Prime is one of the many subscriptions introduced by one of the largest online brokers i.e. ICICI Direct. You can buy it for a price starting at 299 Rs.
To activate Prime subscription for your account, click on the gear icon that you will find above the menu bar and select “My brokerage plan”. ICICI Direct will show a list of available schemes for you. Select Prime checkbox and choose one of the packages shown in the following table:
| Scheme | Brokerage for options per lot pricing | Brokerage for commodity, currency futures and options | Brokerage for Equities |
| 9999 | 7 | 20 | 0.07% |
| 4999 | 10 | 20 | 0.1% |
| 2999 | 20 | 20 | 0.15% |
| 1999 | 25 | 20 | 0.18% |
| 999 | 35 | 20 | 0.22% |
| 299 | 35 | 20 | 0.25% |
If you select Prime plan, MTF will be enabled for your account. The interest rate for the 299, 999, 1999, 2999, 4999 and 9999 Rs packs are 19.95, 19.95, 15.95, 15.95, 9.65 and 9.96 percent respectively.
GST will be charged on the amount you pay to the broker. For example, if you choose the 9999 Rs pack, 18% GST will be levied on 9999 Rs.
0 brokerage on orders closed within 5 minutes is a hidden feature of ICICI Direct Prime. If you want to enjoy 0 brokerage, you should create a stop loss order and close the position within 5 minutes.
Is Prime plan good? In my perspective, ICICI Direct Prime subscription is not worth the money unless you’re a scalper who squares off the position within 5 minutes or a user who doesn’t trade and is looking for a reliable broker. Let’s consider the example of option trading. No matter what package you choose, you’ll be charged per lot i.e. If you buy 10 lots of a call option, you will end up paying 10 x per lot pricing of the chosen pack. The broker doesn’t have a flat pricing for delivery trades. It charges in percentage. For example, if you have purchased the Prime 299 pack, you will be charged 0.25% brokerage, which is a huge amount when compared to other brokers such as Kotak Securities that charges a flat 20 Rs for delivery orders. Angel Broking doesn’t levy any fee on delivery trades.
The only best feature of ICICI Prime right now is the eATM feature which deposits money to your trading account instantly when you sell a stock bought earlier. When you’re in urgent need of money, you can use this feature to get paid out quickly instead of waiting for T+1 days. In the future, the stock exchanges of India will reduce the settlement time to hours instead of day. Until this happens, eATM is the best feature of the Prime plan.
Is there an alternative to “Prime” Yes! ICICI Direct NEO is an addon plan which we can call a flat brokerage plan. Users who purchase it will be charged Rs 20 brokerage per order for equity, and equity/index/commodity/option trades (intraday). The company charges 0 Rs on Future trades. The interest the broker would charge when you use the “shares as margin” feature is only 0.025%. The scheme’s validity is lifetime and it costs Rs 299.
