summary: how to set up Tradovate with edgeful — from account creation through your first test trade. covers both SIM (demo) and live accounts.
if you're setting up Tradovate for the first time with edgeful — or switching from another broker — this is the start-to-finish walkthrough. if you already have Tradovate working and hit an issue, jump to one of the troubleshooting articles linked at the bottom.
what you'll need
before you start, you'll need:
an active edgeful all access plan — algo automation is included with all access
a Tradovate account — SIM or live (I'll walk you through creating one if you don't have one yet)
a TradingView account — the free tier works, as long as you can create alerts
if you already have a Tradovate account and just need the connection steps, skip to connecting Tradovate to edgeful below.
creating a Tradovate account
if you already have Tradovate, skip this section.
SIM vs live — which one first
Tradovate offers both a SIM (demo) account and a live funded account.
SIM is paper trading with real market data — no money on the line. use this first to confirm your setup works before going live.
live is real capital, real fills, real slippage. only move here once you've verified everything on SIM.
the SIM account is free. the live account requires funding and broker approval.
the path I recommend: start on SIM, verify end-to-end, then switch to live.
signing up
2. complete the signup form and verify your email
for live accounts, you'll also go through broker approval and funding — that's all on Tradovate's side, outside edgeful. if you hit issues at that step, contact Tradovate support.
a note on NinjaTrader logins
NinjaTrader owns Tradovate. if you already use NinjaTrader, your NinjaTrader username and password work on Tradovate too — same login covers both.
connecting Tradovate to edgeful
this is where you link Tradovate to your edgeful account so TradingView alerts can route through to your broker.
1. log into your edgeful account
2. open the algo dashboard — https://www.edgeful.com/algos-automation/dashboard
3. click connect Tradovate/NinjaTrader
3. read and agree to the terms of service for automated trading
5. enter your Tradovate username and password
6. click login
once you're connected, head to step 2 and create a strategy for the Tradovate account you want to automate to. each strategy gets its own webhook URL — that's the link between TradingView and edgeful. copy the webhook URL from your new strategy. you'll paste it into your TradingView alert in the next step.
for the full walkthrough of step 2 — strategy naming, entry order type (market vs limit), and managing multiple strategies across accounts — see → using the algo dashboard
setting up your first TradingView alert
edgeful listens for TradingView alerts and routes them to Tradovate. here's the setup that works — and the one setting that trips up most traders.
1. open TradingView and load a chart
2. use the current front-month contract symbol — for example, NQM2026 or ESU2026. not NQ1!.
3. add your strategy or indicator to the chart
4. click the alert icon and create a new alert
5. in the webhook URL field, paste the edgeful webhook URL you copied
6. in the message field, paste
{
"ticker": "{{ticker}}",
"action": "{{strategy.order.action}}",
"sentiment": "{{strategy.market_position}}",
"quantity": "{{strategy.order.contracts}}",
"price": "{{close}}",
"time": "{{timenow}}"
}
7. save the alert
why the front-month symbol matters
Tradovate executes on a specific contract — not a continuous one. if your alert fires on NQ1! (the continuous symbol), Tradovate can't match it to an active contract and the order gets rejected silently.
rule of thumb: Tradovate = front-month (e.g. NQM2026). ProjectX = continuous.
this also means you have to manually roll your alerts when a contract expires. for the full picture, see the contract rollover article linked at the bottom.
sending your first test trade
don't skip this. always verify the pipe works before letting the algo run unattended.
1. make sure you're connected to your SIM account — not live
2. use a small size (1 contract is fine)
3. manually fire the TradingView alert, or wait for it to trigger naturally
4. check the edgeful algo notification log for a success message
5. log into Tradovate and confirm the order hit your account
if the trade fires on edgeful but doesn't show up in Tradovate, something's blocking execution at the broker. start with my algo didn't trade — start here.
if Tradovate rejects the trade outright, the rejection reason lives inside Tradovate — not edgeful. see "Tradovate rejected your trade" — how to find the rejection reason and fix it.
going from SIM to live
once your SIM setup is working end-to-end, switching to live is straightforward.
1. make sure your Tradovate live account is funded and approved
2. in edgeful, select the live account from your connected brokers (instead of SIM)
3. do one small test trade on live before running full size
the edgeful connection, the TradingView alerts, and the webhook URL stay the same — the only thing changing is which Tradovate account receives the orders.
one caveat: real fills on live have slippage that SIM doesn't simulate. don't assume SIM performance translates 1:1.
common Tradovate gotchas
a few things catch most traders in the first few weeks:
auto-rollover lag — Tradovate has a built-in auto-rollover setting. don't rely on it. Tradovate's internal roll often lags TradingView's by several days, and during that window, orders get rejected because the symbols don't match.
continuous vs front-month — always front-month on Tradovate.
NQ1!won't route correctly.liquidation only — when a contract nears expiration, Tradovate flips it to "liquidation only" and rejects new orders with the message "Liquidation Only. Contract is about to be expired. Please contact the Trade Desk."
silent rejections — Tradovate doesn't always push a notification when something's wrong. if a trade isn't showing up in edgeful's log as filled, check your Tradovate dashboard's orders tab directly.
for the full troubleshooting flow, see my algo didn't trade — start here.
multi-account setup
if you run multiple Tradovate accounts — say, a personal account plus a funded prop account — edgeful supports both approaches:
separate logins — each Tradovate account has its own username and password. click connect broker in edgeful and add each one sequentially.
Tradovate sub-accounts — if you have multiple sub-accounts (including demo) under a single login, edgeful recognizes each as a separate entity automatically.
for the full picture on running algos across multiple accounts — including prop firm setups — see the prop firms article linked below.
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