Live Account

A live account routes real orders to real markets — through a broker-dealer, an FCM, or the firm's internal market-making desk. It contrasts with simulated accounts, where data is real but orders never reach a venue.

Live accounts are common at traditional bank and institutional prop desks, at firm-capital model retail firms, and at a small subset of evaluation firms that route trades through a regulated entity. They are uncommon at evaluation prop firms, where almost all "funded" accounts are simulated.

Trading on a live account introduces several factors that simulated trading hides: real slippage on illiquid orders, real partial fills, real time-priority queue effects, real overnight financing charges, and exchange-mandated risk controls. Strategies that look profitable in simulation sometimes deteriorate when routed live because the simulator's fill assumptions were too generous.

For a trader, the practical implication is that live-account firms tend to apply more conservative size limits, slower onboarding (because real capital is at risk), and stricter risk monitoring. Compensation structures also differ — live-account firms more often use base salary plus performance bonus rather than pure profit split.