Silver Cashback Per Lot: How Much You Earn on XAG/USD and How It Compares to Cost

Silver (XAG/USD) is a popular second metal for traders who already follow gold, and the first question is usually simple: how much cashback does one lot of silver earn? The short answer at XMTrading is that it earns the same as one standard lot of a currency pair or gold. The more useful question is what that amount means next to what a lot of silver costs you to trade. This article answers both, with clearly labelled example numbers.

Key takeaways

• Per XMTrading's publicly available partner (introducer) program terms, IB commission is paid per standard lot round turn, and a standard lot of silver is defined as 5,000 oz. Currencies, gold and silver are paid on the same basis (from USD 3 per standard lot, depending on partner level).
• So the cashback per standard lot of silver equals the cashback per standard lot of a forex pair or gold. CB-Dogs pays 60% of the IB commission XMTrading actually pays, shown in the live rate table below.
• Silver's spread cost per lot is far larger than a forex lot's, because 5,000 oz moves a lot of dollars per cent of price. As a share of cost, silver cashback is a small offset, not a way to turn trading into income.
• Contract size for silver can differ between brokers. Read the specification of your own symbol before you size a trade, and do not assume the IB-commission lot equals your platform's lot.
• Trades closed within 5 minutes, close-by trades and bonus-funded margin are excluded or reduced for IB commission, and cashback follows.

How much cashback does one lot of silver earn?

The mechanism is the same as for every instrument: CB-Dogs is an introducing partner of XMTrading, XMTrading pays the partner a commission per lot traded, and CB-Dogs pays you 60% of the commission actually received. The commission does not depend on whether your trade made or lost money. If the basics are new to you, our guide to how much forex cashback you can earn walks through the whole chain.

What is specific to silver is the definition of a "standard lot" in the partner terms. XMTrading's publicly available partner program terms pay IB commission per Standard Lot round turn and define it as:

The same terms state that currencies, gold and silver are paid from USD 3 per standard lot, depending on the partner's level. In other words, silver is not paid per ounce, and it is not paid extra because 5,000 oz is a bigger position. One standard lot of silver earns the same IB commission as one standard lot of EURUSD or gold. That means the cashback per standard lot is also the same.

Here are the current CB-Dogs rates, taken live from our data so this page never goes out of date:

As an example only, at the level shown when this article was written, a standard lot corresponds to about 1.8 USDT of cashback (60% of USD 3). Treat that as an example figure and check the table above for the current value. Silver, gold and currencies all use the Standard account's per-lot figure, and the other account types have their own lines in the table. If a line says "rate to be confirmed", we have not yet confirmed the commission for that account type, so we do not publish a number.

Smaller sizes earn proportionally less

Cashback scales with the lot size you trade. A Micro lot is one hundredth of a standard lot in the partner terms, so it earns one hundredth of the commission. On a Standard account you can trade silver in steps of 0.01 lot, and 0.01 lot of a 5,000 oz contract is 50 oz (check the specification, see below). At the example figure of 1.8 USDT per standard lot, 0.01 lot earns 0.018 USDT. That is small, but it is proportional to the volume you trade, and the same ratio applies to forex and gold.

Check silver's contract size at your broker

The 5,000 oz figure is the definition XMTrading uses to calculate partner commission. How the symbol is actually specified on your trading platform is a separate question, and contract sizes for silver vary by broker. Some brokers use 5,000 oz, others use smaller contracts such as 1,000 oz, and Micro-style accounts can use yet another size.

Before you place a trade, open the symbol's specification in the platform (in MT4/MT5, Market Watch, right-click the symbol, then Specification) and read the contract size and the minimum lot. Our guide to pip value for gold, silver and oil explains why silver's convention differs from both forex and gold, and how to turn a price move into dollars for the contract you actually have.

What does a lot of silver cost to trade?

Cashback is only half of the picture. The other half is the spread, which you pay on every round trip whether or not you win. The full breakdown of spread, commission and swap is in our silver trading costs explained article, so here we only need one worked example to compare the sizes.

XMTrading's public instruments page lists a minimum spread for SILVER on the Standard account of 6, and a maximum leverage of 400:1. That 6 is a minimum in XM's own units, and live spreads are usually wider, especially around news and at rollover. We do not convert that number into dollars here, because the conversion depends on how the platform quotes silver. For the example below we use a hypothetical live spread stated directly in dollars per ounce.

