Two ₹20 orders do not mean a ₹40 round trip. Brokerage is the broker's commission; your contract note also includes taxes, exchange charges and regulatory levies. A useful journal records the result after those costs, because a strategy with a small gross edge can look very different after repeated trades. This guide uses the NSE discount schedule implemented in Jorli, including STT rates from 1 April 2026.
A worked intraday equity example
Suppose you buy 400 shares at ₹1,000 and sell them at ₹1,100. Buy value is ₹4,00,000; sell value is ₹4,40,000. Total turnover is ₹8,40,000, and gross P&L is ₹40,000. Each side is one executed order. These illustrative numbers explain the arithmetic; they are not a suggested trade or a forecast.
| Charge | Amount |
|---|---|
| Brokerage | ₹40.00 |
| STT | ₹110.00 |
| Exchange transaction charge | ₹25.79 |
| GST | ₹11.99 |
| SEBI charge | ₹0.84 |
| Stamp duty | ₹12.00 |
| Total charges | ₹200.62 |
| Net P&L | ₹39,799.38 |
Charges divided by quantity give approximately 0.50 points per share to breakeven at these inputs. That is a cost-per-unit estimate, rounded to two decimals, rather than a guarantee that every possible exit at exactly that distance produces zero net P&L. Sell-side levies change slightly when the exit price changes.
What each charge means
Brokerage: equity intraday uses 0.03% of the value of each order, capped at ₹20 per order. Both sides in this example reach the cap, making ₹40 total. Smaller orders can cost less. The cap applies per executed order, not per day or per symbol; splitting a position into several orders changes the commission.
STT: Securities Transaction Tax is separate from brokerage. Equity intraday charges 0.025% on sell value, so ₹4,40,000 × 0.025% is ₹110. The estimate rounds STT to whole rupees. Delivery, futures and options have different rates and taxable sides; selecting the correct segment matters more than the symbol's familiar name.
Exchange transaction charge: NSE equity uses 0.00307% of combined buy and sell turnover. ₹8,40,000 × 0.00307% rounds to ₹25.79. Futures and options use different transaction rates. For options, the input is the option premium, not the underlying index value or strike price.
SEBI charge: ₹10 per crore of turnover, or 0.0001%, gives ₹0.84 here. GST: 18% applies to brokerage plus exchange transaction and SEBI charges, producing ₹11.99 after rounding. It is not 18% of your trade value or your profit, and this calculation does not apply GST to STT or stamp duty.
Stamp duty: equity intraday uses 0.003% of buy value, producing ₹12. Delivery and futures use different buy-side rates. The calculator rounds stamp duty to whole rupees and the other displayed components to paisa, matching its backend estimate.
Intraday, delivery, futures and options compared
The first three rows below use buy ₹1,000, sell ₹1,100 and quantity 400. Options use premium buy ₹100, sell ₹110 and quantity 400. Quantity means units, not number of lots. A two-lot trade requires the total number of units in those lots. These are NSE round trips with one order on each side.
| Segment | Brokerage | STT | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intraday equity | ₹40 | ₹110 | ₹200.62 |
| Delivery equity | ₹0 | ₹840 | ₹931.42 |
| Futures | ₹40 | ₹220 | ₹294.33 |
| Options | ₹40 | ₹66 | ₹149.52 |
Delivery has zero commission in this schedule, but 0.1% STT on both sides. Futures use sell-side STT of 0.05%, NSE transaction charges of 0.00183% and buy-side stamp duty of 0.002%. Options use ₹20 per executed order, sell-side STT of 0.15%, transaction charges of 0.03553% of premium turnover and buy-side stamp duty of 0.003%.
Use estimates to review, then reconcile
For the delivery example, exchange transaction charges are ₹25.79, GST ₹4.79, SEBI ₹0.84 and stamp duty ₹60. For futures they are ₹15.37, ₹10.12, ₹0.84 and ₹8. For the options example they are ₹29.85, ₹12.59, ₹0.08 and ₹1 respectively. Together with each row's brokerage and STT, these reconcile to the totals above.
Try the free brokerage and charges calculator with your own inputs. It runs locally without a login. BSE transaction charges differ. Delivery sells can attract DP charges, which are excluded; option exercise, call-and-trade and other special charges are also outside this simple two-order estimate. Your broker's contract note remains the record to reconcile.
Check the official Zerodha calculator when rates or your broker plan change. Once the arithmetic is clear, record costs alongside your trading process. Counting only gross winners can hide the cost of overtrading; a journal lets you ask that question with your own data, without promising that a different trade count will improve returns.