Ask anyone who has licensed a legacy trading platform what the process was like and you'll hear the same story: weeks of sales calls before anyone quotes a number, a contract negotiation measured in months, then an integration project with its own project manager. The platform was rarely the hard part — the procurement was. Somewhere between the third discovery call and the second legal review, competitors who moved faster were already onboarding traders.
eTrader was built to delete that entire phase. Getting the platform is a four-step, self-serve flow that runs through eTrader Business — the onboarding portal for brokers and prop firms — and every step is designed to be cleared fast. Prop firms can be live in as little as 24 hours; brokers in 24. Here is exactly what happens at each step, what you'll need to prepare, and why the flow is structured the way it is.
Step 1 — Create Your Business Account
You start by signing up on eTrader Business with your company details. It takes minutes, there is no sales gate in front of it, and you can explore the portal immediately — before you've verified anything or paid anyone. That matters more than it sounds: with legacy vendors, you often can't see the product's operational side until you're deep into a contract. Here, the portal itself is the front door.
From this point on, everything — documents, verification status, pricing, payment — lives in one place. There is no email thread to lose, no "your account manager will get back to you." The portal shows you what's done and what's next.
Step 2 — Pass KYB & KYC
Before Singuard issues pricing or delivers a platform, your firm has to be verified. That's deliberate. Singuard is a software company — it never holds client funds and never licenses anyone to operate — so it vets the operators it licenses software to. Two checks run directly in the portal:
- KYB (Know Your Business) — your company registration documents, ownership structure and business details. Brokers must hold a valid regulatory licence for the products they offer; proprietary-trading firms provide a lawyer's legal opinion on the lawfulness of their model.
- KYC (Know Your Customer) — identity verification for the directors and beneficial owners behind the company, the signatories included.
You upload your documents once, and the portal guides you through each requirement. Most applicants clear verification quickly with standard company paperwork — the delays in traditional onboarding almost never come from the checks themselves, but from the back-and-forth around them. Putting the whole thing in a structured portal removes the back-and-forth. If you want to prepare in advance, our KYB verification guide walks through the documents jurisdiction by jurisdiction.
Why the vetting exists: a platform vendor that will onboard anyone is a platform vendor whose ecosystem you don't want to share. Verification protects the operators on the platform as much as the vendor — and it's also why the process can be fast: the requirements are explicit, not discovered call by call.
Step 3 — Receive Your Pricing
Once verification clears, your tailored pricing lands directly in your Business portal — sized to your firm, with everything included spelled out line by line. There's no obligation at this stage: you see the full quote before you commit to anything.
The structure is simple and published openly: eTrader starts from $6,600/month for brokers and $3,300/month for prop firms, plus a fee for every trading account issued, with copytrading priced separately from $1,100/month. The 70ms-updated data feed is included free to use, and hosting is fully managed — so the quote you see is genuinely the cost of running the platform, not the first of several contracts. The full breakdown, and how it compares to a legacy stack, is in our eTrader pricing article. Banks and hedge funds are a different conversation — instruments, integrations and volumes shaped to the desk — and get personalised pricing.
Step 4 — Pay and Go Live
Accept the quote, pay, and delivery of your eTrader Broker begins — the dashboard from which you run everything: liquidity providers, data feeds, A-book / B-book routing, accounts, groups, leverage and instruments. Alongside it you get eTrader itself on every screen — web, desktop, mobile web and native iOS and Android apps (coming soon) — plus internal copytrading and the eTrader Community switched on.
There is nothing for your side to install or host. eTrader is web-native and fully managed: your traders open a link and trade, and the platform runs on hundreds of clustered servers worldwide that Singuard operates, monitors and scales. No servers, no tech team, no IT project between payment and launch — which is precisely how the 24-hour timelines are possible. Want to see the terminal before you start? Try eTrader Web yourself in any browser.
Why Four Steps Beats a Six-Month Procurement
| Legacy platform procurement | eTrader Business | |
|---|---|---|
| First contact | Sales calls, NDAs, discovery | Self-serve sign-up, minutes |
| Compliance | Requirements revealed piecemeal | KYB & KYC checklist in the portal |
| Pricing | Quoted late, negotiated long | Tailored quote in your portal, from $3,300/mo |
| Delivery | Server setup, integration project | Managed delivery — prop 24h, broker 24h |
The pattern behind every row is the same: eTrader Business replaces conversation with configuration. Every requirement is explicit up front, every artefact lives in one portal, and delivery is the switch-on of a managed service rather than the start of an engineering project. Firms comparing this against a white-label server deployment — with its licence negotiation, hosting procurement and bridge integrations — are usually comparing days against quarters.
"Four steps from sign-up to live wasn't a UX goal — it was an operations goal. Every extra step is a firm that launches somewhere else."
— Alex Onta, Executive Director, eTrader & Prop Firm CRM
Key Takeaways
- Onboarding is four self-serve steps in eTrader Business: account, KYB & KYC, tailored pricing, payment — no sales maze.
- Verification is a feature, not friction: brokers show their licence, prop firms a legal opinion — and explicit requirements are what make 24-hour launches possible.
- Pricing is transparent and arrives before commitment: from $6,600/mo for brokers, $3,300/mo for prop firms, feed included free.
- Delivery is a managed switch-on, not an integration project — prop firms live in as little as 24 hours, brokers included.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Documents Do I Need Before Starting?
Company registration documents, ownership structure and business details for KYB, plus identity documents for directors and beneficial owners for KYC. Brokers also provide their regulatory licence; prop firms a lawyer's legal opinion on their model. Everything uploads directly in the portal.
Am I Committed to Anything Before I Pay?
No. You create the account, verify, and receive your tailored quote in the portal with no obligation. You only commit when you accept the pricing and pay — and you can try eTrader Web or book a call at any point before that.
What Exactly Is Delivered When I Go Live?
Your eTrader Broker dashboard — LPs, feeds, A-book / B-book routing, accounts, groups, leverage, instruments — plus eTrader for your traders on web, desktop and native iOS and Android, with copytrading and the Community switched on, all fully hosted and managed.