Example (hypothetical numbers):

• Hypothetical live spread: 0.04 USD per oz
• Standard lot: 5,000 oz
• Spread cost per round trip: 5,000 x 0.04 = 200 USD per standard lot
• Example cashback: about 1.8 USDT per standard lot
• Cashback as a share of spread cost: 1.8 / 200 = 0.9%

At 0.01 lot (50 oz), the same example gives a spread cost of 50 x 0.04 = 2 USD and cashback of 0.018 USDT, so the ratio is unchanged, about 0.9%. If the real spread is half that, the ratio roughly doubles to about 1.8%, and if it is twice that wide, it halves. The point is the order of magnitude: cashback on silver is a small refund on a relatively large cost, and silver is among the more expensive instruments to trade per lot, because the position is large and the spread, measured in dollars, is large with it.

The comparison also explains why silver is not an efficient way to farm cashback. For the same cashback you could trade a standard lot of a major forex pair with a spread cost of a few dollars. Choose silver for the market view you have, not for the rebate. Our gold cashback per lot explained article makes the same comparison for gold, and how much is one lot of gold shows what 100 oz means in dollars.

Margin and leverage on silver

XMTrading lists a maximum leverage of 400:1 for SILVER, lower than the 1000:1 for gold on the same Standard account. Margin is notional value divided by leverage. As a hypothetical, with silver at 50 USD per oz:

• 1 standard lot (5,000 oz) is 250,000 USD of silver, and margin at 400:1 is 625 USD.
• 0.01 lot (50 oz) is 2,500 USD of silver, and margin at 400:1 is 6.25 USD.

Leverage reduces the margin you lock, not the loss a price move causes. A 1 USD move in silver is 5,000 USD on one standard lot (50 USD on 0.01 lot), which is why silver can be a violent instrument for small accounts. The general method is in our contract size, lot size and margin explained guide.

Which trades earn no silver cashback

The same exclusions that apply to every instrument apply to silver. Per XMTrading's publicly available partner terms, the following do not count for IB commission, so they earn no cashback:

• Trades with a duration of 5 minutes or less, from open to close.
• Trades closed with "close by" or "multiple close by".
• Churning, meaning trades made for the sole purpose of generating commission. Using an EA is allowed if it is not churning.
• Trading on a no-deposit trading bonus and the profits from it, unless you deposit and trade with your own funds.
• Accounts with chargebacks or refunds, and fraudulent traffic.
• The introducer's own accounts.

When your required margin is partly supported by a granted bonus, commission is calculated in proportion to the share of your own funds in the required margin, so cashback on that trade is reduced in the same proportion. Silver scalping in under 5 minutes is therefore not only costly, it also earns nothing. Our gold scalping costs and cashback article covers the same trap for gold.

What about Exness?

CB-Dogs also supports Exness. The structure is different: Exness partner commission depends on the account type and is, for Standard accounts, a share of Exness's own revenue on the trade, not a flat amount per lot. So the per-lot figure for silver can differ from forex and gold, and it moves with the spread. The numbers in the Exness table below are estimates; actual cashback is the commission Exness actually pays x 60%.

Because Exness figures are estimates, we do not repeat a silver number here. Read the table for the account type you plan to use, and compare it with the spread cost of the symbol, in the same way as the XM example above. The comparison between the brokers' total costs, not the rebate alone, is what matters.

How cashback reaches you

Cashback for XMTrading accounts becomes withdrawable 7 days after crediting, and the usual time from trade to withdrawable is about 3 to 4 weeks. Payouts are in USDT on TRC20 only, with a minimum withdrawal of 10 USDT. There is a 3 USDT fee for withdrawals under 50 USDT and no fee at 50 USDT or more. Since 0.01 lot of silver earns only a tiny amount, small-lot traders will take a while to reach the minimum. Our cashback calculator lets you estimate your own volume.

Silver cashback FAQ

How much cashback does one lot of silver earn at XMTrading?

The same as one standard lot of a currency pair or gold. XMTrading's partner terms pay IB commission per standard lot on the same basis for currencies, gold and silver, and a standard silver lot is defined as 5,000 oz. CB-Dogs pays 60% of the commission XMTrading actually pays, shown in the live rate table. Cashback is not based on profit or loss.

Is 1 lot of silver always 5,000 oz?

Is silver a good instrument for earning cashback?

Do very short silver trades earn cashback?

Does Exness pay the same cashback on silver as on forex?