How-to
How to copy trade on Tradovate.
Tradovate does not copy trades between your accounts on its own. What it does have is an API that reports every fill, and that is enough — this is how you turn one account's fills into orders on the rest, and how to check it works before it matters.
Before you start
Two things are worth settling first, because both are easier to decide now than to unpick later.
Which account leads. Pick the one you actually watch and trade. The leader is not a special kind of account and nothing about it changes — it is simply the one whose fills the others react to.
Whether your accounts allow it. If any account is a prop-firm evaluation or funded account, its rules decide this, not the tooling. Check the current rulebook for that specific account before arming anything — copy trading and prop firms covers which clauses matter.
The steps
Roughly ten minutes, most of which is deciding sizes.
- 01Connect Tradovate. Authorise Quanify against your Tradovate login over OAuth. No password is stored and nothing is typed into a third-party bridge. Every funded sub-account under that login appears individually — one login holding four accounts gives you four accounts to work with, not one.
- 02Open Copy Trader and pick the leader. This is the account whose fills everything else reacts to. It carries on trading exactly as it did.
- 03Add your other accounts as followers. Each one lands disabled. That is deliberate — adding an account is not the same decision as arming it.
- 04Set a multiplier per follower. Whole numbers only. A four-lot leader fill lands as four on a 1× account, eight on 2×, twelve on 3×. Size each account for what it can carry, not for what the leader did.
- 06Enable the followers you want live, then power Copy Trader on. Two separate actions on purpose. Nothing routes until both are done and the engine confirms it.
Verify it before it matters
Do this on a simulated account. Every part of the configuration is identical when you later point it at funded money, so there is nothing to rebuild and no reason to find out during a real session.
Place a small order on the leader and watch each follower receive its own order at its own size. Then place one large enough to fill in pieces — a leader order that fills in three parts should produce three mirrored fills on each follower, arriving as they happen, not one correction at the end.
Then mute one follower and place another trade. It should sit the trade out while the rest of the group continues, and it should still be configured when you unmute it.
A muted account sits the trade out and stays configured. The rest of the cascade never notices.
If something does not copy
Work down in this order — it is almost always one of these, and each reports its own reason in the signal log.
- The follower is disabled
- Every account you add lands disabled. Enabling an account and powering the group on are separate actions.
- The follower is muted
- A mute you set by hand is never cleared by the product. A Copy Trader mute is released when you power Copy Trader off.
- It is muted
- A mute you set by hand is never cleared by the product. A Copy Trader mute is released when you power Copy Trader off.
- The size looks wrong
- Check the multiplier before anything else — it multiplies, so a two-lot leader fill on a 3× account is six by design. A fixed contract size on a strategy overrides the signal entirely.
- Nothing copies at all
- Confirm the leader is the account you are actually trading. Copying reacts to the leader's fills, so a trade placed in a different account produces nothing.
What this does not do
It does not close positions for you. Powering Copy Trader off stops new orders; anything already open stays at your broker under your control. That is deliberate — a tool that flattens your book because a setting changed is a worse failure than one that leaves it alone.
It does not need your computer. The Tradovate session is held server-side, so copies continue with your laptop shut and there is no VPS to rent.
And it does not reach accounts you do not own. Every account in the group is one you connected, not once per session.
Common questions
Does Tradovate have a built-in trade copier?
No. Tradovate provides the API and the execution reports; the copying is done by a platform on top. Quanify connects over that API and places a separate sized order on each of your other accounts when the leader fills.
Can I copy between Tradovate sub-accounts on the same login?
Yes. Each funded sub-account under a login is addressed individually, so one sub can lead and its siblings follow at their own sizes.
How fast does a copy reach the other accounts?
Roughly 50 to 200 milliseconds end to end, and nearly all of that is Tradovate's round trip in both directions — the report that a fill happened, and the order placed in response. Quanify's own contribution is microseconds.
Do I need a VPS to copy trade on Tradovate?
Not with Quanify — the broker session is held server-side, so nothing runs on your machine. Desktop copiers do need a machine that stays awake, which is the usual reason people rent one.
Can I stop one account without stopping the rest?
Yes, that is what mute is for. A muted account stops taking fills while staying linked and configured, and the rest of the group is unaffected. Unlinking to pause an account is how routing gets lost.
More on trade copiers by platform
Start on a simulated account.
Connect a sim or evaluation account and run the whole product against it before you point anything at live money. Nothing about the setup changes when you do.