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Equity protector, risk cBot or trade copier: which guards a prop-firm account on cTrader?
Three different answers to the same worry - what traders call an equity protector, an equity guardian or a risk manager. Where each one does its checking, where the stop loss lives, and what happens when your machine is off or the broker is not answering, said as plainly for the other two as for this one.
| Question | Propcockpit | A risk cBot in cTrader | A trade copier with risk filters |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A web cockpit in front of your cTrader account: a chart, an order ticket that sizes by risk, and a rule check that runs on the order before it is sent. | A program that runs inside cTrader - on your machine, or in Spotware's cloud - watches the account, and closes positions when a limit is hit. | A service that copies trades from one account to others, with a maximum loss or size per follower account that stops copying when breached. |
| Where the check happens | Before the broker sees the order, for an order placed through Propcockpit: on a paid plan the order is refused, on Free the check is shown as an advisory. A position opened directly in cTrader is read and counted, not intercepted. | After the fact. A cBot reacts to the account: it cannot veto a manual order before cTrader sends it, so a position that breaks a limit is closed after it opens, and from then on the cBot closes anything newly opened. | On the follower account, after the master has traded: the copy is refused or the follower is flattened when its filter is hit. |
| Where the stop loss lives | At the broker. An order placed through Propcockpit carries its stop to the venue, so it holds if your connection drops, or ours does; on a paid plan a stop is required before the order can be sent. | Varies by vendor: some place the stop at the broker, some hold a virtual stop in the cBot and close the position when it is reached. | Wherever the master placed it; the follower copies it, or a filter replaces it. |
| When your machine is off | The rules and the stops are not on your machine. Orders placed through Propcockpit are gated on our gateway; stops rest at the broker. | Since cTrader 5.0 a cBot can run in Spotware's cloud at no charge with the app closed: up to ten instances around the clock on a live account, but one on a demo account and for at most 7 days before it stops - and most evaluations are demo accounts. Limits can vary by broker. | A cloud copier keeps running; a desktop copier does not. |
| When the broker cannot be reached | Nothing in a browser can close a position at a venue that is not answering. Auto-flatten (Pro and Premium) executes as soon as the broker is reachable again; the stops at the broker stand throughout. | The same limit applies: a close cannot reach a venue that is down. A virtual stop cannot fire. | The same limit applies to the follower. |
| Sizing an order by risk | Built in. Choose a risk per trade, drag the stop, and the ticket returns the lots, the distance and the money on every plan, including Free. | Some risk cBots include a position-size calculator; many do not, and a separate cBot fills the gap. | Sizing is the master's; the follower scales it by a multiplier or a fixed risk. |
| Rules the firm actually uses | Daily loss and maximum drawdown as a share of the Initial capital, and a cap per order anchored to balance. An FTMO preset is one click and at least as strict as the firm's own. | Daily and total loss limits are common; how the day is measured depends on the vendor's settings. | Per-account max loss, max size and symbol filters; the daily reset is the copier's, not the firm's. |
| Managing a trade for you | Automations: rules you design as one sentence, such as moving the stop to entry, or closing half and moving the rest's stop to entry, once a trade has earned one R. Each starts in Observe, which reports and sends nothing, and acts only once you arm it, with your firm's rule on automated tools shown first. Every plan observes; a reminder on a clock, told in the app, arms on every plan; any other rule that only tells you arms on Starter, Pro and Premium, and one that acts on the broker on Pro and Premium. Set up and watched on the Automations page; nothing is added to the chart. | Whatever its code does, breakeven and partial closes included, inside cTrader. Some prop firms count a cBot that only moves a stop as an EA; check yours. | Not its job: the follower copies the master's own management and adds none. |
| What it costs | Free plan with sizing, broker-side stops and rules watched; enforcement from $29 a month. The chart is free on every plan. | From free to a one-off licence to a monthly fee, per vendor. Running it in cTrader's cloud costs nothing; a VPS is for a cBot that cannot run there, or a demo account past the cloud's 7 days. | Typically a monthly subscription that scales with the number of follower accounts. |
| Platforms | cTrader, through the official Open API. Nothing to install. | cTrader only: in the app, or in cTrader's cloud. The cloud runs on Linux and allows no HTTP requests, so a cBot that calls a web service or needs a Windows-only library stays in the app. | Usually MetaTrader and cTrader, sometimes others; check the copier's list. |
When one of the others is the right answer
- You want to run several funded accounts from one master and copy every trade to the rest. That is a copier's job; Propcockpit checks each account's orders and does not copy between them.
- You trade algorithmically inside cTrader and want the guard in the same process as the strategy. A cBot sits where the strategy sits.
- You trade on MetaTrader. Propcockpit's v1 is cTrader only.
The two kinds are described as kinds, not as named products, because a vendor’s behaviour changes without notice and a page that got one wrong would mislead the person it was written for. Check the vendor’s own documentation for the cell that matters to you. The Propcockpit column is held to the same standard as the rest of this site: see pricing for what each plan includes, and the documentation for what Auto-flatten promises and what it cannot. Auto-flatten and bar-close stops close positions without a click, and some prop firms do not allow that on cTrader; Propcockpit shows those firms’ rules where you set them up. If the alternative you are weighing is an alert-driven setup, TradingView alerts to cTrader says what a Signal goes through, and which prop firms allow one. For an exit that waits for the candle rather than the wick, see stop loss on candle close.
What the cTrader column says about the platform itself is from Spotware’s own pages: cTrader 5.0 and free cloud cBots, Cloud features and instance limits and Cloud requirements. Two questions follow from it: can trades close automatically at the daily loss limit on cTrader, and how to stop breaching FTMO’s daily loss limit on cTrader.