Securities. The alternative is Reg-T Margin which is more cash based. In futures, the CME uses SPAN Margin which is also risk based but much better than PM as the CME is always changing the requirement to current market conditions, while the OCC which governs PM with CPM rules, does not change with market conditions. The OCC expects the Clearing Members to adapt they rules to market conditions.
They stopped this very soon again, there was not much demand for this from their clients. But if you really make serious monthly volume and you can prove this maybe with some statements, then I am pretty sure that AMP will be happy to customize a very nice deal for you. But not only AMP. There are many brokers and FCMs that will offer you very low rates if you do some good volume. Advantage Futures is another broker that can go very low with commissions, but at the same time are ultra professional and should be able to offer you whatever you need for a trading, including support with the membership. With the volume you do, Advantage should be able to offer you something like 0.30 per contract. If you would make over 10k contracts per month they would offer you less than 0.10 for sure. And then you have of course Tradovate. If you pay their monthly membership (199 per month) you will then just pay 0.09 clearing fee per emini contract (in addition to exchange fees). So if you choose Tradovate in combination with an IOM membership you will then have total cost per trade: 0.49 +0.09 = 0.58 per contract. Welcome to scalper's paradise