Connecting a MetaTrader 5 account

The short answer

AiTradely works with MetaTrader 5 accounts on the Gold plan. MetaTrader offers no OAuth for retail accounts, so instead of a token you give AiTradely one of the two passwords your broker issues, and a MetaTrader terminal running on our server logs into your account with it. It reads your open positions, balance and live profit and loss, and with your master password it places the orders you confirm. Neither password can move money, and your broker holds your account throughout.

MetaTrader is the registered trademark of MetaQuotes Ltd.

Two passwords, two kinds of access

Every MetaTrader account comes with two passwords, and they do different things. Both are valid here, so this page says which is which rather than choosing for you.

The investor password's limit is enforced by MetaTrader, not by our code, so it holds even if our systems were misconfigured or compromised. Deposits, withdrawals and transfers only happen in your broker's own portal, which neither password reaches.

How the connection works

1. It is part of the Gold plan. Trader connects cTrader accounts only.
2. You start the link from Settings or Portfolio, and enter your account number, your broker's server name and one of your two passwords.
3. We find your broker's server by name in a public directory of MetaTrader servers. Only the server name is sent, never your account number or password.
4. A MetaTrader terminal on our server logs in to your account. Your Portfolio shows when it is connected.
5. It then reports every 5 seconds while your Portfolio is open or an order is on its way. Otherwise it reports every 15 seconds while you hold open positions, and less often when you hold none: every minute while the market is open, every 5 minutes while it is shut. An account holding positions is never slowed.

How your password is kept

We keep the password rather than using it once, because a terminal has to log back in by itself after every restart. Asking you to retype it would mean your Portfolio silently stopped updating whenever a machine rebooted.

• Encrypted before it is stored, to the key of the one server that logs in with it. Our website and our database cannot decrypt it.
• Deleted when you disconnect, along with the rest of the connection record.
• Yours to revoke instantly: change the password in your broker's platform and the stored one stops working.

What we read from a connected account

• Open positions as your broker holds them, including ones you opened elsewhere, with live profit and loss.
• The real entry price you were filled at.
• Balance, equity, margin and free margin, as MetaTrader reports them.
• Your account leverage, so the margin an order needs is shown before you confirm it.

MetaTrader 5 vs cTrader

If your broker offers both, cTrader shares no password with us at all. See connecting a cTrader account.

What we don't support

MetaTrader 4 is not supported. It needs a different connection that AiTradely does not offer, so an MT4 account cannot be linked.

Everything else in AiTradely works without any broker connection: the analysis, the strategy builder and the alerts. A broker link turns your portfolio from an estimate into a record. It is not a requirement.

Common questions