Demo vs Live Accounts

Arconomy supports both demo and live broker accounts. Understanding the differences between these account types — and the subscription required for each — helps you make the most of your strategy development workflow.

Understanding the Difference

A demo account uses virtual money to simulate real market conditions, while a live account trades with real capital. Both account types connect to your broker through the same cTrader FIX API process and receive the same market data. The key difference is whether the trades executed have real financial consequences.

Subscription Requirements

Your Arconomy subscription determines which account types you can connect:

• Paper Trading — connect and deploy strategies to demo broker accounts. This is ideal for testing your strategies with live market data using virtual funds.
• Pro Trader — connect and deploy strategies to both demo and live broker accounts. You maintain access to demo accounts for testing alongside your live trading.

Visit Plans & Pricing for full subscription details, or see Upgrading Your Plan for instructions on how to upgrade.

Why Demo Testing Matters

Even after a strategy produces strong backtest results, running it on a demo account before committing real capital bridges the gap between historical simulation and live market conditions.

Validating Live Execution

Backtesting simulates how your strategy would have performed on historical data, but it cannot perfectly replicate live conditions. Demo trading lets you verify that orders are placed correctly, fills occur as expected, and positions are managed as your strategy intends — all in real time with current market data.

Testing the Full Pipeline

Running a strategy on a demo account tests the entire pipeline from Arconomy's strategy engine through the FIX API to your broker's execution server. Issues that do not surface in backtesting — such as connection behaviour during market events or broker-specific order handling — will appear during demo trading.

Identifying Backtest-to-Live Discrepancies

Demo trading reveals differences between your backtest assumptions and real market behaviour. Common discrepancies include wider spreads during news events, fill delays on limit orders, price gaps at session opens, and timing differences due to data feed latency.

Creating a Demo Account with Your Broker

Demo accounts are created through your broker, not through Arconomy. Most cTrader brokers allow you to open a demo account directly from their website or through the cTrader platform. Once created, you connect it to Arconomy using the same FIX API connection process as a live account.

Transitioning from Demo to Live

When you are ready to move from demo to live trading:

1. Review your results: Confirm your strategy has been backtested and demo tested with results you are comfortable with.
2. Upgrade your subscription: If you are on the Paper Trading plan, upgrade to Pro Trader before connecting a live account.
3. Connect a live account: Follow the connection guide to connect your live broker account via the FIX API.
4. Start conservatively: Consider starting with smaller position sizes than your demo tests, and scale up gradually as you gain confidence in the live environment.
5. Monitor closely: During the first few days of live trading, monitor your strategy more frequently than usual to catch any unexpected behaviour early.