Demo vs Live Accounts

Arconomy supports both demo (paper trading) and live broker accounts. Understanding the differences between these account types — and knowing when to use each — is essential to developing a disciplined, risk-aware approach to automated trading.

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 in the same way and receive the same market data. The key difference is whether the trades executed have real financial consequences.

Why Demo Testing Matters

Even after a strategy produces excellent backtest results, there are important reasons to run it on a demo account before committing real capital. Demo testing 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 the conditions of live execution. Demo trading lets you verify that orders are placed correctly, fills occur at expected prices, and positions are managed as your strategy intends — all in real time with current market conditions.

Testing Connectivity and Infrastructure

Running a strategy on a demo account tests the entire pipeline from Arconomy's strategy engine to your broker's execution server. This includes connection stability, order routing, latency, and error handling. Issues that do not surface in backtesting — such as intermittent connection drops or broker-specific order rejections — will appear during demo trading.

Building Confidence

Watching a strategy execute in real time, even with virtual money, provides a level of confidence that backtest results alone cannot. You can observe how the strategy behaves during news events, overnight sessions, and periods of high volatility. This experience helps you make a more informed decision about when (and whether) to go live.

Identifying Backtest-to-Live Discrepancies

Demo trading reveals differences between your backtest assumptions and real market behaviour. Common discrepancies include:

• Spread widening: During news events or low-liquidity periods, real spreads can be significantly wider than the average spreads used in backtesting.
• Fill delays: Limit orders that filled instantly in backtests may take longer or not fill at all in live conditions.
• Price gaps: Weekend gaps, session opens, and flash crashes can produce price movements that your backtest data may not have captured with full fidelity.
• Timing differences: The exact moment a rule triggers in real time may differ slightly from the backtest due to data feed latency.

Plan Requirements

Your Arconomy subscription plan determines which account types you can connect and deploy strategies to. Here is a summary of the broker connectivity included in each plan.

If you are currently on the Free plan and want to start paper trading with a demo account, you will need to upgrade to at least the Paper Trading plan. Visit Plans & Pricing for detailed plan comparisons and Upgrading Your Plan for instructions on how to upgrade.

Creating a Demo Account with Your Broker

Demo accounts are created through your broker, not through Arconomy. Most brokers allow you to open a demo account directly from their website in just a few minutes. Here is the general process:

1. Visit your broker's website and look for a "Demo Account" or "Practice Account" option.
2. Choose the trading platform (MT4, MT5, or cTrader) that you plan to use with Arconomy.
3. Select a starting balance and leverage for your demo account. Choose settings that closely match what you would use on a live account.
4. Complete the registration. You will receive trading credentials (account number, password, and server name) via email.
5. Use those credentials to connect the account to Arconomy.

Limitations of Demo Accounts

While demo accounts are invaluable for testing, it is important to understand their limitations so you do not over-rely on demo results when making decisions about live deployment.

• Guaranteed fills: Demo accounts almost always fill orders instantly at the requested price. In live markets, large orders may experience partial fills or slippage, especially during fast-moving conditions.
• Artificial spreads: Some brokers use fixed or artificially tight spreads on demo accounts that do not reflect the variable spreads you will encounter on a live account.
• No market impact: Your demo orders do not interact with real market depth. On a live account, large orders can move the market against you.
• Psychological differences: Trading with virtual money does not replicate the emotional pressure of risking real capital. Strategies that feel easy to follow on demo may be harder to stick with when real money is at stake.
• Server differences: Demo and live servers may have different performance characteristics. Connection latency and order processing speed may differ.

Switching Between Demo and Live

Arconomy makes it straightforward to move a strategy from a demo account to a live account — or vice versa. The strategy configuration remains the same; only the target account changes.

Deploying a Strategy to a Different Account

To move a strategy from demo to live (or live to demo):

1. Navigate to the strategy you want to redeploy.
2. If the strategy is currently deployed, click Stop Strategy to halt execution on the current account.
3. Click Deploy Strategy and select the target account from the account selector dropdown.
4. Review the deployment settings (lot size, risk parameters) and adjust them if needed for the new account.
5. Click Start Strategy to begin execution on the new account.

Running on Demo and Live Simultaneously

You can deploy the same strategy to both a demo and a live account at the same time. This is useful for:

• A/B testing: Run the same strategy on demo with different parameters alongside your live deployment to compare performance.
• Shadow trading: Deploy a modified version of your live strategy to demo to test proposed changes without affecting your live results.
• New instrument testing: If you want to try your strategy on a new instrument, run it on demo first while keeping the existing instruments live.

Transitioning from Demo to Live

When you are ready to move from demo to live trading, follow this checklist to ensure a smooth transition:

1. Verify backtest results: Confirm that your strategy has been backtested across multiple time periods and market conditions with results you are comfortable with.
2. Review demo performance: Ensure you have run the strategy on demo for at least two weeks (ideally four) and that the results are consistent with your backtest expectations.
3. Identify discrepancies: Note any differences between backtest and demo performance. Investigate and address them before going live.
4. Set appropriate position sizes: Start with smaller position sizes than your demo tests. You can scale up gradually as you gain confidence in the live environment.
5. Configure risk controls: Set maximum drawdown limits, maximum open positions, and daily loss limits on your live account. These guardrails protect your capital during the early days of live execution.
6. Upgrade your plan: If you are on the Paper Trading plan, upgrade to Live Trading before attempting to deploy to a live account.
7. Monitor closely: During the first few days of live trading, monitor your strategy more frequently than usual. Check for unexpected behaviour, missed trades, or execution issues.

Identifying Account Types in Arconomy

Arconomy clearly labels each connected account as either Demo or Live throughout the interface to prevent accidental deployment to the wrong account type.

• Broker Connections page: Each account card displays a "Demo" or "Live" badge next to the account name.
• Strategy deployment: The account selector dropdown shows the account type alongside each account. Live accounts are highlighted with a distinct colour to draw your attention.
• Dashboard: Active strategy deployments show the target account type in the status panel.
• Notifications: Trade notifications include the account type so you can immediately tell whether a trade was executed on demo or live.