Also thought about DMA. The main difference - DMA starts at $5,000, while Standard acc can be opened for $100. The difference is that for DMA - broker has agreements dirtectly with liquidity providers, while for ECN it has connection to the liquidity aggregator-company (that creates liquidity pools). DMA is usually harder to get it, only the best brokers can afford it (and those who aims at traders with a lot of money, many brokers that aims at beginners, don't offer DMA, as it's unneeded for beginners). If you have enough money, I suggest you to switch to DMA - also, ask there if you're interesting in something, I'll try to explain.