How to copy trades on Tradovate

Two paths to copying Tradovate trades

Before choosing a setup, understand the two categories:

• Tradovate's built-in Group Trade. Free, no extra software, works between accounts that share the same brokerage login. Mirrors orders with a fixed quantity ratio per follower. Covers most basic multi-account setups within a single prop firm.
• External trade copier. Third-party software (local desktop or cloud) that connects to multiple Tradovate logins and mirrors trades across them. Required for cross-firm setups, and for per-account risk controls that Group Trade doesn't offer.

If all your accounts are at a single prop firm and you only need quantity scaling, Group Trade is often enough. If you run accounts across multiple prop firms, or you need per-account daily loss caps, an external copier is the standard answer.

Path 1: using Tradovate's built-in Group Trade

Group Trade works within a single Tradovate login — typically meaning all accounts held under one prop firm. Here's the setup:

1. Log into your prop firm's Tradovate portal. Use the URL provided by your prop firm (Apex, MyFundedFutures, Tradeify, and others each have their own Tradovate portal).
2. Open the account switcher. In the Tradovate web interface, this is usually in the top-right — showing your currently selected account.
3. Enable Group Trade for your accounts. Select which account is the leader and which accounts are followers. Set a quantity multiplier for each follower (1x for identical size, 0.5x for half size, and so on).
4. Save the configuration. The setup persists across sessions; you don't need to re-enable each time you log in.
5. Trade normally on the leader. Orders placed on the leader account will mirror to the configured follower accounts automatically.

This is free and requires no external software. It's the baseline option and covers many single-firm setups adequately.

What Group Trade doesn't do: it doesn't work across different prop firm logins, doesn't offer per-account daily loss caps, doesn't automatically quarantine an account when it hits its limit, and doesn't offer detailed trade tracking or R-multiple analysis. For those, you need an external copier.

Path 2: using an external trade copier

An external copier is required when Group Trade isn't sufficient. Typical reasons:

• Cross-firm copying. Mirroring trades between an Apex account and a MyFundedFutures account, for example.
• Per-account risk controls. Setting a daily loss cap per follower account, with automatic quarantine when hit — so one account hitting its firm's limit doesn't stop copying to accounts at other firms.
• Advanced multi-account analytics. R-multiple tracking, per-account P&L, calendar and heatmap views, cost-of-account ROI calculations.
• Handling of specific drawdown mechanics. Apex's intraday trailing drawdown, for example, benefits from execution reliability that Tradovate's Group Trade doesn't guarantee at scale.

External copiers come in two architectural categories:

• Cloud-based copiers. A vendor's server sits between your trading decisions and the broker. You authenticate with the vendor; they connect to Tradovate on your behalf. Subscription pricing, typically $40-150/month.
• Local desktop copiers. Software runs on your own machine, connects directly to Tradovate's API, mirrors trades locally. Often one-time payment models. No cloud relay in the order path.

For most futures prop firm traders, the local pay-once category is the strongest fit — lower total cost over multi-year use, credentials stay local, execution independence from vendor uptime. For a full comparison of the two architectures, see the Tradovate trade copier guide.

Setting up an external trade copier

The setup process for a local desktop copier typically looks like this:

1. Install the application. Download the copier's installer for your operating system (Windows for most Tradovate-native copiers). Run and complete the install.
2. Authenticate with Tradovate. The copier will ask for your Tradovate credentials for each account you want to include. For prop firm accounts, these are the credentials provided by your prop firm's Tradovate portal.
3. Designate the leader account. Choose which account is the master — the one where you place trades manually.
4. Add follower accounts. Add each account that should mirror the leader. Set per-follower multipliers and any per-account risk caps.
5. Test with a small order. Place a tiny position on the leader (one micro contract) to confirm the copy fires correctly to each follower. Verify the multipliers work as expected.
6. Configure risk rules. Set per-account daily loss caps to match each firm's rules. Configure lockout or panic-stop features if available.
7. Trade normally on the leader. Orders on the leader will mirror to all configured followers with your specified multipliers and risk rules.

Total setup time is typically 15-30 minutes for a small setup (2-5 followers), longer for large multi-firm configurations.