I am trading ES futures currently at IB. I plan to buy and sell around 30,000 contracts a year. On Interactive Brokers it costs around $125,000 of commission per year (2.1$ per contract per side). Most of my orders are market makers orders (LIMIT) What is the best way to reduce my commission overhead while sustaining same level of execution and margin requirement and reliability?
And does the situation change if i go up to 60,000 contracts per year?

retailalgo 

I am trading ES futures currently at IB. I plan to buy and sell around 30,000 contracts a year. On Interactive Brokers it costs around $125,000 of commission per year (2.1$ per contract per side). Most of my orders are market makers orders (LIMIT) What is the best way to reduce my commission overhead while sustaining same level of execution and margin requirement and reliability? And does the situation change if i go up to 60,000 contracts per year?

Set your commission plan to tiered. Between 1k and 10k a month you pay 20ct less.

https://www1.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=1590&p=futures2

Pa Dax 

Set your commission plan to tiered. Between 1k and 10k a month you pay 20ct less.

Thank you for the reply. I actually already did set it up to tiered, just was a bit lazy to do the calculations in the post. Actual cost right now in the tiered plan will be around $116k, with effective cost per side of $1.94

I was hoping for a way to reduce it even farther, like cheaper broker, trading through a firm with an exchange seat discounts, or at worse renting an actual exchange seat. Not sure if my scale is enough for that, and the whole process seems a bit tough for a retail trader.

retailalgo 

I was hoping for a way to reduce it even farther, like cheaper broker......

How about Tradovate at $1.34/side for the ES with their Commission Free Membership package at $350/month or $2,400/year?

matthew28 

How about Tradovate at $1.34/side for the ES with their Commission Free Membership package at $350/month or $2,400/year?

They don't provide trading API to retail brokers as far as I understand, but might make an exception with such scale to provide API access.

lensky 

They don't provide trading API to retail brokers as far as I understand, but might make an exception with such scale to provide API access.

I remember looking at the Tradovate website perhaps a couple of years ago and on their pricing page they had a list of extras, such as including replay if that wasn't part of your package, and one of the extras at that time was API access for 10cents/side if I recall correctly.
It wasn't something I needed, just that I happened to notice then. They don't appear to mention it anymore and maybe it is now something as you suggest that requires a discussion or approval first.
I realise you didn't post the original question, but they haven't replied, and I thought I would mention it anyway.