MQL5 Market vs. Selling Independently: The Real Commission Math

Selling on the MQL5 Market means giving up 20% of every sale, permanently, on every unit you ever sell. Selling independently — your own site, Telegram, a marketplace like Whop or Gumroad — means keeping the full price, in exchange for a flat monthly cost for the licensing infrastructure the Market gives you for free.

Whether that trade is worth it comes down to volume. Here's the actual math, not a rule of thumb.

The comparison

Say your EA sells for $500 and you're doing 30 sales a month.

On the MQL5 Market:

• Commission: 30 × $500 × 20% = $3,000/month, or $36,000/year
• That number scales linearly with revenue, forever — there's no point where the percentage drops

Selling independently with a flat licensing subscription:

• A fixed monthly cost, regardless of how many units you sell that month
• At $500/unit and 30 sales/month, even the higher subscription tiers cost a small fraction of $3,000/month

The gap only grows as sales volume grows. At 30 sales/month, you're paying 20% of $15,000 in revenue just in commission — a flat subscription doesn't care whether that number is $15,000 or $50,000.

When the Market still makes sense

This isn't "the Market is always worse." At low volume — a handful of sales a month while you're building an audience — the Market's built-in discovery and payment handling can be worth more than the commission costs, and you don't have to think about licensing infrastructure at all.

The math flips once you have your own audience (a Telegram group, a YouTube channel, an existing customer base) — at that point the Market's discovery advantage stops mattering, and you're paying 20% for infrastructure you could run yourself for a flat, predictable cost.

What you keep either way

Nothing about device binding, expirations, account binding, or instant revocation is worse if you sell independently — those aren't Market features, they're licensing infrastructure you have to bring yourself either way. The only thing that actually changes is who processes the payment and how much they keep.

Run your own numbers on the pricing page rather than trusting an example.